Crime and deviance lesson 1

Crime is An act which breaks the law e.g shoplifting or murder

Deviance is an act which breaks the norms and values of a society e.g shouting in a library

Issues may be criminal or deviant, or both for example;

Crime - speeding

deviant - smoking

Both - murder

Crime and deviance is relative. This suggests it changes over time and place because laws and norms change between different societies

Crime and deviance are also socially constructed. This means that the laws and what is considered deviant is not set in stone and can change over time and place.

Social order - when individuals in a society agree to follow norms, values and laws

Social order is usually formed by a value consensus

Value consensus - When everyone in society agrees to follow the same norms and values

Social order is a fundamental concept in sociology that refers to the way the various components of society work together to maintain the status quo. They include:

• social structures and institutions
• social relations
• social interactions and behavior
• cultural features such as norms, beliefs, and values

Sociologists define social control as the way that the norms, rules, laws, and structures of society regulate human behaviour. It is a necessary part of social order, for societies could not exist without controlling their populations.

There are two types of social control

Formal social control - enforces written rules and laws - agents include police and courts

Informal social control - reinforces the norms and values of society - agents include parents and the peer group

Social Bond Theory - The Social Bond theory was created by Travis Hirschi in 1969. 

The four basic elements of the social bond theory are attachment, commitment, involvement in conventional versus deviant or criminal activities, and lastly the common value system within an individual's society or subgroup.

Hirschi explicitly refers his theory (but not only) to adolescent delinquents and thus contradicts the assumption that delinquent adolescents exert a decisive influence on their peers of the same age

The idea of anomie means the lack of normal ethical or social standards. This concept first emerged in 1893, when French sociologist Emile Durkheim published his book entitled, The Division of Labor in Society.

 In this book, Durkheim indicated that the rules of how individuals interact with one another were disintegrating and therefore people were unable to determine how to act with one another. As a consequence, Durkheim believed that anomie was a state where the expectations of behavior are unclear, and the system has broken down. 

In criminology, the idea of anomie is that the person chooses criminal activity because the individual believes that there is no reason not to. In other words, the person is alienated, feels worthless and that their efforts to try and achieve anything else are fruitless.so the person falls into criminality