Crime and Sociology: Understanding the Nature of Crime and Contextualizing Punishment

This essay analyzes the nature of crime and discusses the way sociology extends the understanding of the intricacies of crime and provides a better context to punishment. The essay makes the argument that crime is the most obvious of deviant acts.

Running head: CRIME AND SOCIOLOGY
CRIME AND SOCIOLOGY
Name of the student
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Introduction
The studies in criminology and deviance have largely developed along separate lines
although they are visibly overlapping at times. While criminology mostly deals with issues of
crime, legality or phenomenon related to crime, students of deviance have studied crime as one
of the deviant behaviors. The question therefore arises whether crime is the fundamental most or
the obvious most acts of deviance. Crime and deviance, both are social constructs and
sociological theories help to unearth a deeper meaning of the two. When an understanding of
crime as deviance is established, it will be easier to contextualize punishment.
The aim of this essay is to analyze the nature of crime to find answers to the above-
mentioned questioned. In addition, the essay will discuss the way sociology extends the
understanding of the intricacies of crime and provide a better context to punishment. The essay
makes the argument that crime is the most obvious of deviant acts.
Discussion
Deviance as a concept is extensively incorporated in key criminological and sociological
theories. Although the ‘crime’ and deviance’ terms possess different interpretations in
criminology and sociology; the identical use of these words in everyday discussion has made
drastic contributions towards the common misunderstanding that both terms have the same
meaning. Sociology defines deviance as behavior that breaches social norms (Jetten and Hornsey
2014). Nonetheless, this apparently simple definition obscures the complication of the
connection between social existence and vital roles of social norms. Behaviors seen as
appropriate and those that are considered deviant or unacceptable are defined by the normative
rules of a specific society. However, one of the toughest things in pointing out the appropriate

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and unacceptable behavior is that it depends on the fact that social norms vary between and
within societies and people’s perceptions keep on changing over time regarding appropriate and
inappropriate behavior. Hence, it could be stated that deviance is not an easy or simple concept
to define from the sociological perspective; it is specific to a context, variable and most
significantly it is a socially created finding of behavior, which is unrelated with the leading
norms of a particular society. Spalek (2016) states, “irrespective of social and cultural context,
crime and deviance should be considered as banned or controlled behavior which if discovered,
is likely to generate a negative public reaction in the form of sanctions, including punishment”.
The author further makes a crucial statement that all forms of deviance are not essentially
criminalized and in the same way, all forms of criminality are essentially deviant.
The legal or general definition of crime defines it as an act that affects not only an
individual but also the community, the society and the state as a whole and which is punishable
by law. The sociological definition of crime however, is quite complex than the legal definition
because it involves all aspects of an individual’s life. As discussed in the above section,
sociology defines crime as a deviant behavior that breaks the cultural and social norms that
dictate the way humans ought to behave. Now, there is some ambiguity in this sociological
definition because no one could claim with certainty as to what constitutes a deviant behavior. In
addition, it is also crucial to argue that if there is deviance in behavior, whether it is a crime in
true sense or is it just a deviance from the established social norms. Downes, Rock and
McLaughlin (2016) point out that crime as a deviant behavior is filled with shortcomings
because it does not take into account other causes of behavior change that lead to harmful acts of
violence. Jetten and Hornsey (2014) further shed light on the complexity of defining crime. The
authors state that the sociological definition of crime as an act of deviance does not fully

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consider the severity or mildness of crimes. For example, while murder or robbery is definitely
crimes because of deviant behavior evidently visible, downloading movies or speeding are
crimes that are not visibly deviance. The statement is made because large numbers of people
indulge in file download and speeding. Therefore, it has been made evident from the above
discussion that crime might be a crucial act of deviance but it is certainly not the most
fundamental. Crime is rather the most obvious of deviant acts.
Sociology has for long, contributed towards finding a deeper explanation of crime with
theorists like Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, and Max Weber providing important findings in the
field of crime and punishment (Blackman 2014). While Durkheim and Weber extensively
researched on crime and punishment with the help of their law background, Marx also made
significant contributions without studying law. Durkheim’s work, Suicide: A Study in Sociology
shed light on the relationship between suicide rates and social integration that provided a strong
inquiry model for coming generations of sociologists to investigate the social causes of crime,
social deviance and felony (Durkheim 2005). Weber, on the other hand, initiated ideas about the
‘rationalization’ of society and the lawful basis of legal influence compelling sociologists to
think reasonably. In addition, his ideas also conveyed a historical aspect to sociological
investigation into law and punishment. Marxist theories on law and punishment also managed to
locale both the causes and control of crime in the injustice, exploitation and class conflict
“inherent in a capitalist society” (Bichler and Nitzan 2014).
These theorists provided a strong ground for the upcoming sociologists to formulate
theories that further expanded the definition of crime and punishment. For instance, Travis
Hirschi formulated the Social Control theory from Durkheim’s ‘anomic’ suicide concept where
Durkheim had associated suicide with “social normlessness” (Hirschi 2017). According to the

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theory, exploiting the socialization and social learning process establishes self-control and
diminishes the inclination towards antisocial behavior. Hirschi cooperated with Michael
Gottfredson to formulate this theory. According to the authors, deviance in behavior occurs when
the social relationships become weak or do not develop (Hirschi 2017). The social control theory
is opposite to the deviant behavior, as it does not try to find the reason behind people engaging in
deviant behavior rather it tries to find the opposite. The bonds that prevent people from indulging
in criminal activities are formed through attachment both within and outside family. Committing
to activities where individuals invest their time and energy like career goals also helps people
refrain from deviating into other behaviors. Involvement in certain activities, which help to carry
the bonds further resulting in lesser time left for involvement in deviant behaviors, also
disinclines individuals from crimes. Ultimately, belief in larger societal values enhances an
individual’s self-control and helps her or him stay away from deviant behaviors.
As evident from the above discussion, sociology helps people have a clearer view of the
complicated nature of crime. Other than crime, a good understanding of sociology also helps
contextualize punishment. When people involve in deviant acts that cause harm to the society
and its people, they are bound to receive punishment. Punishment is one method to control and
reduce crime. Nonetheless, since punishment involves confining people’s freedom and at times
imposing harm on them, it needs justification as a crime control strategy. The Interactionism
theory is useful in justifying the need for punishment to control crime and the risks of it as well
(Rubington and Weinberg 2015). In contrast to the other theories, interactionsim does not ask
who the deviant is or why they have done it or in what way they could be controlled. The theory
asks who defines the other person as deviant, what makes her or him define so and what the
reaction of that person is who has been defined as deviant. Labeling came to the surface during

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the early 1960s when, as Cohen (2018) states, deviance is created by social groups through the
formulation of rules breaking which leads to deviance and applying those rules to specific
individuals, they label them as deviants. Interactionism or labeling is an active social process that
demonstrates the way some acts come to be defined as deviance. Hence, as ha s already been
mentioned earlier, crime is not the fundamental deviance act because deviance might sometimes
be categorized as criminal and sometimes not. As for instance, injecting drug into the arms is not
deviant because it is normal if a nurse injects it on the doctor’s order. However, it is a deviant
behavior when the society defines it as deviant. This also leads to the fact that punishment is
often unjustified and not contextualized.
Robert Agnew in 1992 developed another theory to explain deviance and punishment.
The theory he proposed was called the General Strain Theory. As per this theory, strain or stress
is the reason behind the generation of negative emotions like frustration, anger and depression
amongst others (Agnew 2014). These in turn create pressure on the person prompting her or him
to commit a crime as correction. The theory could also be said to be a modification of the social
control theory. The reason is that the strains listed in this theory come partially from low social
control. The strain theory states that the chief reason for the low social control to lead to crime
and delinquency is that it creates strains such as mentioned earlier and strained individuals then
resort to crime. Jang, Song and Kim (2014) conducted a study on bully victimization and cyber
bullying behavior from the general strain theory perspective to analyze its effectiveness. The
authors found that the youths who were victims of traditional bullying used the online platform
to externalize their strain. This study shows that strains cause deviance in behavior that often
leads to crime. On the contrary, Gao, Wong and Yu (2016) find flaws in the GST model because
it fails to acknowledge the maltreatment and delinquency. The authors used two models to

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analyze how adolescent maltreatment relates to crime within the GST framework. The study
found that the GST model fails to identify the mediating effects of negative emotions.
Conclusion
In the end, it could be evident that crime is not the fundamental of deviance acts but the
most obvious. Further, it is also clear that sociology provides a strong base from where the
complexities of crime could be understood and punishment could be contextualized. The essay
first explained the term deviance and found that it does not always relate to crime or criminality.
Further, the essay analyzed the definition of crime in both legal and sociological terms. The
sociological definition found crime to be an act of deviant behavior. However, it was also found
that crime cannot be said to be the most basic of act of deviance because deviant behavior could
mean a lot of other things other than just crime. The essay used the Social Control Theory, the
General Strain Theory and the theory of Interactionism to analyze the effectiveness of sociology
in understanding the complexities of crime and contextualizing punishment.

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References:
Agnew, R., 2014. General strain theory. In Encyclopedia of criminology and criminal justice pp.
1892-1900. Springer, New York, NY.
Bichler, S. and Nitzan, J., 2014. No way out: crime, punishment and the capitalization of power.
Crime, Law and Social Change, 61(3), pp.251-271.
Blackman, S., 2014. Subculture theory: An historical and contemporary assessment of the
concept for understanding deviance. Deviant behavior, 35(6), pp.496-512.
Cohen, S., 2018. Criminology and the sociology of deviance in Britain: A recent history and a
current report. In Deviance and Social Control pp. 1-40. Routledge.
Downes, D., Rock, P.E. and McLaughlin, E., 2016. Understanding deviance: a guide to the
sociology of crime and rule-breaking. Oxford University Press. pp. 21-23
Durkheim, E., 2005. Suicide: A study in sociology. Routledge.
Gao, Y., Wong, D.S. and Yu, Y., 2016. Maltreatment and delinquency in China: Examining and
extending the intervening process of general strain theory. International journal of offender
therapy and comparative criminology, 60(1), pp.38-61.
Hirschi, T., 2017. On the compatibility of rational choice and social control theories of crime.
In The reasoning criminal (pp. 105-118). Routledge.
Jang, H., Song, J. and Kim, R., 2014. Does the offline bully-victimization influence
cyberbullying behavior among youths? Application of general strain theory. Computers in
Human Behavior, 31, pp.85-93.

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Jetten, J. and Hornsey, M.J., 2014. Deviance and dissent in groups. Annual review of psychology,
65, pp.461-485.
Rubington, E. and Weinberg, M., 2015. Deviance: The interactionist perspective. pp. 225-274
Routledge.
Spalek, B., 2016. Crime victims: Theory, policy and practice. Macmillan International Higher
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