Crime and Deviance
Introduction to Criminology
Understanding Crime and Deviance
In my assignment I am going to be defining crime and deviance, formal and informal deviance, societal and situational deviance and the sources that can affect crime and deviance. I am also going to be discussing how we measure crime and deviance.
Crime is an act that breaks the law or an instance of negligence that is deemed injurious to the public’s welfare or morals to the interest of the state and that is legally prohibited. Some of the acts that may break the law are murder, shoplifting, rape, fraud, robbery just to name a few. Deviance is committing an act that does not break the law, but the social norm, not doing what is expected or thought of as proper behavior within society, the behavior outside of the social norms like picking your nose in public, having tattoos all over your body, smoking and drinking as well as piercings just to name a few.
There are two types of deviance formal and informal deviance. Formal deviance is the type of behavior that contravenes (goes against) the laws in society, the person committing the act would be criminal because the act that they committed would have been illegal, behaviors such as rape and murder would result in the person who has committed the act to be arrested and according to the act that they have committed. As of informal deviance, it is an individual or a group of people who do not conform to the general trends of society for example subcultures like gypsies and emos as well as people who have an excessive amount of tattoos and piercings. Subcultures are a group of people in society whose behavior and sometimes style of dress or simply the way they talk is significantly different from that of a wider society. These types of group’s standout in society because of the uniqueness of their culture. For instance gypsies are easiest to recognise because of their style of dress and the way they live their lives.
There is also societal and situational
Understanding Crime and Deviance
In my assignment I am going to be defining crime and deviance, formal and informal deviance, societal and situational deviance and the sources that can affect crime and deviance. I am also going to be discussing how we measure crime and deviance.
Crime is an act that breaks the law or an instance of negligence that is deemed injurious to the public’s welfare or morals to the interest of the state and that is legally prohibited. Some of the acts that may break the law are murder, shoplifting, rape, fraud, robbery just to name a few. Deviance is committing an act that does not break the law, but the social norm, not doing what is expected or thought of as proper behavior within society, the behavior outside of the social norms like picking your nose in public, having tattoos all over your body, smoking and drinking as well as piercings just to name a few.
There are two types of deviance formal and informal deviance. Formal deviance is the type of behavior that contravenes (goes against) the laws in society, the person committing the act would be criminal because the act that they committed would have been illegal, behaviors such as rape and murder would result in the person who has committed the act to be arrested and according to the act that they have committed. As of informal deviance, it is an individual or a group of people who do not conform to the general trends of society for example subcultures like gypsies and emos as well as people who have an excessive amount of tattoos and piercings. Subcultures are a group of people in society whose behavior and sometimes style of dress or simply the way they talk is significantly different from that of a wider society. These types of group’s standout in society because of the uniqueness of their culture. For instance gypsies are easiest to recognise because of their style of dress and the way they live their lives.
There is also societal and situational