Discipline And Michael Foucault's Definition Of Crime

How does society define what is deviant?

Any conception of deviance that we can know of is never agreed upon by the whole of society. It is salient to note that the concept of ‘society’ used in this question is rather homogenous. It assumes that every different section within society, every class, race and gender, has the same definition of deviance which it is the job of this essay to unpick. Instead I will be focusing upon how any definitions of deviance are biased towards the upper class definitions. It is the upper class that have access to the institutions through which any general definitions are determined. It is the upper class that have access to the state law institution, that have the corporate control over the gate keeping media,
And it is the state’s definition of crime that is the most powerful influence upon society’s definition of deviance. The concepts of capitalism and Marxism have been used extensively during the process of defining deviance by the state. Crime is defined by the law and practiced through imprisonment and other punishments. For example, Michael Foucault was a strong believer in the states power to provide a model of discipline, as described in his book Discipline and Punish (1977). He believed that since deviance will always be inevitable in the law, the function of imprisonment may indeed be to maintain the presence of an institution with the legitimated power to officially label deviance. By doing so, the behaviors so labeled and imprisoned can be discouraged within the majority of society. Such behavior may range from murder to petty theft. Not only is the consequence of punishment observable and acknowledged, but ideologies of society can be simultaneously reaffirmed e.g. rights to legitimate work-a-day capital, nationhood rather than civil terrorism. He particularly claims a more intrinsic function of imprisonment is as a tool for the ruling parties. He argues that its function lies in its connection to the entire social body. He claims that in prison that the art of disciplinary methods are mastered and reciprocated throughout institutions of the
“Deviant behavior is nothing less or more than it has always been: Rule breaking. It is behavior which is proscribed by those who have the institutionalized power, and occasionally the consensual authority, to create rules; it is behavior which places its perpetrator at risk of being punished by those who have the institutionalized power, and occasionally the consensual authority, to do something to those who do not keep up the rules.” (1981:9)

Through this labeling, the general population i.e. society, is able to recognize deviance and define it accordingly. The states practice of punishment is a visible form of defining deviance. It directly influences current social perceptions and they are for the most part the basis that society uses to determine what is deviant and what is not. Steven Box states that deviant acts can be identified as such by reference to the quality of the reaction to them, but not by this alone. He goes on to say,

“Official deviant behavior and persons labeled as deviant are selected by official agents from a much larger reservoir of acts and persons potentially at risk of being so