Social construction of crime and deviance

Overview

Crime and deviance, how definitions change across time, place and situation, moral entrepreneurs and Mary Whitehouse, positive deviance, and the Marxist view of who makes the law.

What you need to know

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Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   What is crime?

   Model answer

   Crime is behaviour that breaks the criminal law and can be punished by the state. Theft, assault and fraud are examples.

2. 2

   What is deviance?

   Model answer

   Deviance is behaviour that goes against the norms and expectations of a social group. Deviant acts may or may not be illegal.

3. 3

   Give an example of an act that is deviant but not criminal, and one that is criminal but rarely seen as deviant.

   Model answer

   Shouting during a funeral service is deviant but not illegal. Driving a few miles an hour over the speed limit is illegal but widely tolerated.

4. 4

   Why do sociologists say crime and deviance are socially constructed?

   Model answer

   Sociologists argue no act is deviant in itself. An act becomes crime or deviance because a society defines it that way, and those definitions change.

5. 5

   How does the law on homosexuality show that crime varies over time?

   Model answer

   Sex between men was a crime in England and Wales until the Sexual Offences Act 1967 partly decriminalised it. Hostility based on sexual orientation can now make a sentence tougher, under section 66 of the Sentencing Act 2020, which replaced the Criminal Justice Act 2003 provision.

6. 6

   Give two examples of acts that have become crimes more recently in the UK.

   Model answer

   Smoking in enclosed public places such as pubs was banned in England in 2007. The Serious Crime Act 2015 made controlling or coercive behaviour in a relationship an offence.

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