Conceptualising Crime & Deviance

Legal definitions of crime

Cesare Beccaria

  • Actions harmful to the state

  • the security and property of individuals

  • Public peace and tranquility

    • the social contract between the individual and the state

      • Crime by consent

Sir William Blackstone

  • Against God

  • Against the state

  • Against the person

  • Against property (theft)

    • A codified apprach to deviance

“The most precise and least ambiguous definition of crime is that which defines it as behavior that is prohibited by the criminal code” (Michael & Adler, 1933, p.2)

  • Can have objectivity

Legal definitions

  • Crime as a legal but not necessarily a civil wrong

    • Not all acts of transgression are punishable via the criminal law — difference between crime and deviance

    • Distinction between formal and informal control

  • Crime as a meaningless category

    • Tells is what but not why — why are things criminalised?

    • Distinction between an act and process

  • Crime is not an autonomous legal category separated from the social world

Conflict and consensus definitions

  • What is considered normal by one group may be considered deviant by another

  • Dominant groups can ensure that most of their values are enacted as laws and public policy

    • People consent to criminal definitions because those rules reflect their existing values

  • Crime is therefore the conflict between cultures and culture and cultures and subcultures

  • When 2 groups with competing views exist

    • A compramise may occur

    • One group may achieve greater cultural capital and legislate against the other

  • The law is an expression of power

Social capital — the value society places on you

  • Society is structured according to relationships of labour and power

    • Bourgeoisie

    • Proletariat

    • Lumpenproletariat

  • Laws come from the top of the pyramid. Crime is whatever the powerful find threatening.

  • Acts defined criminal exists to protect the ruling economic class

  • Crime serves to reduce surplus labor, whilst providing jobs in the CJS

  • ICC — established in 2002

  • the Rome statute has been ratified by 124 countries

  • Empowered to prosecute individuals and leaders for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes

    • Subjective

  • Many states refuse to recognise the validity of the court

  • The focus of the court magnifies the definitional complexities

  • Criticised for perceived ‘African bias’

  • The Law is often presented as most precise and least ambiguous definition of crime

    • Tends to reflect moral consensus

    • Tends to remain relatively stable over time

    • Tells us what but nit why

  • Why may relate to the distribution of power in society

    • Consensus is common

  • Conflict occurs when the interest of the powerful are challenged by the behaviours and beliefs of the powerless

Harm and Social Constructionist definitions

Harm Definitions

  • Associated with American Sociologist Edwin Sutherland

  • Crime should be abandoned and social harm should be adopted

    • Zemiology

  • Consideration of all harms not just those formalised by existing power relationships

  • New forms of criminology have adopted this definition

  • Encompasses interpersonal harm, harm caused by corporations and harm caused by nation states

    • Environmental harm

    • Economic harm

    • Human rights violations

Stats

- The Harms of the CJ Process
- 90% of the prison population estimated to have one or more mental health
disorders
- 88 prisoners took their own lives
- 59,722 incidents of self-harm
- 22,319 recorded assaults (Ministry of Justice, 2024a)
- Adult offender reoffending rate of 25.4%
- Juvenile offender reoffending rate of 33.3%
- Adults released from custodial sentences of less than 12 months had a
reoffending rate of 56.1% (Ministry of Justice, 2024b)


Social constructionist definitions

  • The criminal law is not fixed, it is fluid

    • Crime can vary historically and geographically

  • Crime as a culturally bound concept

  • Crime is a label that is applied to particular individuals in particular circumstances

  • `not ‘crime’ but the process of criminalisation should be the starting point

A suitbale amount of crime - charles christie

  • “Crime does not exist. Only acts exist, acts given different
    meanings within various social frameworks” (Christie,
    2004, p. 3)