Chapter 20 : Social control, crime and deviance

Abstract

According to Emile Durkheim (1973), people can be described as deviant when they engage in behaviour that is informally scorned by society. Conversely, when people engage in crime, society metes out formal sanctions. Whereas deviancy constitutes "actions that depart from social norms, values and beliefs ... many ... are neither illegal nor criminal" (Siegal, 2010, pp. 4-18); crime constitutes "a violation of societal rules of behaviour as interpreted and expressed by a criminal legal code" (pp. 4-18). Therefore, only the acts listed in the criminal code can be considered criminal. Other behaviour (not described in the criminal code) could be either described as conforming or deviant (non-conforming to social norms but not illegal) (Siegal, 2010, p. 5). This explains the difference between deviant sex and sex crimes but, one needs to bear in mind that society dictates what is tolerable behaviour that should to be encouraged (the norms), and what is intolerable behaviour that needs to be prevented or stopped and that, in turn, these decisions are made by society's dominant culture, a culture which tends to alter with time (Azzopardi, 2013). Therefore, society, through "people holding social and political positions" (Siegal, 2010, p. 18), lists certain behaviours under the criminal code, thus branding them as crimes. "And ... representatives express the general will...that is also animated by the dominant social culture which tends to be chronologically mutable" (Azzopardi, 2013, p. 23).