social construction of crime

• Crime is defined as activities and behaviors that break the law which is set out by the Criminal Justice System
• Deviance is antisocial acts that go against the morals and values of society
• There are four reasons for the social construction of crime:

  • Contextual
  • Cultural
  • Historical
  • Generational
• The contextual construction of crime is:

  • It is context dependent
  • Some behaviors are acceptable in certain situations

  eg. Wearing a bikini on the beach
• The cultural construction of crime is:

  • What is considered is acceptable or rude depending on culture or what society your in

  eg. Rude hand signals
• The historical construction of crime is:

  • How what is seen to be criminal behavior changes over time
  • Something may have been illegal once and is now acceptable

  eg. Carrying certain drugs
• The generational construction of crime is:

  • May vary for acceptable behaviors in certain age groups and certain activities may be illegal for some age groups

  eg. Age restriction on certain products such as alcohol
• Ken Plummer (1979) = Societal and situational deviance

  • Society deviance is what the dominant ideology consider wrong
  • Deviance varies among societies, locations and context
• Societal Deviance is:

  • Actions and behaviors that go against widely accepted cultural norms within a society
• Situational Deviance is:

  • Behavior that is considered deviant in a particular situation so it depends on the context and location in which the behavior takes place
• There are three psychological explanations why people commit crime:

  • Maternal Deprivation
  • Tripartite Personality
  • Mental Abnormality
• Bowlby = Maternal Deprivation

  • Maternal Deprivation is one of the reasons why people commit crimes
  • Suggests criminal behavior is linked to lack of motherly love at a young age
  • A strong warm healthy relationship is necessary for development, they then suffer affectionless psychopathy where they do not feel remorse
• Freud = Tripartite Personality

  • Caused by an imbalance between the ID, ego and super ego
  • ID is part of the personality that makes up the basic urges
  • The super ego is our morality
  • If there is too much of either, it can lead to criminal and deviant behavior
• Mental Abnormality

  • Those who commit must have some sort of mental damage or abnormality
  • May have differences in their brains compared to non criminals
• There are two biological explanations for crime:

  • Appearance
  • Genetics
• Lombroso = Appearance

  • He measured different proportions of prisoners
  • Their physicals proportions include large head, ears and arms compared to non criminals
  • Lower on the evolutionary scale
• Genetics =

  • Mutation which helps control serotonin and dopamine
  • Cn lead to hyperactivity which leads to aggression and criminal activity
• Sociologists reject the psychological explanations because they fail to explain that crime and deviance is socially constructed, crime follows social patterns in society.