The Problems Involved In Defining And Measuring Crime And Deviance

Since time immemorial specific actions committed by individuals have fallen into two categories of behaviour, criminal or deviant. Both come with diverse and varying degrees of punishment, but what do both terms mean? If we look at the dictionary definitions of both words, we gain a small insight: ‘Crime – an action which constitutes a serious crime against an individual or the state and is punishable by law. ’‘Deviance – derivative of deviant – diverging from usual or accepted standards, especially in social or sexual behaviour.

However, over the course of history, these two terms have become entangled in a web of confusion, as our conduct and activities have consequences that are defined either through statute or via religious and cultural beliefs. Just like in a scientific experiment, for every action there will be a reaction, some responses will come because of a criminal investigation and be met with sanctions imposed by the courts and others will come from the community in which we live, from either a religious or community leader, family, friends or society in general. The way in which society reacts between a criminal act and a deviant act vary according to the nature of the offence and who the ‘victim’ is, but also society will react to the sanction imposed, this could be considered too heavy or too lenient, depending on who is asked. Justice and social justice are two different concepts, by which, if a person convicted of committing a crime against the established laws of the state, through Acts of Parliament and statute, is sentenced to a moderate custodial sentence of twenty-four months, according to the law, justice has been served.

However, society and the victim and their family may feel that the sentence was too lenient, which would fall under a social injustice, as the victim has not had the wrong put right in a manner that is acceptable to their thoughts and feelings. If we reverse that logic and say that the convicted party received a five-year custodial sentence, the wronged party could feel justice has been met accordingly but the social injustice would be on the side of the criminal, who would feel wronged for receiving too high a sentence. Now comes the difficulty of a deviant act and the sanctions that can be imposed. Although these sanctions cannot be imposed by the criminal courts, they can, and usually are imposed and enforced by society, through being looked at in a different light, even persecuted to being ousted from the community as in the case with some religious and culturally led communities. However, sanctions in this form can lead to an ‘us versus them’ attitude and the deviants being treated as and left felling as ‘outcasts’ This is due to the person displaying behaviour that differs from the ‘norms of society’ and not conforming to the majority. This in turn could lead to an unstable and fractious society, with the people en-masse doing how and as they please, without fear of retribution or consequences. Over time, it hasn’t been one person striking laws and saying, “This is a criminal act, and this is a deviant act”, it has been the very culture of society defining this.

According to De Rossi, an anthropologist at Barnet and Southgate College; "Culture encompasses religion, food, what we wear, how we wear it, our language, marriage, music, what we believe is right or wrong, how we sit at the table, how we greet visitors, how we behave with loved ones, and a million other things. ” Live Science, 2017It is through this definition that we learn more about the link between criminal behaviour and deviant behaviour. As touched on above laws are usually created via the majority following the normal social conventions and accepted practices with the ‘deviants’ being punished by community sanctions, which, following the passage of laws makes the former deviant act a criminal one. This could further be defined as a legal act of deviancy which becomes illegal, to be viewed as ‘formal deviancy’ and the behaviour which goes against the accepted social conventions and ideologies as ‘informal deviancy’.

By viewing the above acts in the sense of formal and informal deviancy, we establish a relative association between the two. By examining the act of formal deviance a bit further, in all modern societies, murder has been both illegal and immoral and one of the gravest acts of deviance against the norms of society, yet there is a comparative relationship between the two acts listed above in other cultures. Whilst in our modern-day society, cheating on a partner is considered deviant, it is not illegal under British law, but in Jordan and according to the Jordanian Penal Code, not only is adultery an act of deviance, it goes against moral laws and offers a defence for murder, or ‘honour killings’.

A husband who surprises his wife or a close female relative in the act of adultery with another person, and kills, injures or harms either of them, or both, shall benefit from a mitigating excuse. The perpetrator of a killing or an injury shall benefit from a mitigating excuse if he surprises a spouse, ascendant, descendent, or sibling with another person in an unlawful bed. Jordanian Penal Code, Article 340All that we can safely ascertain is that, what defines an act from being a criminal or deviant act, is relative to the times, cultures and views of society and those within it. In society there will always be opposing views on what defines a criminal act and that of a deviant act and the reasoning and thought process of why individuals commit them. Sociologists, Sampson and Laub suggest; ‘… A trajectory is a pathway or line of development over the life-span such as work-life, marriage, parenthood, self-esteem and criminal behaviour. Trajectories refer to long term patterns of behaviour and are marked by a sequence of life events and transitions.

Transitions are specific life events that are embedded in trajectories and evolve over shorter time spans…’American Sociological Review, 1990If we believe in this theory, we ascertain that, depending on the situation an individual is in they will react accordingly, if for instance, an individual’s parents are involved in criminal or deviant activity, they are more likely to be influenced by their decision making and accept that way of life. Whereas, if we look at crime and deviancy from a psychological point of view, we see that in contrast, based on the Psychodynamic Theory, originated by Freud (1933), he suggests that;“criminal offenders are frustrated and aggravated and constantly drawn to past events, that occurred early in childhood. ”This suggests to us that the criminal and deviant behaviour is deep-rooted into our cataleptic, psychological progressions and can manifest over time. A way of monitoring these constraints and sanctions imposed by society, through the justice system, would be through Official Crime Statistic.

First, we should gain an insight as to how this information is collated, and what they show. In England and Wales, the Office for National Statistics create and compile a quarterly review of crime and release a publicly available report, these figures are gained through the Crime Survey for England and Wales and crimes that are reported directly to the police. Although not every crime is reported, may it be through a ‘victim’ not thinking it is worth reporting or because there is a loss of confidence in the police being able to gain a conviction. The ONS reports on all crime, from the most serious, such as murder and sexual offences, to lesser crimes, such as criminal damage. There is a downside to this method of measuring crime as the figures do not show crime trends or local crime issues and they only generate their information from people who live in private dwellings, they do not show information from people who live on university campuses or those who live in care homes. For the data that comes from direct reporting to the police, in past years there has been a growing concern that the police are manipulating the data and choosing what to report, (Tim Newburn, The Conversation, 2014).

In conclusion, we can distinguish that crime and deviancy are both different and relative terms, in that they both stem from cultural norms, some of which can be punished by established and legal methodologies, i. e. Courts, in the case of criminal acts. As for acts of deviancy that go against the ‘norms of society’, these can be punished via sanctions imposed by society, through a telling off by parents, a religious or cultural leader or to the extreme of being made an outcast, which in turn could lead to persecution. The close relationship the two have comes in the form of what is described as ‘formal deviancy’ and what is ‘informal deviancy’, formal deviancy being a criminal act against established Acts of Parliament or laws and informal deviancy going against morals and societal normality. Although there is a stark difference between the punitive measures each act receives, one thing is clear, there will be some form of sanction imposed on the individual for a breach of either act. What we need to remember is that these terms are not set in stone, as what constitutes a legal but deviant act today, could be classified as criminal the next and vice versa.