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Deviance or the sociology of deviance [1] [2] explores the actions and/or behaviors that violate social norms across formally enacted rules (e.g., crime) [3] as well as informal violations of social norms (e.g., rejecting folkways and mores). Although deviance may have a negative connotation, the violation of social norms is not always a ...
Another early form of the theory was proposed by Reiss (1951) [3] who defined delinquency as, "...behavior consequent to the failure of personal and social controls." ." Personal control was defined as, "...the ability of the individual to refrain from meeting needs in ways which conflict with the norms and rules of the community" while social control was, "...the ability of social groups or ...
Biosocial criminology is an interdisciplinary field that aims to explain crime and antisocial behavior by exploring biocultural factors. While contemporary criminology has been dominated by sociological theories, biosocial criminology also recognizes the potential contributions of fields such as behavioral genetics, neuropsychology, and evolutionary psychology.
Robert King Merton was an American sociologist who argued that the social structure of a society can encourage deviance to a large degree. Merton's theory borrows from Èmile Durkheim's theory of anomie, which argues that industrialization would fundamentally alter the function of society; ultimately, causing a breakdown of social ties, social norms, and the social order.
State crime is a distinct field of crimes that is studied by Marxist criminology, which considers these crimes to be some of the most costly to society in terms of overall harm/injury. In a Marxist framework, genocides , environmental degradation , and war are not crimes that occur out of contempt for one's fellow man, but are crimes of power.
Critical criminologists assert that how crime is defined is socially and historically contingent, that is, what constitutes a crime varies in different social situations and different periods of history. The conclusion that critical criminological theorists draw from this is that crime is socially constructed by the state and those in power. [8]
The term 'occupational deviance' is better reserved for deviation from occupational norms (e.g. drinking on the job; sexual harassment), and the term 'workplace crime' is better reserved for conventional forms of crime committed in the workplace (e.g. rape; assault). The conceptual conflation of fundamentally dissimilar activities hinders ...
In his autobiography, Lincoln Steffens details how news reporting can be used to create the impression of a crime wave where there is none, in the chapter "I Make a Crime Wave". Button and Tunley [4] have also presented a theory that offers the opposite to deviancy amplification, which they call deviancy attenuation. In this, they argue using ...