The Social Construction of Crime and Deviance
Crime and Deviance: Two Distinct Concepts
One of the first distinctions sociology asks you to make is between crime and deviance. These concepts overlap but are not the same thing. A crime is an act that breaks the formal law; deviance is any behaviour that violates the unwritten social norms of a group or society. Many deviant acts are not criminal — queue-jumping, belching loudly in a restaurant or wearing a swimsuit to a funeral all break social expectations but carry no legal penalty. Equally, some criminal acts are not widely regarded as deviant — many motorists who exceed the speed limit by a small amount do not consider themselves “criminals” in any meaningful social sense.
This distinction matters because sociology treats both crime and deviance as social constructs — they are not fixed, objective categories but are defined and redefined by societies, institutions and individuals over time.
Crime and deviance are related but distinct: crime breaks the formal law; deviance violates social norms. Some acts are only one of these, not both — this distinction is tested directly in your exam.
Formal and Informal Rules
Societies regulate behaviour through two types of rules. Formal rules are codified in law and backed by state sanctions: fines, imprisonment or community service. Informal rules — sometimes called social norms — govern everyday behaviour through informal pressure: social disapproval, ridicule or exclusion from the group. A student who arrives late to every lesson is breaking an informal norm; a student who commits fraud is breaking a formal rule. Both are forms of deviance in the sociological sense, but only the second is a crime.
Societies use sanctions to enforce both types of rules. Positive sanctions reward conformity (a round of applause, a pay rise, social praise); negative sanctions punish deviation (a fine, a prison sentence, social exclusion). The relationship between formal law and informal norms is itself a sociological question: laws tend to reflect the norms of the dominant groups in society, a point Marxist and feminist perspectives challenge.
The Relativity of Deviance
A key insight of sociology is that deviance is relative: what counts as deviant varies across time, place and social situation. The specification explicitly names historical and cultural variations as required content. Three dimensions of relativity are particularly important.
Across time (historical variation): Acts that were once legal can become criminal — fox hunting with dogs was a lawful rural tradition in England and Wales until the Hunting Act 2004 made it a criminal offence. Conversely, acts once treated as crimes can be decriminalised: consensual sexual activity between adult men was a criminal offence in England and Wales until the Sexual Offences Act 1967 partially decriminalised it. The law changes as the values and power structures of society change.
Across place (cultural variation): The same act may be legal in one country but criminal in another. In the Netherlands cannabis possession is still against the law, but small amounts for personal use are tolerated and not prosecuted. In England and Wales possession is a criminal offence that the police do enforce. Drinking alcohol in public is unremarkable in most of the United Kingdom but constitutes a serious offence in countries that enforce strict religious law. These cross-cultural variations demonstrate that crime is not an inherent property of an act but a label applied by a society.
Across situation (situational variation): Context shapes whether an act is considered deviant. Killing another person is treated as murder in most contexts but may be regarded as heroic in warfare, or legally permitted as self-defence. A surgeon cutting open a patient’s body with a scalpel is performing a legitimate medical procedure; the same action outside that context would be an assault. Interactionist sociologists like Becker emphasised that deviance is not a quality of the act itself but is created by the reactions of audiences to the act.
A very common examination error is to treat crime and deviance as synonyms. They are overlapping but distinct categories. Think of two overlapping circles: the left circle is all criminal acts, the right circle is all deviant acts. The overlap is acts that are both criminal and widely seen as deviant (violent assault). The left-only region is acts that are criminal but not seen as deviant by most people (minor speeding). The right-only region is acts that are deviant but not criminal (being rude to a stranger). On an exam question asking you to “define deviance”, giving a legal definition will lose marks.
Sociological Perspectives on the Social Construction of Crime
Different sociological perspectives explain the social construction of crime in contrasting ways, reflecting deeper disagreements about the nature of society.
Functionalist perspective: From a functionalist viewpoint, crime and deviance are defined relative to the value consensus of society. Durkheim argued that some level of crime is normal and even functional in any society — it helps clarify the boundaries of acceptable behaviour and, when punished, reaffirms shared values. On this view, defining something as “criminal” is the community expressing its moral boundaries.
Marxist perspective: Marxist sociologists argue that criminal law is not a neutral reflection of shared values but an instrument of class power. The bourgeoisie shape the law to protect their property and interests, criminalising acts common among the working class (street theft) while failing to criminalise or leniently treating harmful acts by the powerful (corporate fraud, tax evasion). The social construction of “crime” therefore reflects and reinforces class inequality.
Feminist perspective: Feminist sociologists point out that laws have historically been made predominantly by men and have often reflected patriarchal interests. Many acts of violence against women — marital rape, for instance — were not defined as criminal in England and Wales until relatively recently (rape within marriage was only conclusively criminalised following the landmark R v R ruling in 1991). Definitions of crime and deviance therefore embed gender power relations.
Interactionist perspective: Interactionists such as Becker argue that no act is inherently criminal or deviant; it becomes so only when a label is successfully applied to it by someone with the power to make the label stick. The social construction of crime is an ongoing process of labelling, negotiation and reaction. Becker used the term moral entrepreneurs to describe individuals and groups who actively campaign for certain behaviours to be defined as deviant or criminal — pressure groups lobbying for new legislation are a contemporary example.
Four perspectives explain social construction differently: functionalists see crime as defined by shared values; Marxists see law as serving the ruling class; feminists see law as historically shaped by patriarchal power; interactionists focus on labelling as the mechanism by which acts become “criminal” or “deviant”.
Law and Morality: Are They the Same?
A final dimension of the social construction of crime is the relationship between law and morality. Not everything that is morally condemned is illegal, and not everything that is illegal is morally condemned by all members of society. Lying to a friend is widely regarded as morally wrong but carries no legal penalty. Some individuals regard civil disobedience — breaking an unjust law — as a moral act. The gap between law and morality varies across time and culture and is itself a product of social processes. Sociologists are interested in who gets to define the law, whose morality it encodes, and whose behaviour it criminalises — questions that run through the entire sociology of crime and deviance.