Crime and Social Deviance

Jaywalking, adultery once was, and murder are all rule-breaking, but only one of these three reliably lands a person before a magistrate. Sociology's job is to explain why some rule-breaking becomes crime, some remains mere social disapproval, and some is barely noticed at all — and why entire theories exist to explain why people break rules in the first place, theories a criminal lawyer draws on more than they realise.

In two minutes

Deviance is behaviour that violates a group's social norms, and crime is the narrower category of deviance the State has chosen to define and punish through law; sociology explains both through competing theories of why rule-breaking happens at all.

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