Welcome to your first topic in Crime and Deviance! This is one of the most exciting and highly debated areas of A-Level Sociology. Here, we investigate why people break rules, how society decides what those rules are, and how power shapes who gets punished.

What you'll learn

• The crucial distinctions between crime and deviance, and why both are socially constructed.
• How society maintains social order using formal and informal social control.
• How different sociological perspectives (like Functionalism and Marxism) explain the role of social control in modern Britain.

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1. Defining Crime and Deviance

Before we can look at why people commit crimes, we must establish what counts as "wrong" behaviour. In sociology, we split this into two distinct but overlapping concepts: deviance and crime.

The Relativity of Deviance

Unlike scientists studying gravity, sociologists cannot define deviance as a fixed physical law. What is considered deviant is relative—meaning it changes based on the context. Deviance is a social construct: it is created and defined by the society in which it occurs.

We can see this relativity across three main dimensions:

• Relativity over time: Homosexuality was illegal in England and Wales until 1967. Today, same-sex marriage is legally recognized, and homophobia is widely condemned as deviant.
• Relativity across cultures: In some Middle Eastern countries, drinking alcohol is strictly illegal and viewed as highly deviant. In the UK, alcohol consumption is a normalised social ritual.
• Relativity depending on the situation: Killing someone in self-defence or during active military combat is legally and socially accepted. Doing so in a street fight is murder.

The diagram below helps illustrate how these two concepts overlap, showing that while some actions are both criminal and deviant, others are only one or the other.

How to Analyse the Relativity of an Action

To do well in your exams, you must be able to apply the concept of relativity to real-world scenarios. This shifts your writing from simple description (AO1) to high-level analysis (AO3).

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2. Social Order and Social Control

How is it that most people, most of the time, follow the rules? Sociologists refer to this stable, predictable state of affairs as social order. To keep society stable, we use mechanisms called social control.

We can split social control into two distinct types: formal and informal.

                         ┌─────────────────────────┐
                         │     Social Control      │
                         └────────────┬────────────┘
                                      │
              ┌───────────────────────┴───────────────────────┐
              ▼                                               ▼
┌───────────────────────────┐                   ┌───────────────────────────┐
│   Formal Social Control   │                   │  Informal Social Control  │
│                           │                   │                           │
│ • Written laws & rules    │                   │ • Unwritten social norms  │
│ • Official institutions   │                   │ • Everyday interactions   │
│ • e.g., Police, Courts,   │                   │ • e.g., Family, Peers,    │
│   Prisons, Employers      │                   │   Media, Education        │
└───────────────────────────┘                   └───────────────────────────┘

Formal Social Control

This is carried out by official agencies specifically set up to enforce the law and maintain order.

• The Police: Responsible for investigating crimes, arresting suspects, and enforcing the peace.
• The Criminal Justice System (CJS): Courts, judges, and prosecutors who determine guilt and hand down official punishments.
• Prisons and Probation: Penal institutions designed to punish, deter, and rehabilitate offenders.

Formal control relies on written rules and explicit sanctions (such as prison sentences or fines).

Informal Social Control

This is carried out by ordinary people in everyday life, often without us even realizing it.

• The Family: Parents use positive reinforcement (praise) and negative sanctions (grounding) to teach children right from wrong. This is the foundation of primary socialisation.
• Peer Groups: Friends enforce conformity through peer pressure, inclusion, or exclusion. If you dress or act in a way your friends dislike, they may tease you (an informal negative sanction).
• The Media: Television, news, and social media platforms praise certain behaviours while publicly shaming others, acting as a powerful moral compass.

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3. Sociological Perspectives on Social Order

Why do we have social control, and who does it actually benefit? This is where our core sociology perspectives disagree.

A. The Functionalist Perspective (Consensus Theory)

Functionalists like Émile Durkheim argue that social order is built on a shared value consensus—a common agreement on what is right and wrong.

• The Role of Socialisation: From birth, institutions like the family and education system socialise us into these shared values.
• Boundary Maintenance: Durkheim argued that a small amount of crime is actually functional for society. When a crime is committed and publicly punished, it reinforces the collective conscience and reminds everyone of the boundaries of acceptable behaviour.
• Social Cohesion: Think of how a community unites in shock and grief after a horrific crime. This collective reaction strengthens social solidarity.

B. The Marxist Perspective (Conflict Theory)

Marxists completely reject the functionalist idea of value consensus. They argue that social order is maintained by the ruling class (bourgeoisie) to protect their wealth and exploit the working class (proletariat).

• Criminogenic Capitalism: Karl Marx argued that capitalism is inherently criminogenic (it naturally causes crime). By encouraging greed, consumerism, and competition, while leaving the working class in poverty, crime becomes a rational response to survive or achieve status.
• Selective Law Enforcement: Marxists argue that the laws themselves are not neutral. They protect private property. Furthermore, the police and courts focus heavily on working-class street crimes, while largely ignoring "white-collar" corporate crimes (such as tax evasion or health and safety violations by major businesses).
• Ideological Social Control: Institutions like the media and education system act as ideological state apparatuses (Althusser). They brainwash the working class into accepting the capitalist system, presenting the police as neutral protectors when they are actually protecting the rich.

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4. Evaluating the Perspectives (AO3)

To secure the highest marks in your 30-mark essays, you must contrast these viewpoints and evaluate their strengths and weaknesses.

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