Skip to content

Course home

Theories and explanations of crime and deviance
x

Crime, deviance and social construction

Crime, deviance and social construction

Theory map showing explanations of crime and deviance on a grid from consensus to conflict and from structural to social action

Crime is behaviour that breaks the criminal law, while deviance breaks social norms. Not all deviance is crime, and what counts as criminal can change across time and place, so definitions are socially constructed.

Theories and explanations of crime and deviance Lesson

  1. A Level
  2. /Sociology
  3. /Theories and explanations of crime and deviance