2. Crime?

Key Vocab:

Crime: Refers to an offence that is punishable by the law

Offence: A violation of the law

Law: Refers to a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behaviour

Victim: Refers to a person who is harmed. injured or killed because of a crime, accident or other event or action.

Punishment: Refers to the process whereby someone faces a penalty as retribution for an offence they have committed; It could be physical, such as being imprisioned, or it could be financial, such as a fine.

The Sociological Concept of Crime

A crime occurs when a person breaks the law and thus committing an offence against the community.

This can be against the community as a whole, or a specific individual. Crimes can be punishable by the law

The violation of rights...

When a crime is committed, this often means that a person or group of people have had their rights violated in some way.

Following the crime occuring, their is an expectation from by the victim and the wider community that the offender is punished by the law.

Punishments are a broad term and vary depending on the type of crime committed, where the crime takes place and the country the crime occurs in.

Crime as a relative concept?

In a similar manner to deviance what is and what isnt a crime depends on when and where the crime occurs.

Crime is inherently linked with the politics of a country. Political institutions have the power to create laws which outline what is a criminal activity and what isn't.

Democratic countries are strongly influenced by the voting population as they influnece who is in power and who isn't and laws are a massive part of this!

As crime and the reaction to crime are behavioural by nature, sociology seeks to understand how crime impacts society.

Class Activity

Brainstorm as many examples of things which are illegal in Australia which aren't in other countries and vice versa.
Brainstrom as many examples of things which are or aren't illegal today, which were or weren't in the past.
Brainstorm some actions which have been made illegal recently, within our lifetimes

Norms, law and crime

Crime is a product of the social world we live in and the social processes that exist. Crime doesn't exist without a label being applied to the action being scrutinised. These labels are defined and redfiend by social norms.

An example social norm becoming a criminal offence is the prohibition of smoking in certain public places. Smoking was legal in places such as restaurants and bars. As awareness grew of the negative impacts of second hand smoke and the importance of smoke free enviroments, many jursidictions passed laws to ban smoking in these settings.

Task to complete:

Copy the table on page 158 of the textbook into your books

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