What is the difference between deviance and crime

They are set for an entire country or kingdom. Crime can be of two types: felonies and misdemeanours. They are categorized based on the severity of the crime committed. The more serious crimes such as rape and murder are classified as felonies. Least severe ones like theft are considered a misdemeanour. Crime can result in the offender receiving a legal sanction and punishment as written in the constitution or the law. They are usually controlled by the judicial system and police force.

Criminology is the specific study of crimes and the individuals who commit a crime. They can help the police force in viewing a crime from the right perspective to catch the guilty. Deviance is the violation of rules, social norms and convictions set by society. They also include behaviours that are not accepted by society. Since they change from society to society, it is not necessary to documentations and is open to facing more changes. This also means, if it is considered deviance in one society, it could be accepted as normal in another.

Deviances are of two types: formal and informal. Since they are also based on the severity of the deviance, they also have different punishments. Once the criminal contraventions have been documented, police and the justice system will be mandated to enforce them using their coercive power. The courts will determine the amount of penalty or punishment to issue to a perpetrator. In contrast, the society has no a coercive power to penalize or punish any individual if they are in contravention of the societal norms.

There are mild and severe crimes. The mild ones can include a mere shoplifting or beating someone while the severe crimes can include murder, stealing large sums of money, and sexual harassment. Had there be no laws containing criminal activities, societies would be in havoc with others deliberately murdering other individuals, house-breaking or robbing financial institutions. The law enforcement officers and the judicial system play a pivotal role in ensuring that everyone is held accountable for the crimes committed.

Likewise with criminal offenses, they differ from one society to another. For instance, other societies may accept consumption of marijuana while others criminalize it. Deviance entails the violation of social norms whereas crime entails the contravention of enacted laws of criminal offenses. Deviance can be criminal or not, and crime is always punishable. Because deviance is dictated by societal norms, it bears no coercive power to punish those violating it whereas criminal offenses are punishable by law as determined by the judicial system.

Police enforce arrest the perpetrators. Examples of deviance include walking nude in public places, offering or receiving prostitute services, wearing red suits during funerals, marriage underage. The examples of crime include murder, rape, house-breaking, shoplifting, prostitution. As it already been reiterated, the deviant and criminal violations overlap and vary from one society to the other.

For example, in some African countries it may be a norm for under 18 years teenagers to be married whereas in the United States is considered a crime. Difference between Deviance and Crime. Difference Between Similar Terms and Objects.

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Notify me of followup comments via e-mail. Written by : Lusi Madisha. Challengers, however, contend that various deviant behaviors are only superficially different because similar underlying causal processes operate in most if not all forms of deviance. They often use the analogy of focusing so closely on individual trees that the forest is overlooked. In addition, those who advocate general theory contend that it is necessary in order to achieve scientific goals of explanation and prediction based on assumptions about unity in nature; and that general theory is more parsimonious because specific accounts already overlap, often in unrecognized ways.

The generalist orientation has led to a number of theories that aim to account for wide ranges of deviance in a variety of circumstances. These general accounts usually take one of two forms. One form of general theorizing assumes a universal causal process that generates different forms of deviance under different conditions. The theories attempt to identify that causal process and specify the conditions under which it produces one form of deviance rather than another some examples are: Akers; Gottfredson and Hirschi; Agnew; Tittle.

A second approach to general theory assumes that different causal processes operate at different times and under different conditions. The theories merge several causal processes by specifying when or why one or another will come into play to produce a given form of deviance at a specific point in time or in a given circumstance some examples are: Braithwaite; Conger and Simons; Elliott et al.

The generalist orientation clearly implies that crime and deviance are one entity. However, no general theory has yet been generally accepted as better than specific, focused accounts.

Therefore, debates concerning the intellectual benefits of general theory and the relative advantages of differentiating criminology and studies of deviance will continue. The main barriers to conceptualizing deviance and crime as a single entity are not intellectual, however—they are ideological and practical.

Criminologists claim a more central role in addressing issues of acute public concern and they position themselves more favorably to receive government funds for research and to offer useful advice for controlling crime. Indeed, criminology has traditionally been identified with practical concerns.