ABSTRACT
Introduction Much of the criminological theory discussed in previous chapters, in its discussion of the causes of crime, has focused on matters prior to the criminal act. Moreover, positivist criminology in particular has tended to treat the notion of ‘ crime’ relatively unproblematically (see Chapters 6, 7, 8 and 15). By contrast, the approaches discussed in this chapter start from the assumption that there is no essence to this thing we refer to as ‘crime’. Deviance is simply those things we describe as such. Consequently, in such work the focus shifts away from the nature of deviant acts, and the ‘ nature’ of the people that commit such acts, to look much more closely at how and why particular people come to be defi ned as ‘ deviant’. The focus is, therefore, more upon the social reaction to deviance. This is not entirely novel, for commentators had long observed the potentially negative impact of punishment. However, as Downes and Rock (2003: 154) argue, it was in the 1950s and 1960s that scholars such as Howard Becker, Edwin Lemert and Aaron Cicourel were among ‘ the fi rst to approach the social reaction to deviant behaviour as a variable not a constant’.
