ABSTRACT
Various domains of sociology have seen an increasing concern with problems of comparative analysis. The various approaches to these domains have often produced essays on the methodological problems of comparative analysis per se. Within the domain of the study of deviance, Matza has probably done more than most in recent years to pinpoint the nature of the ideographic bias which stands as an obstacle in the way of developing an appropriate generalizing stance. The ‘genuine’ comparative problem produced by E. Durkheim’s thesis concerning the normality of deviance consists in the exploration of the respects in which deviance or crime rates remain relatively constant over time in particular societies or types of societies. The statistical approach to crime and deviance provides an example. For many years it was considered appropriate to mock attempts to compare crime rates by pointing to the lack of concordance between the legal categories in different cultures.
