ABSTRACT
Deviance and crime overlap, although imperfectly. Conceptually and theoretically, deviance and crime share much of the same territory; hence, they cannot be neatly or clearly separated. Both deviance and criminal behavior cover a diverse array of activities and phenomena, though deviance, as we might expect, is vastly more varied than crime, including, as it does, not only behavior but beliefs and conditions as well. Still, as with deviance, what is a crime—that is, what is a violation of the law—is determined by judgments of a specific audience, namely, agents of formal social control—the criminal justice system. A crime is not a “thing” in the material world but the result of a decision made by specific parties—including the victim, the observer, a police officer, and a judge—that a punishable offense has been committed. Some acts have been punished by agents of the society or tribe for thousands of years, even before a formal written legal code or a law-making body existed. It was custom, not legislatures, that determined their criminal status. These are the common-law or “primal” crimes, which have existed pretty much everywhere and throughout human history. They include murder, rape, and robbery. There is a core of such offenses that exists everywhere and has always existed. Even for the common-law crimes, judgment of who commits what offense against what party is variable, to some degree relative to time and place. Legislature-created law is called “statutory” law; it rarely has the force of sentiment that is as strong as that behind common law, which is based on the force of tradition and custom. The drug laws, all white collar and corporate legislation, and gambling statutes were created by political decree rather than normative consensus.
