Crime and Individuals Choices

4. Crime isn’t the result of individuals making choices to commit crime; it is the result of their social circumstances. Discuss this statement.

Society plays a role in deterring, influencing and controlling individuals against committing crime and there are many understandings and norms throughout society that affect crime. Mores, Taboo and social control all have the ability to deter or encourage deviance. Reforming of laws and legal procedures, appeal to society and make behaviors such as homosexuality more accepting. Social surroundings such as low socioeconomic or poorly presented areas contribute to the increase of crime. However, society has also implemented deterrents such as sanctions to reduce the rate of crime and rehabilitate individuals. Although the individual ultimately decides these actions, the effects of ones social surroundings play a major role in showing its influence.

Society plays a large roll in convincing individual’s behaviors. Society can contribute to and influence and individual in crime. Mores can be understood as strict rules that apply throughout society which are accepted without question, and therefor represent fundamental moral rules, for example, do not kill another human being or do not take things that belong to others. Alternatively, a Taboo is a very strict law, for example, cannibalism. However, one of the main focuses of research in regards to society and crime is deviance. There are three sociological ways to determine deviance: ‘statistical’ which refers to measuring for example very few people are breaking a rule, ‘normative’ is breaking rules and violating norms and ‘Reactive’ includes, people’s behavior and negative reactions. When joint together they define deviance as; ‘breaking and violating norms and rules that many individuals don’t, which leads to negative reactions from society’. From a functionalist perspective, Durkheim and Morton categorize deviance into normal and anomic. Normal deviance is described as ‘good for society because of its educative and deterrent role; (Bessant & Watts, 2007.) and anomic deviance as ‘weak social order: norms and rules loose their importance; lots of people are breaching them; as a result the crime rate increases.’ (Bessant and Watts, 2007.) Definitions, rules and societal shared norms are what deviance is socially determined by and dependent on. However, it is possible for deviance to chance over time in correspondence with cultures or laws and legal processes. Homosexuality is an example of a law/legal procedure that has shifted societies opinion.

Over the years as homosexuality has become more common and laws have changed, society has become more accepting. Throughout the younger generations homosexuality has become more common and less judged by society and due to this, individuals are becoming less ‘ashamed’ or ‘embarrassed’ to express