Crime And Deviance Essay

Sociologists have been examining crime and its causes for over 150 years, and through several researches, various explanations have been used to describe crime and deviance. Crime is a behaviour that goes against all formal written laws of a given society (Haralambos, Smith, O 'Gorman, & Heald, 1996). Laws in different societies differ, so do crimes i.e. what may be considered as a crime in one society may not be in another different society. For instance, while same-sex relationship is accepted in some countries like the United States, United Kingdom etc. it is illegal in countries like Nigeria, and most Arabic countries. Other examples of general crimes are theft/robbery, murder, kidnapping and others. Once a crime is committed, sanctions

These behaviours are not criminal offences, but they deviate from the norms and accepted values of the society as such perpetrators cannot be convicted, but they are ridiculed or stigmatised. Men and women commit different crimes. Men tend to be convicted for sexually related crimes, violent crimes such as kidnapping, terrorism, rape amongst others, while women are more likely to be shoplifters, abusive to authorities, violence against others, prostitution etc. Although there is a clear similarity between both terms, but not all crimes are deviant and not all deviant behaviours are

It is based on biological assumptions of the different roles played by males and females in the family (Sex-role theory). To support this view is Heidensohn’s theory of control which says that the patriarchal society exercises greater control over women reducing their opportunities to offend. Women are preoccupied with household chores which confines them to the home for long periods of time, reducing their time to offend. Daughters are not usually allowed to go out alone or stay out late and as such are restricted to spend most of their time at home assisting their mothers in household chores, which reduces their chances of committing crimes as well as deviant behaviours. Also in public, women are expected to dress responsibly so as not to be labelled as indecent or irresponsible. At work places too, women are given subordinating positions which prevents them from attaining higher positions where there are higher opportunities of committing white collar crimes (Heidensohn, 1996). The Media also is a means through which people get more information about crimes. It advertises more about crimes that are committed by men e.g. women who are being sexually harassed forcing women to stay indoors for fear of falling victims of these vices. Based on this, women have lesser opportunity as well time to commit crimes compared to the men who spend most of their