Notes

6. Crime is defined as an action that creates an offense which can be prosecuted and punished by law, for example: a person who robs a bank is punishable by law and if found guilty can spend years in jail. Deviance is defined as going against social norms and or an accepted/usual standard of society, an example of deviance is homosexuality, in the 60s, homosexuality was considered to be deviant behavior and those that identified with it were usually alienated from the heterosexual society.

Crime and deviance has mostly negative functional consequences due to the fact that those that commit the crime and deviance are often labelled as outcasts by the majority of the society and are told to be ignored thus leading them to be alienated and isolated from their society. An example of this is: when someone intentionally commits a murder they are often charged and imprisoned for some time, isolated from society in a prison. Durkheim believes that crime and deviance are vital in the evolution of law and morality in a society even though the functional consequences are negative.