A crime is an offence against the public law. It is an act committed or omitted in violation of a law forbidding or commanding it and for which, punishment is imposed upon conviction. Crimes violate the law and order of a society and it negatively affects the social structure and the society’s fundamental values, morals, and belief system.

The concept of crime can vary from society to society.

Crimes are events and actions that are proscribed by the criminal law of a particular country. In general, society and its existing laws define crime. Sometimes, crime in one society may not be seen as an offence in another society. Sometimes, acts of crime depend on socio-cultural values, religious belief systems, and the political ideology.

At times, crimes vary in society. Therefore, crime in one society may not be regarded as a crime in another society. For instance, homosexuality is a punishable offence in Iran, and gay people are viewed as criminals. Under Iranian law, if they are found guilty, they can be sent to jail. In Western societies, gay people have rights and any action that discriminates against them can be challenged in a court of law.

Bigamy is an offence in the Western world and those who violate marital law can be prosecuted. However, in some countries, bigamy or polygamy is not an offence and on most occasions is treated as a social norm. In countries like Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Yemen, etc., under Islamic law, polygamy is permitted, but under specific conditions.

Paedophilia is rejected by most of the contemporary societies and it is considered as a crime. But, in ancient Sparta, sexual acts with children were considered as the norm and it was widely practiced.

When the prohibition laws were in action in the United States of America (from 1919 to 1933), the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol were banned nationally. Any people involved in such action were prosecuted.

During the Soviet era, any person who tried to defect to the West was treated as a criminal, and those who tried to defect were prosecuted under the Soviet law. For instance, the famous Soviet ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov defected to Canada in 1974 requesting political asylum. Soon after his defection, the Soviet authorities pronounced him a criminal. Similarly, any Soviet citizen who had American Dollars in their possession without an official document was arrested and prosecuted under the Soviet criminal law. But, after the Perestroika, these laws became ineffective.

Although crime can vary from society to society and from time to time, some crimes such as murder, rape, theft, etc., often remain constant in many societies and these acts are condemned by the people.

Crime defined by various scholars

The Greek philosopher Aristotle (384 Before Christ [BC] – 322 BC) postulated that poverty is the parent of revolution and crime. The English philosopher and statesman Francis Bacon (1561 – 1626) stated that “Opportunity makes a thief”. The Swiss philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712 - 1778) believed that man is naturally good and that crime is created by social injustice. The Russian author Leo Tolstoy believed that the roots of crime are closely connected with the private ownership of property. Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin was of the view that crime is a product of social excess. The Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud highlighted the innate instincts of criminality hidden in the human psyche. The French sociologist Emile Durkheim defined crime as a legal construct resulting from the social obloquy directed at certain forms of behaviour.

Sociological aspects of crime

Sociological aspects of crime can be divided into broad categories in relation to social determinants. Crime and criminal behaviour can be analysed through functionalist, conflict based, feminist, and postmodern perspectives. Sociological aspects view crime and criminal behaviour as socially acquired and hence focus on the ways in which cultural and/or social structural factors are producing crime.

Functionalist perspective

Functionalists focus on the individual, usually with the intent to show how broader social forces mould individual behaviour. They underline social cohesion as the key factor of social order. Functionalists like the American sociologist Talcott Parsons attempted to integrate all the social sciences into a science of human action. He believed that the social system is made up of the actions of individuals. According to Parsons' equilibrium model, society consists of a network of connected parts. He viewed crime as a disintegrative factor that could affect the homeostasis of society.

Based on Parsons' model, an individual committing homicide has a domino effect and his/her action reverberates within the society. For instance, the murder of ‘Tori’ Stafford in 2009 brought horror to her family and created nationwide anxiety.

Durkheim viewed crime (deviancy) as being just another function of society. He noted that it forms part of every society, and was, therefore, a natural occurrence. In fact, he viewed it as fulfilling various important social needs; it acted to unify law-abiding citizens against the criminal, thus “crime brings together honest men and concentrates them.” The recognition of crime was a validation of the existence of laws, which were in turn a reinforcement of our central values – after all, “we do not condemn an act because it is a crime, but it is a crime because we condemn it.” 

The functionalist American sociologist Robert King Merton observed the colossal social changes during the Great Depression. The crime rate plummeted and Merton focused his attention on the imbalance of power and the disproportional distribution of wealth in an era of economic debacle. Merton, in his famous essay, Social Structure and Anomie (1938), largely discusses crime and criminality. Merton described so-called manifest and latent functions. Like any other social phenomenon, crime has its manifest and latent functions. Manifest functions are open and conscious; whereas latent functions remain unconscious.

The functionalists agree that society is connected to each other within various systems and thus maintains optimal stability. Crime shakes the stability and makes society dysfunctional.

When the crime rate goes up, societies become dysfunctional. 19th Century Sicily was shaken by a series of criminal acts that was launched by the Cosa Nostra or the Sicilian mafia. The ill effects of crime affected almost all the social layers of Sicilian society. People lived in fear and tension, maintaining a conspiracy of silence.

The phenomenon of organised crime in Sicily has survived throughout all political changes and economic transformations that have taken place in Italy in the post-war period. In search of an explanation, some scholars have blamed the absence of the State; some others have stressed the historically predatory relation between the State and the Southern regions. Recently, it has been argued in A. Cottino’s ‘Sicilian cultures of violence: The interconnections between organised crime and local society’, that what makes Sicilian organised crime successful is the fact that it sells protection in a market characterised by an endemic lack of trust. 

(The writer is a medical doctor, an author, and an associate professor) 

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The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect those of this publication.