Thesis: the intention behind an action, impact of the social culture, psychological development and many other factors plays an important role to determine the actions of a person to be criminal or deviant. However, many actions, which are basically illegal but due to certain circumstances are not considered to be criminal and deviant. Similarly certain deviant behaviors are not taken as deviant offences due to various logical and just reasons.

Crime is related to the violation of rules and law of any state while deviance is concerned with the violation of social norms. However, social norms differ from culture to culture and are the codes of conduct that any specific culture considers to be normal. For instance, in the Muslim countries sexual intercourse with out the bond of marriage is a crime while in the western part of the globe this is the social right of every individual and not a crime if done with mutual consent.

Furthermore, since deviance is related to the social norms of any society, it changes with the passage of time as the norms changes. On the other hand crime is simply related to the legal norms or the law of any state. Every state has a set of rules that differs in its illegal and legal actions.

When a person violates or breaks the legal rules of any country he is said to be a criminal. Therefore, the people and higher authorities related to legal profession decides the actions that are legal and illegal, where crime simply means breaking of the laws made by the state and constitution of any country. However, crimes include murder, rape, burglary, theft, white-collar crime, prostitution, gambling, drunkenness etc.

Criminal Behavior

At times people belong to certain category of a society do criminal actions that are basically not criminals. Taking case of the street children, they are usually poor either living with or with out their families on the street. Generally the street children are predicted to be the lay about of future crimes in the country. However, these children do not have any criminal intentions but the discriminative behavior of the society, extreme poverty and no basic health, education and food, shelter clothing facilities make them to do some actions that are a violation of law. For instance, a street child who is jobless and is hungry for the whole day and knows he is not getting to eat, as he has no money, he robs some bread or eating stuff from the market and caught.

Though he has done a crime but I will not consider it a criminal action, as there was no Actus Reus involved. i.e. the intention behind his action was not to do a crime nor he had an intention to hurt any person or organization. It was the hunger caused due to extreme poverty that forced him to do that action. Moreover, the state is responsible to provide the basic necessities to the people living in the country.

Similarly another example can be taken for a murder that is not preplanned. Though murder is a serious criminal offence in every state. But if a person who has a reputable status and proved to be of good character and his history shows he has never committed any criminal offence and is honest in all his business transactions commits a murder, unintentionally for self-defense, I will not consider it a crime.

It is but natural if some criminal is threatening a respectable citizen and is to attempt his murder naturally he will struggle to save his life, while during this struggle the criminal himself gets murdered by mistake of that respectable citizen, he should be taken as innocent as he had no criminal intention neither he was a professional criminal.

Another instance for such behavior is the case of a business owner who hand over his business for a certain period of time to some senior employee and permits him to take important and urgent decisions for the benefit of the firm. So in the absence of the real owner, the possessor if knowingly signs a contract or makes some business transactions that are not in the benefit of the company is considered to commit a criminal offense.

Though there is no evidence for his intention, but since he is the most senior and experienced employee and knowingly acts to harm the company and made such transactions will make him criminally liable to make good the loss.

Deviance Behavior

However, many actions that are basically not legal but hurts the social norms are considered to be deviant. For instance, having a pet basically is nor a deviant act nor any legal offence. At the same time if a neighbors pet dog keeps on barking the whole night as its routine, it will disturb the easement rights of its neighbor as it will cause sleeplessness to them. Therefore, in such circumstance, the moment it distracts the easement rights of its neighbor the action will be considered as a deviant act or social offence.

Similarly there are certain norms made by the powerful authorities of the society that are not related to any jurisdiction. For instance, certain norms limiting the rights of labor or the working parties in any specific city or factory though are not criminal but breaking these norms are considered to be deviant behaviors. So a labor if raises his voice or takes a step for his legal right (against the organization) that is suppressed by the norms developed by the social culture of the society, he does not commit any criminal offence though involves him in a deviance behavior.

Another instance is abortion. Though abortion is legally permitted under certain circumstance like if the pregnancy is due to rape, sexual abuse of teenagers by old aged men either from family or outside the family or in case the birth of the baby becomes dangerous to the health of mother.

Where mature teenagers who are basically aware of the precautionary steps for sexual intercourse and ignores such necessary steps and gets pregnant and aborts its baby and repeats the same, I will consider it a deviant behavior, as this is a crime against humanity. This shows the careless behavior of the mother, which is breaking the social and moral norms of the society.

Crime and deviance both are related to the breach of laws and norms. Where crime is related to the breach of legal rules made by the state under its very constitution, while deviance is the breaking of social norms. However, both behaviors are influenced and motivated by certain social, psychological as well as other aspects. Where, criminal actions are generally considered bad.

On the other hand many criminal behaviors are not considered bad while many behaviors are taken as bad but not criminal similar is the case with deviant behaviors. Therefore, the psychological factor that is specially related to the social environment and the family environment of the person committing crime either good behavior or bad as well as the intention behind the action plays a very important role to determine the category of the behavior.

References

Goliath, D. (1989). The problem that grows and grows. Prisma, 4, 4-5

Korey Capozza, Bolivia “Condemned To Die: Abortion In Latin America” available at http://www.geocities.com/wellesley/3321/win15d.htm accessed on 10-01-04