Essay About Understaning F Crime And Criminal Law

Critically Discuss the Contribution of a Theoretial Tradition to the Understaning F Crime
Essay title: Critically Discuss the Contribution of a Theoretial Tradition to the Understaning F Crime
Critically discuss the contribution of one of the following theoretical
traditions to our understanding of crime:
Radical Criminology,
Interactionism&Labelling theory,
Sub-Cultural Theory.
What is crime? According to Pease (1994) ‘Crime comprises those actions which
are deemed so damaging to the interests of the community, that the state
determines that it must take a direct role in identifying and acting against the
criminal. ’
This definition of crime is rather simplistic and defines crime as an infraction
of criminal law. It does not comment on how some forms of crime may be
positively or negatively sanctioned, furthermore whether certain crimes may
simply be accepted or tolerated.
‘So how does a society distinguish whether an act is regarded as criminal or
not?’ Within every society there are collective sentiments. It is these shared
values and moral beliefs of a society, which will inevitably deem whether an act
is portrayed as criminal or not. Consequently, ‘How does a society discern
between crimes that have been committed by numerous members of society, each of
a different societal status?’
For Example, murdering another member of society is believed to be a criminal
offence and the punishment resulting from this act is presumed to be negative.
However, say for instance if a soldier in a war murders multiple people, as a
result of saving his own life and taking orders from his seniors, would murder
in this sense be termed deviant and would it be positively or negatively
sanctioned? Within our society the soldier would be seen as heroic, fighting for
his country and risking his own life beyond the call of duty, the soldier would
most definitely be positively sanctioned say by a medal or such reward.
Conversely, if an ordinary member of society shoots somebody and as a result of
the act the victim dies, this would also be seen as murder; however the person
who committed the criminal act would not be positively sanctioned instead they
would be negatively sanctioned and discredited from the society in which they
stemmed from. But don’t you find this extremely contradicting? Both persons
intent was to kill so aren’t they both committing the same criminal act but just
in different circumstances?
And if murder is seen as a criminal act should it matter about the context in
which it was committed? From this example it is apparent that a murder not only
deviates from society’s norms and expectations, but also from its values and in
this case the value placed on human life.
In general, aren’t we all criminals? Many of us have watched a film when
underage, purchased cigarettes, alcohol and even had sex when under the legal
age limit. All of which are considered to be a criminal offences, but are they
considered to be as criminal as murdering another person? The question raised
here is not what crime is, but how we can distinguish between the numerous
hierarchal levels and severity of the crime committed?
Emile Durkheim was a Functionalist and therefore sees crime as functional. He
argued that crime is inevitable and a normal aspect of social life. He stated
that without crime society would stagnate. Durkheim imagines a ‘society of
saints,’