Social Construction of Crime & Deviance

On This Page:

Social construction of crime and deviance is the theory that behaviors and actions are not inherently criminal, but are labeled deviant by those in power within a social context. What a society defines as deviant depends on norms, values, and interests of the powerful and privileged at a particular time and place.

Key Takeaways

Definition: The social construction of crime refers to the idea that crime is defined by social norms and power structures rather than being inherently wrong. What counts as “criminal” can vary across cultures and historical periods.
Context: Laws and moral judgments reflect the values of those in power, meaning that some behaviors are criminalized while others are ignored based on social influence and politics.
Variation: Acts considered crimes in one society—such as alcohol use or same-sex relationships—may be legal or accepted in another, showing that definitions of crime are not universal.
Implication: Viewing crime as socially constructed highlights how labeling and inequality affect who gets punished and how justice systems operate.
Critique: Critics argue that while definitions of crime are socially shaped, some harmful actions—like murder or assault—have real consequences beyond social interpretation.

What does it mean to say crime is “socially constructed?

The idea that crime is socially constructed is one of the most important insights in sociology.

It challenges the assumption that certain acts are naturally wrong or inherently immoral.

Instead, it argues that what counts as a crime is decided by societies, not discovered in nature.

According to interpretivist and conflict perspectives, crime is a product of human definitions, cultural norms, and power dynamics, rather than a fixed moral reality.

This means that no act is automatically criminal in itself — it becomes criminal only when a society labels it that way.

Key ideas:

Crime is defined through social agreement: What counts as “criminal” depends on what most people in a society agree is unacceptable.
Nothing is criminal in itself: From a sociological point of view, no act is automatically wrong or criminal — it only becomes so when society labels it that way. For example, drinking alcohol is legal in many countries but illegal in others.
Statistics reflect social decisions: Sociologists who take an interpretivist approach argue that official crime statistics don’t just reflect reality — they’re shaped by the choices of police, courts, and other authorities about what to record and how.

How is a social construct different from a legal definition?

The main difference is that a social construct is based on people’s shared meanings and reactions, while a legal definition is an official rule written into law.

Feature	Social Construct (Sociological View)	Legal Definition (Law)
What it is	A shared social meaning about what counts as deviant or wrong.	A formal rule written into law.
Who decides	Shaped by culture, public opinion, and group reactions.	Created and enforced by the state (government, police, courts).
How flexible it is	Very flexible — varies by culture, time, and context.	More rigid — laws apply equally in theory, though not always in practice.

So while the law tells us what is officially criminal, sociologists look at why certain behaviors are criminalized, who benefits from those laws, and how society’s views about crime change over time.

Who decides what counts as a crime?

Defining crime isn’t simple — it’s influenced by politics, power, and social attitudes. Key players include:

Governments and Lawmakers: They create and enforce legal definitions of crime through laws and the criminal justice system.
The Powerful and the Elite: Conflict theorists argue that those in power shape laws to protect their interests — for example, by criminalizing behaviors associated with the poor while overlooking white-collar crimes.
Moral Entrepreneurs: These are people or groups who campaign to make certain behaviors illegal (like activists pushing for bans on smoking in public places or drunk driving laws).
Agencies of Social Control: Police, courts, the media, and the public all help to define crime through their responses, decisions, and labeling of behavior.

In short, crime is what powerful groups decide it is, and these decisions often reflect deeper issues of inequality and control.

How has the concept of crime changed over time?

What societies consider a crime has changed dramatically through history — reflecting shifts in culture, power, and morality.

From taboo to normal: Many acts once seen as shocking or deviant are now widely accepted. Examples include divorce, homosexuality, and tattoos.
Changing punishments: In the past, people were flogged or branded for crimes that now result in fines or community service. The modern prison system only became common in the 1800s.
Power and prejudice: Laws often mirror social and political power. For example, early U.S. drug laws targeted Chinese immigrants and poor Black communities more harshly than wealthy users.
Crime as a force for change: Sociologist Émile Durkheim argued that crime can be useful — it challenges outdated laws and pushes society to evolve. For example, protests and civil disobedience have sometimes led to fairer laws.

Examples

Face Coverings (Coronavirus: The Lockdown Laws)

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, most people in Western countries didn’t wear face coverings in public.

But when the virus became a major health crisis, that quickly changed.

Not wearing a mask in busy indoor places — like subways or supermarkets — started to be seen as careless and even dangerous to others.

Over time, local and national governments introduced laws requiring people to wear masks in public spaces, sometimes specifying which types were acceptable.

People who refused to comply could be denied entry to public places, fined, or, in rare cases, arrested.

Although some groups resisted mask mandates, public opinion shifted rapidly. What had once been normal — going without a mask — began to be viewed as irresponsible.

Within months, wearing a mask became widely accepted as the right and considerate thing to do.

The War on Drugs

Between 1986 and 1992, the United States launched a major campaign known as the “War on Drugs”, largely focused on crack cocaine.

Politicians from both major parties pushed for tougher drug laws and harsher punishments (Reinarman & Levine, 1995).

Crack cocaine in particular became a public obsession. In 1985, cocaine use was mostly hidden in private homes and offices, used by wealthier people.

But by 1986, crack had become visible on city streets, especially in poor neighborhoods. It was sold cheaply and seen as linked to crime and social disorder.

The media and politicians described crack as “the most important cause of America’s problems,” and both political parties competed to appear “tougher on drugs.”

This campaign led to severe consequences: harm-reduction programs such as needle exchanges were rejected, drug users were heavily stigmatized, and thousands — disproportionately from poor and minority communities — were imprisoned for drug-related offenses.

Homosexuality

For much of modern history, homosexuality was illegal and considered immoral or pathological. In the United States, all 50 states criminalized same-sex relationships until 1961.

By 2003, these laws had been struck down nationwide.

Homosexuality was also classified as a mental illness (Kirk & Kutchins, 1992). Over time, legal challenges and activism by the LGBTQ community helped shift both laws and public attitudes.

This activism led to greater social acceptance and legal rights — including same-sex marriage. Public opinion changed dramatically: in 1997, 68% of Americans opposed same-sex marriage; by 2021, 70% supported it (Gallup, 2021).

What was once criminalized and pathologized became increasingly accepted as part of mainstream life.

Spanking

Spanking — once widely accepted as a normal form of discipline — has become a controversial and morally charged topic.

Supporters have traditionally seen it as a way to teach children discipline, show consequences, or uphold religious values.

Some argue it helps parents and children “reset” after conflict (Davis, 1994).

Critics, however, argue that spanking damages trust, increases fear, and teaches that violence is acceptable.

Over time, the language used by critics has shifted — from saying spanking is ineffective to describing it as compulsive, harmful, and even addictive.

Research in the mid-20th century linked physical punishment to higher aggression in children, challenging older beliefs about discipline.

At the same time, the child protection movement of the 1960s and 1970s helped redefine spanking as a form of violence.

By the 1980s, advocacy groups were actively campaigning against corporal punishment, and today, spanking is often seen as a form of child abuse rather than an acceptable parenting practice.

Bullying

Bullying can take many forms — from verbal abuse and exclusion to gestures, eye contact, or vandalism (Furedi, 2001).

In the United Kingdom, the issue of workplace bullying gained significant public attention in the 1990s.

Campaigners argued that it was widespread and damaging, and surveys suggested it affected far more workers in the UK than in other European countries.

Anti-bullying advocates skillfully avoided political controversy and framed victims as ordinary people deserving sympathy.

They also linked bullying to a broader concern about rising incivility and antisocial behavior in society.

As a result, bullying became recognized as a serious social issue.

By 2010, workplace bullying and harassment were explicitly addressed under the Equality Act, marking a major shift from something once ignored to something seen as unlawful and unacceptable.

Implications

The idea that crime is socially constructed has huge implications.

It shapes how laws are written, how they’re enforced, and who ends up being called a “criminal.”

This perspective challenges the idea that laws are neutral reflections of right and wrong.

Instead, it shows how power, politics, and social interactions all play a role in deciding what counts as crime and who gets punished.

To understand this better, we can look through three main lenses:

Conflict Theory – how those in power shape the law to protect their interests
Labeling Theory (Symbolic Interactionism) – how people are defined as “criminal” through social reactions
The Social Construction of Official Crime Statistics (OCS) – how recorded crime figures reflect bias in enforcement rather than true crime levels

1. How Laws Are Made (Power and Definition)

If crime is socially constructed, then laws are not fixed moral truths—they’re products of human decision-making, shaped by those with influence.

Power and Conflict Theory

Conflict theorists argue that laws serve the interests of the powerful, not society as a whole.

Protecting the Powerful: The law helps preserve the interests of the ruling class by criminalising behaviour that threatens their power. For example, Richard Quinney claimed that those with money and influence define as “criminal” anything that could harm their interests.
Selective Law-Making: Governments are often reluctant to regulate big businesses if it risks reducing profits. This helps explain why white-collar crimes (like corporate fraud) are punished less harshly than street crimes.
Unequal Sentencing: A clear example is the historic U.S. sentencing gap between crack cocaine (used more by poorer communities) and powder cocaine (used more by wealthier individuals). This showed how laws can reflect and reinforce class inequality.
Moral Entrepreneurs: Individuals or groups can also push their own moral views into law. These “moral entrepreneurs” decide what counts as deviant or acceptable behaviour, influencing public opinion and policy.

Functionalism and the Purpose of Law

Even functionalist thinkers, like Émile Durkheim, who saw laws as expressions of shared values, admitted that they serve social purposes rather than reflecting any eternal truth.

Marking Boundaries: Laws help set limits on acceptable behaviour, helping societies know where “the line” is.
Driving Change: Ironically, crime itself can lead to social progress—when enough people challenge outdated laws, society adapts (for example, changing attitudes toward homosexuality or cannabis use).

2. How Laws Are Enforced (Bias and Discretion)

Even after laws are made, they’re not enforced equally. The justice system is influenced by stereotypes, social biases, and political pressures.

Selective Enforcement (Conflict and Marxist Theory)

Conflict theorists point out that law enforcement focuses more on the powerless than the powerful.

Street Crime vs. Corporate Crime: Police and courts pay more attention to street crimes committed by poorer people than to white-collar crimes committed by the wealthy.
Racial and Class Bias: Minority groups are more likely to be arrested, charged, and given harsher sentences for the same crimes as white offenders.
Political Pressures: Sometimes, police downplay or reclassify crimes to make statistics look better—for instance, recording a burglary attempt as property damage. Likewise, new technology like CCTV can make crime “appear” to increase simply because more offences are detected.

Police Stereotyping (Interpretivist View)

Interpretivists believe that Official Crime Statistics (OCS) reveal more about policing behaviour than about actual crime.

Crime as Interaction: Crime statistics are the outcome of interactions between police and the public, not objective facts.
Labelling and Bias: Police may use stereotypes about who looks “suspicious”—often young, working-class, or Black men—so these groups appear more often in arrest data. This doesn’t mean they commit more crime; it means they’re watched more closely.

3. Who Gets Labelled a Criminal (Identity and Consequences)

Being labelled a “criminal” isn’t about what you do—it’s about how society reacts to what you do.

The Labelling Process (Symbolic Interactionism)

Labelling theory says that deviance is not in the act itself, but in the label attached to it.

Creating the Deviant Self: Once someone is labelled as deviant, they may start to see themselves that way, reinforcing the behaviour. This is called secondary deviance.
Master Status: The label “criminal” can become a master status, overshadowing all other aspects of a person’s identity (e.g., “He’s an ex-convict” rather than “He’s a father” or “He’s a musician”).
Stigma and Exclusion: Once labelled, people face stigma—rejection and discrimination that make it harder to reintegrate. For example, people with criminal records often struggle to find employment, which can trap them in a cycle of reoffending.

Unequal Power to Label

Not everyone has the same chance of being labelled a criminal. Those without power—especially the poor and racial minorities—are more vulnerable.

Class Bias: Working-class youth are more likely to be criminalised than middle-class youth who commit similar acts. The classic study of the “Saints and Roughnecks” showed that poorer boys were labelled “troublemakers,” while wealthier ones were seen as harmless pranksters.
Racial Bias: Young Black men are often stopped, searched, and arrested more frequently than others, even when they haven’t broken any laws.
Victimhood as a Social Construct: Even the status of “victim” can be socially constructed. Those with power can shape who is recognised as a victim—and who isn’t—by controlling which harms are legally acknowledged and which are ignored.

Critical Evaluation

Is Crime Really Just a Social Construct?

The idea that crime is completely “socially constructed”—a key belief in interpretivist and conflict theories (like labelling theory and Marxism) – suggests that behaviour only becomes “criminal” when society decides to label it that way.

While the idea that crime is a social construct highlights the role of power and social reaction, it doesn’t tell the whole story. Other theories remind us that:

Some acts are universally condemned.
Real people and communities suffer real harm.
Crime often has measurable social and psychological causes.
And, in many cases, individuals still make choices—however constrained—about their behaviour.

Crime, then, is both social and real: it’s shaped by society, but it also shapes society in return.

1. Some Acts Are Universally Seen as Wrong (Functionalism and Shared Morality)

Social constructionists argue that nothing is naturally criminal—it only becomes criminal when society defines it that way.

But Functionalist thinkers, such as Émile Durkheim, believe there’s a shared moral core in all societies that helps explain why certain acts are condemned everywhere.

Moral Consensus: Across cultures and throughout history, acts like murder, theft, and unprovoked violence have almost always been seen as wrong. This suggests there’s some basic, shared moral understanding, not just arbitrary rules made by those in power.
The Collective Conscience: Durkheim saw laws as an expression of society’s collective conscience – its shared beliefs and values. In this view, crime isn’t random; it helps society reaffirm what’s acceptable and strengthen social bonds.
Some Crimes Are Simply Harmful: Even if definitions of deviance shift over time, certain acts – like child abuse, rape, or murder—are almost always viewed as harmful and destructive. So, saying crime is only a social invention overlooks the very real damage these acts cause.

2. Ignoring the Causes of Crime (Strain and Structural Theories)

Labelling and interactionist theories often focus on what happens after someone is labelled a criminal -how that label shapes their identity and future.

But critics argue that this neglects the original causes of crime, or what’s known as primary deviance.

Structural Causes:

Strain Theory (Merton): People may turn to crime when they can’t achieve socially accepted goals (like wealth or success) through legitimate means. For example, poverty and lack of opportunity can push some toward theft or fraud.
Social Disorganization Theory: Crime rates are higher in areas with weak community bonds, poverty, and social instability. These are measurable, real-world conditions—not just labels.

Labeling theory explains how society reacts to deviance, but not why the deviant act happened in the first place.

Critics say it overlooks human agency and the deeper social or economic forces that lead to crime.

3. Crime Is a Real Problem, Not Just an Idea (Realist Criminology)

Left Realists partly agree with constructionists that crime definitions are shaped by power -but they argue it’s dangerous to ignore the real suffering caused by crime, especially in disadvantaged communities.

Real Victims: Crime isn’t just a label—it has victims. Poor and minority communities are often the most affected by burglary, assault, and street violence. Ignoring this by calling crime a “social construct” risks dismissing their lived experiences.
Poverty and Risk: Left Realists point out that poverty increases a person’s risk of becoming both a criminal and a victim. They argue that tackling inequality – through jobs, education, and housing—is a better response than simply redefining what “crime” means.

4. Problems with the “Pure Construct” View (Methodological and Logical Issues)

Critics also question whether it’s even possible to study crime scientifically if it’s treated as entirely subjective.

Official Crime Statistics: Positivist and structuralist researchers (like functionalists) rely on Official Crime Statistics (OCS) to study crime patterns. Constructionists reject these as biased, but if all statistics are “constructed,” it becomes impossible to identify or measure trends at all.
Circular Reasoning (Tautology): Labeling theory can seem circular: if something is only criminal because it’s labelled as such, then we can’t explain why the act occurred before the label was applied. Critics argue this makes objective study difficult and limits the theory’s usefulness.

5. Crime as Individual Choice (Control and Rational Choice Theories)

Some criminologists focus less on society and more on the individual, arguing that crime is the result of personal traits or conscious decisions rather than social labels.

Low Self-Control Theory: This theory claims that people commit crimes because they have low self-control, often developed in childhood. Crime, in this view, reflects personal impulsivity rather than social construction.
- However, critics say this oversimplifies things—self-control can change over time, and environment and opportunity also matter.
Rational Choice Theory: This perspective sees crime as a calculated decision. Offenders weigh risks and rewards before acting—like deciding whether the payoff from theft outweighs the risk of getting caught.
- Still, this view is also limited. Many crimes (especially violent or emotional ones like murder) are impulsive, not rationally planned.

References

Becker, H. (1963). Outsiders-Defining Deviance.

Chambliss, W. J. (1973). The saints and the roughnecks. Society, 11(1), 24-31.

Cook, P. J., Morris, N., & Tonry, M. (1980). Crime and Justice: An Annual Review of Research.

Davis, P. 1994. The changing meanings of spanking. In Troutbling Children: Studies of Children and Social Problems, edited by J. Best, 133-53. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.

Furedi, F. (2001). Paranoid parenting.

Gibbons, D. C. (1968). Society, crime, and criminal careers: An introduction to criminology.

Hay, D. (1975). Property, authority and the criminal law.

Heidensohn, F. (1989). Crime and society. Macmillan International Higher Education.

Jones, G. M. (1987). Elderly People and Domestic Crime: Reflections on Ageism, Sexsm, Victimology. the British Journal of Criminology, 27(2), 191-201.

Kinsey, R., Lea, J., & Young, J. (1986). Losing the fight against crime. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Kirk S.A. & Kutchins H. (1992) The Selling of DSM. The Rhetoric of Science in Psychiatry. Aldine de Gruyter, Hawthorne.

Maxfield, M. G. (1984). The limits of vulnerability in explaining fear of crime: A comparative neighborhood analysis. Journal of research in Crime and Delinquency, 21(3), 233-250.

McCarthy J. (2021, June 8). Record-High 70% in U.S. Support Same-Sex Marriage. GALLUP. https://news.gallup.com/poll/350486/record-high-support-same-sex-marriage.aspx

Reinarman, C., & Levine, H. G. (1995). The construction of America’s crack crisis. Am, 30, 2001.

Schneider, J. W. (1985). Social problems theory: The constructionist view. Annual review of sociology, 11(1), 209-229.

Smith, D. A. (1986). The neighborhood context of police behavior. Crime and justice, 8, 313-341.

Spector, M., & Kitsuse, J. I. (1973). Social problems: A re-formulation. Social problems, 21(2), 145-159.

Tappan, P. W. (1947). Who is the Criminal?. American Sociological Review, 12(1), 96-102.