Deviance To Crime Essay

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From Deviance to Murder
Life is a series of good and bad for all individuals, but some cannot always handle the pressure. As a result, these individuals begin looking for alternative methods to obtaining their goals and achieving happiness and positivity in life. A common solution to inequality of power, prestige, and property is to deviate from the norms and risk getting to caught to obtain more resources and wants.
Deviance, the act or behavior of violating cultural norms, can be either formal or informal. Not all deviant acts result criminally. When focusing on crime, formal deviance comes into play due to the violation of formally enacted laws. However, acts and behaviors that are considered deviant are culturally determined and often vary. Once the formally enacted laws are broken, a crime has taken place.
Crime is highlighted in either the consensus view, conflict view, or interactionist view. The consensus view identifies crime as offensive to the whole society. Substantive criminal law is a reflection of the beliefs and values acceptable to the current society. Consensus emphasizes the existence of a community wide agreement stating which behaviors should be classified as crime. This means that the existing legal structure of the society establishes the rules and beliefs and function together as crime when disobeyed. The conflict view views society in a constant conflict due to the fact that it is filled with several diverse groups. Groups with more power are capable of progressing their position via law and the criminal justice system. It seems that criminal laws are put into effect in order to protect the wealthier groups from the poor. Conflict view protects the upper classes’ power and position by adding to the low...

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...els. Merton theorized that the social imbalance served as the key cause of crime and deviance. Individuals will always want what they cannot obtain. Therefore, their forceful drive will cause them to deviate from the acceptable means and begin committing unacceptable acts. Murder erupts when poorer individuals begin envying or becoming jealous of what wealthier individuals have. They see an opportunity to arise when they weaken the victim’s power and are able to take control. The retreatists and the rebels typically occupy the position of law-breakers. Retreatists reject both cultural goals and the goal behavior, and rebels reject both but substitute their own goals and means of achieving those goals.
Murder is a prevailing problem throughout the United States today. It takes the life of many innocent individuals, and it is typically driven by jealousy and other .

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