Social Crime And Social Construction

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Crime is seen to just exist however, that is not the case. It is argued that crime is created through society and that crime is both a social fact and a social construction. We are told daily about the problems in which we are facing from crime by politicians through the media. From this it is argued that crime is in fact a social fact and a social construction. Throughout this essay it looks at what exactly is a social construction and a social fact and if crime is in fact both a social construction and a social fact, it will also look at one of the main theories which will help draw a conclusion to if crime Is both a social fact and a social construction. It is argued that all behaviors which end up as a crime is done through the process …show more content…

Moral Panic was first used by Stanley Cohen in 1972 which was seen in his book ‘Devils and Moral Panics’. In this he described the power in which the media had, by using the 1960s “mods” and rockers” teenage groups who behaviour was seen as threatening the British culture. It has been said that over the last decade moral panic has effected a pattern shift in the social construction of deviance and social problems (Thompson and Greek, 2012). Moral Panic tends to show fears regarding issues that are centre to society. Examples of moral panics which have taken place in the past include the mods and rockers, mugging and sex and HIV. The mods and rockers is one of the most well-known one when it comes to moral panic, Cohen wanted to find out what caused moral panic and he looked at this issue. The mods and rockers were two groups, one group was extremely conscious about what they wore and the rockers were more of a stereotypical biker gang. The two gangs started to have scuffles at a holiday resorts, but nothing major. However, headlines of blow what had happened out of proportion, with headlines saying “‘Day of Terror by Scooter Groups’ (Daily Telegraph), ‘Wild Ones Invade Seaside – 97 arrests’ (Daily Mirror)” (Luce, 2013). From this, people started to look at youths as trouble makers and just causing crimes. Which in fact they were not and it was only a small group of people in society. However, the media made it look like it was all youths, so from this societies perspective on certain groups had changed and things which were ok before had now become as deviant behaviour or criminal. This shows the crime is both a social construction and a social fact because something which society didn’t

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