Chapter 8: Law, Deviance, Crime and Society

The social values, norms and institutions that are set to guide the human relations and behaviours or establish a framework and create the boundaries are greatly important in the process of maintaining a relatively coherent and harmonious social life in a certain order. The peace and trust could be provided in a society by a legal order in which fundamental human rights and freedoms are protected. ere are various religious, customary, moral and legal rules that enable people to live in a collective way and prevent disorder, excessiveness and uncontrolled behaviours by guiding their behaviours. These rules, which do not exist in nature, are peculiar to human societies, and they emerge and develop with society and again change with society. The rules and value judgments are the fundamental parts of social life and social reality. Like other social concepts, the rules of law also emerge and develop in the same society, and interact with different sides of society, depending on the conditions of place and time.

Values, Norms, and Social Rules

Touching upon the basic social rules and principles that are passed on to new generations by the education process and transformed into the legal system and the written rules as a whole will provide a better understanding of the concepts of law, deviation, crime and social control. These basic concepts can be pointed out as values, norms, anomies, religious and moral rules, customs and traditions and fashions.

• Values: In the process of achieving a certain degree of social life; the values serve an important function in terms of determining which attitudes and behaviours are right or wrong, fair or unfair. It is possible to define social values as basic abstract principles or generalized moral beliefs that guide our attitudes and behaviours. Everything in the life of a society is perceived according to values. Values are the principles such as freedom and equality that define the ideal principles of what is desired and right in a society or group. Values might create conflict in the same way that they provide behavioural rules.
• Norms: Values gain efficiency through norms. The social norms emerge in the form of religious rules, moral rules, manners and customs, etiquette and legal rules in social life. The norms are cultural rules, which arise with the reward and punishment system and affect the individuals’ behaviours. All cultures, subcultures and groups have distinctive and specific norms that direct correct behaviours. e acts and laws, rules about clothing, games and sports, etc. all reflect social norms.
• Anomie: The concept of anomie, which refers to normlessness and irregularity, was firstly used by the Durkheim, a French sociologist, in his work “Suicide.” Durkheim defined anomie as a state of irregularity that prevents the individuals, who become incapable of knowing which norms to determine as criteria when they need to act, from integrating with society.
• Religious Rules: Religion could be described as the institutionalized system of symbols, beliefs, values, and practices that respond to the feelings of a certain group of people regarding the sacred one and provide answers to questions about final interpretations. Religions bring a set of codes of conduct for individuals and meet them with some sanctions. The believers of a religion take into account the requirements of religion and norms in their social lives and regulate their behaviours accordingly. In this context, the most important function of religion from past to present has been to contribute to the integration of society as a means of social control.
• Moral Rules: In a narrow sense, morality is the whole set of rules that an individual’s conscience refers to when defining certain behaviours as “right” and “good”. The conscience is the means of control in moral rules. The most important difference between morality and legal rules is the systematic and organized formation of legal rules, although moral rules are scattered and unorganized.
• Manners and Customs: The manners and customs are the social norms which arise spontaneously and gradually, though they are not explicitly put in place by any society, and which manage the relations within a society. Its sanctions are social pressures. The norms that have been repeated for a long time by the majority of the population and characterized by what we have mentioned are called the customs. The social norms, which are comprised of the same qualities and are subject to a very high degree of evaluation, are called the manners.
• Fashion Rules: Fashion comes from the word modus, meaning “limitless” in the Latin language. It is an expression of the appearance that the individual can get according to his/her lifestyle. The impressions that are shared with the “other” with regard to who and what are the components that also regulate social relations and build identities. The fashion is the temporary changes that are socially approved on everyday subjects with manners and customs.

Social Life and Law

When we look at the historical development of the law from a sociological point of view, it could be said that the religious life is at the root of the legal rules. It has been thought that the rules that are imposed in order to maintain the continuity of societies should be based on a superhuman and supreme power. The understanding that the arbitrariness of individual behaviour could be restricted to a supreme power outside the individual has been effective in this. Every society creates its own law to ensure its own order. There is a legal system in all societies such that the life of a community that does not have any legal order in the historical process has not been found yet. The legal rules are products of social reality in which they are born and developed just like the religion, morality, manners and customs, and they reflect all of its characteristics. A certain harmony is required between legal rules and ever-changing social life conditions. ere are occasional disconnections between social conditions and law. Law must constantly renew itself in order to close these gaps. The law is there to be enforced, if the violation of orders and prohibitions are no longer an exception, the reasons for it must be known.

The function of law as a social concept can be listed as the following:

• Defines the members of the group and determines mutual relationships
• Resolves disputes
• Regulates the behaviours
• Ensures that the social power is organized and legitimizes it
• Develops the living conditions
• Protects from external hazards
• Realizes the legal organization

In addition to this, we can also classify the functions of legal rules in three main categories in terms of their effects. These categories are as follows:

• Oppressive: The laws might be more or less challenging. ere is physical pressures at various levels in social control systems.
• Facilitating: The laws ensure the expectations about behaviours and make them predictable.
• Ideological: As a belief system, the ideology is rejected in legal rules and it emerges, depending on certain values.

Sociology of Law

The sociology of law began to be shaped as a science in the 20 ^th century, Grotius and many thinkers from Leibnitz and many historians, ethnologists, criminologists, sociologists and jurists who lived in the 19 ^th century have made important contributions to the establishment of the sociology of law as a science. The forerunner of sociology and sociology of law is Aristotle in the first age and Montesquieu in modern times.

The sociology and law are usually seen as two disciplines and bodies of knowledge. In western societies, sociology and law have developed within professionally defined, different institutions and bodies of institutions. Nevertheless, both areas have very similar considerations and they are concerned with social relationships, values as well as social regulation. On the other hand, the sociological analysis of law focuses on the effects of ideas on the doctrine of law. However, these ideals are not accepted as given thoughts, and their origins and social conditions and practices are tried to be understood. From a sociological point of view, the legal rule is a means of social control, and therefore a legal rule has realities in the conduct of human behaviour or court decisions to the extent that it is realized. It is the task of sociology of law to ask the most important questions in processes such as how the rules of law are interpreted and whether the witnesses remember their observations correctly.

The general characteristics of the sociology of law could be listed as follows:

• It determines the law as a social phenomenon.
• It investigates the relationship between legal developments and social change.
• It examines the social events that influence the formation of the concept of law.
• It examines the formation and development of legal rules in the course of history.
• It touches upon the types of legal organization.

In addition to these, the subjects that are studied by the sociology of law are as follows:

• Justification, functions, placement and evolution of social control systems
• Legal forms of thought in relation to a particular political economic order
• Legitimating principles and effects
• Transfer of correct legal forms of interpretation
• The evolution of the legal language system, the levels of constraint or freedom in the legal order.

Deviance

It is not an easy task to define deviance. Deviance in the daily language means departing from a recognized path and refers to actions that do not fit the expectations and norms of a particular social group. In general terms, deviance could be defined as the visible violation of cultural norms. Since the norms direct almost all human activities, the limits of the concept of deviance are as broad as possible. For this reason, deviance encompasses the violation of group norms that are not legally expressed or are not mentioned in the law. Deviance could be rewarded, punished or accepted without penalty or reward. The common aspect of deviant behaviours or attitudes is that there are some differences that cause us to think of the individual we face as an outsider. Deviances do not always involve an action or preference. Even the presence of some people could be a problem to others; For young people, for example, the presence of elderly people the presence of coloured people for some whites or the unfavourable gaze of healthy people towards the disabled and the rich people keeping away from the poor.

Deviance is closely related to the social structure and culture from which it emerges as a social phenomenon. The social bases of deviance could be listed as follows:

• Deviance varies depending on cultural norms. No thought or behaviour is deviant by itself, but they become deviant in terms of their relation to certain norms.
• People become deviant because the others qualify them as such.
• The definition of norms and violations of rules by societies involves social power.

Crime

The crime phenomenon encompassing legal, sociological, psychological and religious aspects is mainly a category of deviance. e crime phenomenon that emerges as a result of social life in a general sense refers to behaviours against the rules that hold the society together.

Crimes could be dealt with in three main groups:

• Crimes against a person (crimes of violence), murder, battery, rape and robbery, etc.
• Crimes against property: Theft, robbery, arson, etc.
• Crimes without a victim, crimes without a visible victim.

We can also point out that some types of crimes by exemplifying them such as organised crime, white-collar crimes and cyber crime.

Criminological studies usually ignore half of the population. For feminists, criminology makes women invisible in theoretical and objective studies and argues that it is a male-dominant discipline. There are contradictions between the crimes committed by women and men. e crimes committed by women are almost always minor crimes and involve very rare violence. According to Flowers, crimes of disturbance of public order such as shop theft, disturbing the environment under the influence of alcohol and prostitution are typical female offences.

We can point out that there are certain categories of crime in which men are more likely to be aggressive and women are victims. Domestic violence, sexual harassment, sexual assault and rape are the crimes in which men use their social and physical strength against women.

Explaining Deviance

We can evaluate the approaches towards explaining the deviance mainly in three groups, namely, biological, psychological and sociological theories.

The initial studies aimed at explaining deviance and crime are biological in nature. Early explanations for deviance have focused on an evolutionary return to primitive ancestors or genetic factors such as bad blood or supernatural causes. In the 19 ^th century, research was carried out especially on biological factors leading to criminal activities and deviance. Afterwards, the focus was on specific personality characteristics. Physiological and biological theories have argued that some individuals genetically tend to be more prone to deviance than others. e first work in this sense was provided in 1870 by Cesar Lombroso, an Italian criminologist who suggested that the types of criminals could be detected by certain anatomical features. Lombroso, who made analyses at prisons, suggests that the criminals resemble humans’ ape-like ancestors. Lombroso examined the physical properties of criminals such as skull and forehead shape, jaw size and limb length, and suggested that they exhibit features from earlier stages of human evolution and that they return to primitive forms of humanity. Lombroso acknowledged that social learning could affect the emergence of criminal behaviour, but he was of the opinion that many criminals are impaired or flawed.

On the other hand, psychological theories focus on the psychological structure of an individual, rather than on his/her physiology. It is accepted that the deviance disease or anomalies are based on the mind, rather than body. In the course of explaining deviance and crime, the focus is on types of personalities. e initial criminological investigations were conducted in institutions such as prisons and mental hospitals. Psychological theories have been criticized for such reasons as ignoring social and cultural factors, lacking a strong and common understanding measured among psychologists with regard to what mental health is and how personality characteristics should be measured and also the inadequacy of studies conducted to support the psychological approach. Another criticism is that the emphasis is only on the childhood, and the lifelong effects of various lifelong social and cultural factors on the personality are ignored.

Sociological theories of crime, yet, are related with deviance focus on the differences between criminals and normal individuals along with the social environment affecting the individual. It is very important that the concepts of deviance, crime and violence are analysed and understood on a sociological basis. The sociological approach defines deviance as violation of accepted rules and infraction, and emphasizes who deviates, personality characteristics affecting the deviance and the importance of investigating their life conditions. At that point, it will be useful to highlight the common points before moving on to the original ideas of theories. When these theories, which have been developed through the 20 ^th century, are evaluated, the following common points stand out.

• Deviance is seen in all societies and comprised of functions that can be useful from a social point of view. When these functions are resolved, the crime will be better understood.
• Deviance depends on conflict. Social strata are related to interests especially economic ones.
• Deviance is related to the tension, constraint and stress within society.
• Deviance is strongly related to modern urban life.
• Deviance is learned from daily life situations.
• Deviance is caused by the lack of commitment to group values and the principle of compliance with laws.

We should also bear in mind that different sociological approaches in the history of sociological thought approach the issue of deviance from different, sometimes conflicting, ways.

Social Control

The concept of social control refers to the strategies and techniques aimed at preventing the deviant human behaviour in a society in order to achieve social order in a broad sense. These strategies and techniques might emerge in all levels of society. Social control is, in a sense, an attempt to regulate the thoughts and behaviours of a society and people, and everyone in a society is subject to social control. We are socialized within family to obey our parents because they are our parents. e groups of friends, universities, bureaucratic organizations and governments set social norms and ensure that their members comply with them. Deviance might deal with formal and informal sanctions, as required by social control. However, the process of social control is usually informal, as in the case of parents who rebuke their children or young people who mock their friends because of their way of dressing.

The Social Control Theory emphasizes the socialization process in terms of creating compliance with social norms, just like the functionalist theory that it stems from. The theory of control has been supported with many concrete data such as higher crime rates in big cities where personal ties decline in the social context. The theory emphasizes the imbalance between stimuli for criminal activity and social or physical controls that prevent it. The theory, which is less interested in the motives that the individuals have in the course of committing a crime, assumes that the individuals behave in a rational way, and when given the opportunity, everyone would exhibit deviant behaviours.

The control theorists interpret the best policy as taking practical measures aimed at controlling a criminal’s ability to commit a crime rather than changing the criminal. e installation of closed- circuit television systems in urban centres and public areas is aimed at preventing the criminal activity. However, such policies are likely to cause other consequences. As the popular crime targets become more difficult, the crime patterns may shift. For example, the new steering wheel lock, which is mandatory in the UK, is not compulsory for old cars. This situation has caused the thieves to direct their targets towards the old cars.

Deviance and Crime in Turkey

One of the earlier studies on the factors that direct people to crime in Turkey consists of very useful data that provide an insight into today. It could be argued that these factors are still valid today as well. According to this study, the factors of crime were indicated as follows; Reasons related with family: marital status, higher rate of crimes committed by singles, illegal relationships, disintegration of family and the children of divorce committing higher number of crimes. Especially in cities with high population density, the crimes related to property are committed in higher numbers. The manners and customs create a substantial impact on directing people to commit crime. According to the literature today, crime is related to factors such as education, social groups, social stratification, family relationships, socio- economic status, income, environment, personality traits and mental health.

According to a study conducted by Ozcan, we can list the causes of the increase in crime rates in Turkey as follows:

• The rate of increase in urban areas is higher than that of rural areas. is is caused by the problems encountered by individuals who try to integrate with a new social environment through urbanization and internal migration.
• These are the rapid changes that occurred in recent years in Turkey both socially and economically. It has been found out in studies that the families get further fragmented and the individuals from these fragmented families get involved in higher number of crimes.
• Punishment of crimes is insufficient.