SOC208H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: White-Collar Crime, Differential Association, Edwin Sutherland
Document Summary
Background perspectives on the origin of law: law is a formal perspective of social control, there are 2 forms, consensus perspective. Law emerges to embody and reflect the strong, majority sentiment of the population. Murder, robbery, and assault = bad (even if there wasn"t specific laws stating that) Law reflects successful actions by certain groups with enough power to legislate according to their own interests. In england, the law made it a crime to give charity to anyone who had a job or was of sound mind. The plague got rid of half of the population, so a law made it illegal for someone to refuse a job, ask for a raise, etc. Goal was to reinforce cheap manual labour. The ability to make choices by virtue of control over political, economic, or social resources. Powerful people (or organizations) often define standards for deviance and the law (lobbyist groups and white collar crime)
