Sociology 1020 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Differential Association, Racial Profiling, Social Constructionism

• School: Western University
• Department: Sociology
• Course: Sociology 1020
• Professor: Kim Luton

Document Summary

While crime and deviance are universal phenomena, there are no universal forms of crime and deviance. What counts as crime and deviance varies by ime and place. Crime and deviance also vary by how serious they are judged to be. The more serious the ofense, the more severe the punishment. Crime and deviance can be studied as objecive behaviours and social constructs. Objecivists and construcionist perspecives tend to ask diferent, thou not necessarily compeing, quesions about crime and deviance. Oicial counts of crime and deviance underesimate the amount of crime and deviance occurring in society. There is an inverse relaionship between the seriousness of crime and deviance and the frequency of their occurrence. The homicide rate is generally regarded as the most valid and reliable measure of criminal acivity in the community. Canada s crime rate has been declining over the past several decades. There are signiicant variaions in rates of crime across the country.