Critically discuss why defining crime and deviance is complex and dependant on a number of factors. Introduction Criminologists have extensively researched to find or create an indefinite definition of crime but are still struggling to explain what crime and criminals really are. Crime is a constantly changing notion which has been created by society. A variety of different factors such as time and culture, can affect what is interpreted as a crime. People sometimes refer to crime as being a legal concept, however it is more realistically a combination of legality and morality. This is because the known legal definition of crime is unsurprisingly prejudiced to shadow the values of those in power as they can influence the law to suit their own motives. Definition …show more content…
These seem like well-known terms with simple definitions that everyone understands but there have been discussions and debates about the definitions of them for many years (Norris & Coleman, 2002). The legal definition is often cited to be 'the most precise and least ambiguous definition of crime is that which defines it as behaviour which is prohibited by the criminal code' (Michael & Adler, 1933). But since then, people have recognised that it was more complicated than that. If any person who broke the criminal law was criminal, then how are they to be identified by criminologists? Is there not a different between a person who murders and a person who downloads movies? Therefore, it was decided that the more secure way to decide who was branded as a criminal and who was not were whether they had been convicted of a crime (Norris & Coleman, 2002). A conclusive measure of crime does not exist as there are many different definitions of crime rather than one, single definition (Fogg, 2014). Social