An Introduction to Crime and Deviance

Criminological knowledge as it relates to concepts of deviance have been stagnating. Historically, new texts contain very little new knowledge. They have tended towards the recycled rather than the original. Old theories are posited over and over again, with little consideration or regard to whether they even apply in the current universe of criminal behavior. New editions rarely contain little more than new case studies as if this somehow keeps them contemporary. At best, many works offer a different spin on old approaches or theories. It is for these reasons that we have endeavored to make this book a little different, and by extension more useful. This opening chapter provides a brief overview of what constitutes a crime and some background to the criminal law as well as the construction of deviance. This will provide a useful lens through which an examination of specific crimes and deviances can be undertaken. Throughout, reference is made back to constructions of deviance with discourse on a variety of different crime types including sex offending, stalking, assault and domestic violence, and through a variety of different deviances, including sexual deviance, cults, and gun ownership. The remainder of this text will discuss specific crimes and deviances with a view to providing the reader with an understanding of their constitution and execution, how they are socially or legally constructed, their incidence and their prevalence. In this way, the reader will be left with an understanding not only of what constitutes the specific crime or deviance, but also how often they occur and how much of a social problem they are. All this will be done through comparison with three main geographic areas: North America, Asia-Pacific, and Europe. In this way, research from around the world can be utilized and compared to other locations with a view to providing not only an examination of a certain crime, but also how that region fares in comparison to others.