The Social Construction of Deviance

Crime refers to acts that contravene or breaks the criminal (formal) laws of society. Many, but not all, are often regarded as deviant as well.
What constitutes a crime seems easy to define, as the law states what a criminal act is. However, interactionist sociologists like Newburn argue that no act in itself is criminal. To interactionist sociologists an act only becomes a crime when a particular label of 'crime' has been applied to it, and even similar acts can be treated quite differently depending on the reaction of others (including the law enforcement agencies) in society to it, and the context in which it takes place. For example, killing someone is not in itself a criminal act. But if it happens during a knife fight outside a pub in Britain, it's likely to be defined as criminal, but not if the knife fight takes place with an enemy soldier in wartime.
Newburn also points out that even if a crime is defined as whatever the law says it is, the fact is that a criminal law varies from one country to the next, and that crime changes over time, reinforce the idea that there is nothing that is in itself criminal. Howard Becker reinforces this by pointing out that crime is only that which we label as such and that terms like crime and deviance are relative i.e. related to time, place and context. Even when an act appears to be against the law, the fact is that the police and other criminal justice agencies have to interpret or make a judgement about whether that behaviour is prohibited.
Interactionist sociologists suggest that terms like crime and deviance are therefore socially constructed. By this they mean that because we can demonstrate that there is nothing in itself criminal and that what is seen as criminal involves decisions made by the police and others that crime and deviance are based on societal reactions and not on fact.
Many sociologists have developed the idea that crime or deviance are social constructs i.e. not 'real' things in their own right, but simply invented through the ideas that people in a society/group have and the way these ideas make them behave in relation to these things.
The idea of 'social constructionism' is very popular, particularly amongst Interactionist sociologists such as Howard Becker. Becker argued that no particular behaviour is deviant - deviance is simply behaviour that some people in society react to and identify or 'label' it as 'going against what is acceptable/right'.
However, despite accepting the basic idea of social constructionism, theories like Feminism or Marxism have different views to Interactionists about who or what has the power to 'construct' (invent) deviance in a particular way.

Strengths

• Crime is created by society
• Looks at social processes
• Helps to explain patterns in OCS
• Alternative to structural/positivist theory

Weaknesses

• People use as an excuse to commit crime
• Too Sympathetic
• Not focused on background of offender
• Subjective- difficult to prove