SOC100H5 Chapter Notes - Chapter 5: Victimless Crime, White-Collar Crime, Criminal Law

• School: UTM
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOC100H5
• Professor: Nathan Innocente

Document Summary

What is a norm to some people is deviant to others. People commit deviant acts only when they break a norm and cause others to react negatively. Deviance: departure from a norm that causes others to react negatively. Crime is relative as well what is considered a crime in some times and places is considered perfectly normal in other times and places. Law: a norm stipulated and enforced by the government. Formal punishment: results from people breaking laws, penalization by judicial system for breaking the law (prison, fine) Informal punishment: mild sanction that is imposed during face-to-face interaction rather than by judicial law (shaming, gossip, stigmatization) Stigmatization: process of negatively evaluating people because of a visible marker that distinguishes them from others. Types of deviance and crime vary in terms of severity of social response, perceived harmfulness, public agreement. Some crimes are more common, rates vary over place and time among diff. groups.