Deviance
Definition
Behaviour that violates social norms, whether or not it is also illegal. Criminology studies deviance as well as crime because the boundary between them shifts with time, place, and law, and because many harmful behaviours fall outside formal criminal law.
Related terms
- Crime prevention
- Strategies and interventions aimed at reducing the incidence or severity of crime before it occurs. Includes situational prevention (modifying environments to reduce...
- Criminology
- The scientific study of crime, its causes and distribution across populations, the operation of criminal justice institutions, and strategies for prevention and...
- Dark figure of crime
- The gap between the actual volume of crime and the amount recorded in official statistics. Crimes go unrecorded when victims do not...
- Penology
- The branch of criminology concerned with the theory and practice of punishment and imprisonment. It examines the aims of punishment (retribution, deterrence,...
- Victimology
- The sub-field of criminology that studies crime victims: their characteristics, the victim-offender relationship, the impacts of victimisation, and the adequacy of legal...
Explained in
- What Is CriminologyBehaviour that violates social norms, whether or not it is also illegal. Criminology studies deviance as well as crime because the boundary between them shifts...