Blackwell Reference Online

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Imputations of deviance occur whenever there is stigmatization, condemnation, segregation, retribution, or rehabilitation. Criminalization refers to the process of applying the criminal law to certain behaviors. Criminalization reinforces the dominant standards in a society through threatened criminal penalties, criminal prosecution, and punishment. Not all deviant behaviors are criminal. Many scholars study the processes through which, and conditions under which, the criminal sanction is applied to particular deviance categories. To change the status of a deviant category to a crime requires collective action. Thus studies of the criminalization of deviance reveal the links between deviance, political action, and social change. The dominant approaches to studying criminalization are the deviance and social control viewpoint, which asks whether criminalization is a neutral process or if it serves the interests of the powerful, and the social problems viewpoint, which looks at the social meanings, or collective definitions of crime. In his highly regarded book The Politics of Deviance , Edwin M. Schur offers a definitive statement about the social processes of characterizing behaviors and conditions as deviant: “When people engage in organized political activity on deviance issues they are, in fact, intentionally trying to ensure that a particular balance of power will tip in their ... log in or subscribe to read full text