CRIME AND SOCIETY

INTRODUCTION
When we talk about crime and society it becomes important to know about both the term i.e.
crime and society. So the first question to be asked is: What is crime?
A crime is an act, omission or event, the commission of which is prohibited by law, and
which if committed leads to prosecution by and in the name of the state rather than an
individual person and, upon conviction, to punishment of some form administered by agents
of the state rather than the payment of compensation.
Therefore from the above definitions, we can define crime to mean any wrong morally or
socially committed by one or group of person against another person or state that are
prohibited by the state and when convicted punishment if inflicted by the state rather than the
individual wronged person.

There are different types of crime such as; crimes against

person, crimes against property, organized crimes, occupational crimes, and political crimes
as well as corporate crimes.
Crime has three main elements:
(A) Crimes are acts prohibited by law. A hidden assumption is the definition of law.
(B) Crimes so defined are prosecuted by agents of the state/government, not by private
individuals.
(C) The result of a conviction is a punishment, not compensation to the injured party (if
there is one).
The second question is: what is society?
The term society has been derived from a Latin word socious that means association and
companionship. Thus society means A larger group of individuals, who are associative with
each other. According to sociologists, a society is a group of people with common territory,
interaction, and culture. Social groups consist of two or more people who interact and
identify with one another.

Insofar as it is collaborative, a society can enable its members to benefit in ways that would
not otherwise be possible on an individual basis; both individual and social (common)
benefits can thus be distinguished, or in many cases found to overlap.
A society can also consist of like-minded people governed by their own norms and values
within a dominant, larger society. This is sometimes referred to as a subculture, a term used
extensively within criminology.
Characteristics of society:
For language, work division and living in society, food, air, and water are essential. Some
requisites are inevitable for systematic and regulated co-ordination of society. It is necessary
to have different roles and conditions of people in any society.
Language is necessary for communication between them. Nature, style and grammar of
language may vary. In Society, every active member of the society is also a sociologist
because he has some information about society for residing in it and for participating in its
activities. On the basis of this knowledge, he thinks about his social life, about his family,
neighborhood, city, village and nation, becomes a member of a group, participates in religion,
tradition, custom and culture and solves day-to-day problems of life.
Explaining the characteristics of society in the book Sociology of India, it is said that every
human society appears similar to other human societies and basically social interaction and
social relations to appear the same in all-human societies. Along with this many social
institutions like marriage, family, brotherhood etc also exist in every society in one or the
other form. Every society is face a large number of social problems i.e. poverty slums,
unemployment, prostitution etc. Besides these there are some characteristics which are
common to every society.
Every society has some certain characteristics, which are unique. Any type of societies
primitives, rural, urban, tribal of civilized are identified different from other society due their
unique characteristics. A number of outcome of culture appear different in two similar
societies. In this way for the study and analysis of every society, different concepts and
principles are made.

Societys role in defining crime

Crime is basically defined through the eyes of society. An act is not a crime until society
doomed it to be and if society considers some act not opposed to their group sentiments than
that act is not crime at all. Crime is an act which offends and threatens the society and thus
such acts need to be punished. The basic reasons behind making of law are to penalize those
who commit crime and these laws are the result of societys need to stop happening of such
act. Example can be taken to understand it better- much earlier witchcraft was considered as
crime and was punishable. At that time people were very religious and believed in black
magic or witchcraft and thought that witches were helping devil in his evil work. So
witchcraft became crime and also a ground to prosecute someone believed to be practicing
witchcraft.
Society plays an important role in defining crime as this leads to making of law which will
prevent it from happening. Societys outlook on particular act is important in defining crime
because, for example, if society doesnt consider giving bribe as crime then itll will not be
counted as crime and no law will made on that although it morally incorrect.

Role of popular media images of crime

The media have a significant influence on the general portrayal of crime in society. The
images that permeate popular consciousness of crime are mainly generated by, and reflected
in, the electronic and print media. Obviously the media have tremendous impact in terms of
how crime is generally defined in society.
According to the media, in both fictional and factual types of programmes and reportage,
crimes tend to be defined primarily as street crime. Such crime is thus associated with
personal terror and fear, and violence is seen as central. Crime is sensationalized, with
important implications for the fear of crime among certain sections of the population. This
fear is heightened by the way in which crime is seen to be random in nature, with anyone and
everyone a possible target for victimization.
As well, there is often the idea that crime is related to morality, an specifically to the decline
of that morality. What is wrong is plain for all to see. Furthermore, the criminal is
distinctive and identifiably different from everyone else in society. Overall, the idea is that

there is a continuing law-and-order problem in society, and that thing is constantly getting
worse.
The media are important not only in shaping our definitions of crime and crime control, but
introducing legal changes and reinforcing particular types of policies strategies. It has been
demonstrated that the interests of the police and the media are entwined; they have a
symbiotic relationship in that the media rely upon the police for much of their information,
and the police use the media to portray certain images relating to their work.
The media thus convey a sensationalized image of crime, and a protective view of police and
policing practices- and they make unusual events usual events in our life.

Changes in crime
Over a period of time with the change in society many changes in crime has also emerged
owing to the technology and innovations. Earlier it was the thinking of people that crimes
are mostly committed by the person of deprived class to attain materialistic things and to
attain that there were not much legitimate means so they opt to do it in illegitimate ways.
But not only crimes are done by poor people but also by rich people however they most of
the time manage to cover their traces of crime. A crime can be committed by anyone
regardless of their economical, political or social positions. It is suggested that crime does
not disappear it simply changes form. So, criminals learn newer and better ways to commit
crime. So, here are some crimes that emerged over the time with changes occurred in
society and technology:
(1) Cybercrime, also called computer crime, has become popular these days. The crime
is committed using computer as a means to commit illegal acts such as cyber
pornography, committing fraud, infringing intellectual property, stealing identities, or
violating privacy. Cybercrime, especially through the Internet, has become prominent
with the advancement of technology.
New criminal opportunities are created with the innovation in technology. Cybercrime
is generally an attack on information about individuals, corporations, or governments.
Although such attacks lack physical element, they do happen on the personal or
corporate virtual body as in the digital age our virtual identities are essential elements
of everyday life.

(2) White collar crime- Prof. Edwin Sutherland in 1941 introduced for the first time the
concept of White collar crime. He defined white collar crime as crime which are
committed by individuals of respectability and belonging to high class society.
Examples of such type of crimes include false advertisements, copyright or trademark
infringement, etc. generally committed by entrepreneurs, businessman, industrialists
and other persons of repute in course of their business in order to earn huge profits.
NEGATIVE IMPACTS OF CRIME
In most cases crime led to negative effect to the society economically, socially as well as
politically. The following are the negative impacts of crime in the society today:Hinders development in the society
Crime often hampers the development in the society. For instance, the increase in crime rate
compels the government to invest money in reducing the crimes instead of investing such
money into productive sectors. Huge sums of money is spent on building prisons, purchasing
instruments to combat crime as well as making payment to people involved in Criminal
Justice System. In this way, preventing crimes increases expenses of the government thereby
hindering the development of society.
Led to death of people
The number of people dying yearly increases with the increase in crime rate in a country.
Crimes led to death of people either directly or indirectly. Directly crime causes death
through violent crime like the one which took place in September 11 in 2001 in the USA
where terrorist attack at Pentagon and World Center killed approximately 2996 people and
more than 6000 people were injured.

Destruction of property

Property worth crores is destroyed due to crimes being committed. Destruction of properties
is one of the serious impacts of crimes in the societies. The crimes which result in damage to
property include vandalism, juvenile offences, and other violent crimes.
It increases the cost of living within the society.
The commission of crimes in the society also results in increase in cost of living in the
society. This comes about in several ways such as the cost taken by the society to prevent
crimes, cost incurred to investigate and prosecute criminal as well as the cost incurred by the
society in keeping those imprisoned for criminal doings. For example once the lawbreaker is
prosecuted he/she has to be incarcerated. Housing, clothing and feeding criminals is
expensive.

CONCLUSION
It can be concluded that the crime is a combination of different things in our life, the first and
the most important being money clear from the phrase money is cause of all evil". When
there is dearth of money and an individual is unable to fulfill his needs, then he commit
different types of crimes just to avail money. Another essential cause for committing crime is
the feeling of revenge. Crime and society, they both exist in society and their relation is
dependent on each other. A crime is always committed in a society as it is the society which
labels particular act as crime or not. And where there is society, crime is likely to happen
because of social conflict and other factors as explained above.