Crime and Punishment   1491w

Crime at its simplest is an act prohibited by law upon pain of punishment (Hall-Williams 20). Theorists such as McCabe (20:49) stated that no word in legal and criminological terms could define the word crime for the varying content in which an act is categorized. Due to the broad spectrum surrounding crime, differing understandings about human subjects and premises lead to the development of several theories, assumptions, and forms of criminal law. Michael and Adler (203:2) are often cited as an example of the legal description of crime: “the most precise and least ambiguous definition of crime is that which defines it as behaviour which is often prohibited by the criminal code”. The extending of the definition of crime is heavily debated among sociologists and criminologists. The most notable focus on this is presented through Thorsten Selin, a famous sociologist of his time. Sellin (1938) argued that the criminal law reflected the values of powerful interest groups rather than the moral standards found in the general population and like Seager (1993:59) who stated that crime was “a form of social construction influenced by social locations and power relations in society”, believed that, what is defined as criminal could vary over time and different societies. This was further emphasized by his explanation that crime and criminal were an uncertain subject matter that should not be applied to the strict and structured terms and subjects of study defined by non-scientists. Rather, crime and criminal should be a term that allows scientists the ability to define their own terms using concepts that