Sociological explanations of crime, deviance and social control in a democratic South Africa

RC29 – Deviance and Social Control.

SESSION B – THE SOCIOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS OF DEVIANCE, CRIME AND SOCIAL CONTROL.

Sociological explanations of crime, deviance and social control in a democratic South Africa

Prof Rialize Ferreira, Department of Sociology, University of South Africa (UNISA), Pretoria, SA. Ferrer@unisa.ac.za

ABSTRACT

Although several diverse theories could be applied to explain crime and deviance, the functionalist and Marxist perspectives are useful to explain and analyze crime and deviance in South Africa. Functionalism focuses on societal stability, while the viewpoint also exists that a certain amount of deviance contributes to stability in situations of rapid social change and lack of social integration as it occurred in South Africa over the last two decades. Marxism on the other hand, emphasizes unequal distribution of power and resources and links deviance to inequality, profit and subordination. These are macro-structural approaches considering society as a whole in developing explanations of deviant behavior. These approaches are used to explain crime and deviance in South Africa, with special reference to the transition from an authoritarian, apartheid state to democracy after 1994, corruption which is rife, the history of poverty, the role of a weak state bureaucracy and the criminalization of the state, and the globalization of crime effecting South African societal structures.