what is sociology of crime and deviance?

Answer 1

Well this is basically criminology(the study of crime, how it effects both perpetrator and victim, and it's motivators) but instead of having a strong psychological flavour or legal viewpoint like in courses of respective departments in a university, the sociology of crime and deviance would focus on how society is connected with crime..Since the aspects in question would encompass pehaps the whole of the causes of crime, it's quite a broad field. Since deviance is connected, this topic may focus on how breaking society's norms can attribute to making a criminal.
Like I said the topic is quite broad but not investigated enough. Hope this helps!

Answer 2

Let's start with sociology. Sociology is the study of society - while psychology often focuses on a single person, sociology talks about how people and groups interact in society. For example, one group of people burns down another group's church. A sociologist tries to figure out why by looking at factors like:

+ Gender (did mostly males do the burning?)
+ Race/Faith (was this done because of religious beliefs?)
+ Class (is this more common in poorer areas?)

So the sociology of deviance and crime is studying the reasons and factors behind criminal acts (like murder, stealing, or physical assault) and deviance (what makes one man deviate from society by shooting a bunch of innocent people?). You'd also study measurements of deviance, the ideas of being "normal", the effects of culture, and so forth.

If you want to get a better idea of this, check out textbooks or course descriptions. For example, one site says:

"This course provides an exciting and dynamic way to investigate some of the main problems of order (probation, police, prisons…) and disorder (crime, addictions, counter-cultures, riots, crimes against humanity…) in contemporary society. The course follows an historical trajectory. It traces the development of modern criminology from its classical European origins in the 18th and 19th centuries, through to its connections with American ethnography and structural functionalism in the first half of the 20th century, its development as a radical critique of society in the 1960s and 1970s and into its current preoccupation with various forms of left and right realism. The main theoretical debates on the course will focus on feminism, realism, postmodernism and Marxism."

As you can see, this one focuses on the history of crime, and big theories like Marxism that influence how we understand crime. If you're taking a class about this, that'll definitely be a big part.

Another says "This subject explores the potential of classical and contemporary sociological theory to explain crime and deviance. Theories ranging from Marxism and structural functionalism to symbolic interactionism, Bourdieu's ideas of field and habitus and Weberian concepts of social stratification and rationalisation are explained and then used to help understand both contemporary and historical social problems. Topics such as suicide, sexual assault and sport, the witchcraze of the 17th and 18th Centuries, terrorism, religious cults and racism are covered to show how sociological theory can be used both to explain how society defines deviance, as well as why people commit crime and cause harm. Students completing the subject will have a grounding in a range of sociological theories that will enable them to understand and critically assess problems of crime and deviance."

So if you're taking a course in this, be prepared to learn about how we define deviance, what makes people commit crimes, how we can analyze and understand crime, and historical crimes that helped to shape our theories about it.

Hope this helps!