Seven: Breaking the Law

When we think of crime, we often distinguish between violent crime, in which people are subjected to or threatened with violence; and nonviolent crime, which does not involve subjecting people to, or threatening people with, violence. This is a legal distinction, not a sociological one. But violence itself is viewed as legitimate when carried out by the state. The state can be thought of as a monopoly on legitimate force, needing to have a military to protect its external borders and law enforcement to protect people from one another within. If a police officer uses force to restrain or arrest a resistant suspect, she is not engaging in deviance (though in the U.S. police are expected to both uphold and obey the laws of the land, and a police officer who uses force deemed excessive faces legal sanctions). Nor is a soldier fighting for her country, even if that violence is lethal, resulting in the deaths of other human beings, if those deaths are enemy combatants. A boxing match is not deviant, provided of course it takes place in a carefully controlled setting like a boxing ring and not a spur of the moment exchange of blows in a barroom (this would also be considered a crime). People are willing to accept violence, even a great deal of violence, provided they view it as legitimate; they will often tolerate little illegitimate violence, and so violent crimes are usually the most heavily policed and severely punished.