U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government, Department of Justice.

NCJRS Virtual Library

The Virtual Library houses over 235,000 criminal justice resources, including all known OJP works.
Click here to search the NCJRS Virtual Library

Social Functions of the Criminalization Process (From Selected Issues in Criminal Justice, 1985, P 24-39, Helsinki Institute for Crime Prevention and Control - see NCJ-133290)

NCJ Number
133293
Author(s)
A Yakovlev
Date Published
1985
Length
16 pages
Annotation
Criminalization of certain activities occurs when those acts of individual conduct are deemed to be dangerous for the dominant social relations and are therefore qualified in law as criminal, criminally punishable, and unlawful.
Abstract
The criminalization process depends on the social scale of normative values which are codified into rules of law but which also exist informally as societal norms and professional ethics. The social functions of the criminalization process are characterized by a discrepancy. On one hand, the criminal law cannot avoid the polarizations rooted in social consciousness and stereotypes, but on the other hand, it cannot be identified with those stereotypes. In reacting to social realities, the criminalization process influences the development and improvement of social relations and updates the existing social class structures. 20 references