The Social Construction of Crime

Crime is not a natural category — it is defined by laws, which are created through political processes influenced by power, interests, and social movements. Conflict theorists argue that laws disproportionately criminalize the behavior of the powerless while the harmful actions of the powerful — wage theft, environmental pollution, financial fraud — are treated as regulatory violations rather than crimes. Wage theft (employers withholding pay) costs American workers an estimated $50 billion annually — far exceeding all property crime combined — yet it is rarely prosecuted criminally. The sociological question is not just 'who commits crime?' but 'whose harmful behavior gets defined as criminal?'