Crime, Deviance and Types of Crime
What it is
Unit I asks what crime is and maps its forms: crime as a legal, social and psychological construct within the wider field of deviance; traditional, victimless and family-centred crimes; communal and caste conflict; and modern forms from organised and cyber crime to terrorism. Statutes follow the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) 2023, which replaced the IPC on 1 July 2024, as of 2026-10.
Core concepts
Crime as a legal, social and psychological construct. Legally, Tappan (1947) defined crime as an intentional act or omission violating criminal law, committed without defence or justification and sanctioned by the state. Its elements are a human being, mens rea, actus reus and injury. Mala in se are wrong in themselves; mala prohibita only because prohibited. Socially, Durkheim held an act criminal because it offends the collective conscience, and crime normal and functional. Psychologically, crime reflects personality, learning and disorder (Eysenck, Crime and Personality, 1964).
Deviance and crime. Deviance is any breach of social norms; crime is the part the criminal law forbids. Not all deviance is crime, and not all crime is felt as deviant (petty tax evasion). Lemert (1951) split primary deviance, which leaves self-image intact, from secondary deviance, a role adopted after societal reaction. Becker (Outsiders, 1963) held that deviance is created by the labels others apply, not by the act itself.
Traditional crimes against property and person. Property crimes (formerly IPC ss. 378–462) are graded in the worked example. Person-centred protection: women by rape (BNS s. 63) and by stalking, voyeurism and acid attack, added in 2013 after the Justice Verma Committee; children by the POCSO Act 2012 (gender-neutral, under 18); LGBTQ persons by NALSA (2014, third gender), Navtej Singh Johar (2018, consensual adult same-sex acts decriminalised) and the Transgender Persons Act 2019; marginalised groups by the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989. Men: the BNS rape offence and the PWDVA 2005 protect only women (as of 2026-10).
Victimless crimes. Edwin Schur (Crimes Without Victims, 1965) named consensual offences with no complaining victim. Alcoholism: Art. 47 asks the State to work towards prohibition. Drugs: the NDPS Act 1985 grades small and commercial quantities and, by s. 64A, spares addicts who volunteer for treatment. Beggary: many state laws follow the Bombay Prevention of Begging Act 1959. Commercial sex: the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act 1956 punishes brothel-keeping, soliciting and trafficking, not adult sex work as such. Suicide: IPC s. 309 was upheld in Gian Kaur (1996); the Mental Healthcare Act 2017 presumes severe stress, and the BNS keeps only s. 226, an attempt to compel a public servant.
Family-centred crimes. The Dowry Prohibition Act 1961 punishes giving or taking dowry. Dowry death (BNS s. 80, formerly IPC s. 304B) is a woman's unnatural death within seven years of marriage after dowry-linked cruelty soon before death: seven years to life. Cruelty by husband or relatives (BNS ss. 85–86, formerly s. 498A) is cognizable and non-bailable. The PWDVA 2005 is civil, covering physical, sexual, verbal and emotional, and economic abuse. Child abuse falls under POCSO and the JJ Act 2015.
Community problems and hate crimes. Communal and caste conflicts grow from competition for land and status, political mobilisation and rumour. The BNS retains offences of promoting enmity between groups (formerly IPC s. 153A); the Protection of Civil Rights Act 1955 and the SC/ST Atrocities Act apply; Tehseen Poonawalla (2018) laid down guidelines against mob lynching. A hate crime is motivated by bias against the victim's group identity; BNS s. 103(2) punishes murder by five or more on grounds such as race, caste or community with death or life imprisonment.
Organised and transnational crime. Organised crime is continuing, profit-driven crime by a structured group using violence and corruption (Cressey, Theft of the Nation, 1969). After state laws such as MCOCA 1999, the BNS defines organised crime (s. 111). The UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (Palermo, 2000) defines an organised criminal group as three or more persons, a serious crime as one punishable with four years or more, and has three protocols: trafficking in persons, migrant smuggling and firearms. India lies between the Golden Crescent and the Golden Triangle.
Economic and corporate crime and corruption. Sutherland coined white-collar crime (1939): crime by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation. Clinard and Quinney split it into occupational crime (for oneself) and corporate crime (for the firm), as in the Bhopal gas leak (1984). The Santhanam Committee (1962–64) led to the CVC (1964; statutory 2003); the Prevention of Corruption Act 1988 has punished bribe-giving since 2018; money laundering falls under the PMLA 2002.
Development-induced and environmental crime. Dams, mines and urban projects displace people, breeding dispossession, slums, land conflict and land grabbing; the land acquisition law of 2013 replaced the 1894 Act with social impact assessment and resettlement. Environmental crimes fall under the Wild Life (Protection) Act 1972, Water Act 1974, Air Act 1981 and Environment (Protection) Act 1986, with the National Green Tribunal since 2010. M.C. Mehta v Union of India (oleum gas leak, AIR 1987 SC 1086) laid down absolute liability for hazardous industries.
Cyber crime, media and technology. David Wall's elimination test asks what survives without the internet: cyber-assisted crimes continue by other means, cyber-enabled crimes (phishing) shrink to local scale, cyber-dependent crimes (hacking, malware) vanish. The IT Act 2000 (amended 2008) punishes identity theft (s. 66C), cheating by personation (66D) and cyber terrorism (66F); Shreya Singhal (2015) struck down s. 66A. Media drive moral panics about folk devils (Stanley Cohen, 1972) and trial by media; technology aids control through CCTV, DNA and CCTNS.
Terrorism, insurgency, and crime and politics. Terrorism is violence against non-combatants to spread fear for political or ideological ends; insurgency is an organised armed movement to overthrow or secede from a state, often holding territory. Laws: TADA 1985 (lapsed 1995), POTA 2002 (repealed 2004), the UAPA 1967, the NIA Act 2008 and the BNS terrorist-act offence (s. 113). The Vohra Committee (1993) exposed a criminal-politician-bureaucrat nexus; Lily Thomas (2013) made a convicted legislator sentenced to two years or more disqualified at once.
Worked example
Grading property crimes by their deciding element. Classify six incidents (the BNS keeps the IPC definitions). Ask in order: how did the property reach the accused, was there consent, was there instant fear, and how many took part?
| Incident | Deciding element | Offence |
|---|---|---|
| A slips B's phone out of B's bag on a bus | Movable property moved out of possession without consent | Theft |
| A threatens to post B's photos unless B pays; B pays next day | Delivery induced by fear of injury | Extortion |
| A pulls a knife in a lane and takes B's wallet | Theft with fear of instant hurt | Robbery |
| Four men rob a truck at knifepoint while a fifth keeps watch | Robbery by five, counting those present and aiding | Dacoity |
| A finds a wallet with B's ID card and keeps the cash | Came innocently, then dishonestly converted | Criminal misappropriation |
| A cashier moves entrusted cash into his own account | Entrusted property misappropriated | Criminal breach of trust |
Step 1: theft needs movable property taken without consent; moving it completes the offence. Step 2: in extortion the victim delivers, but consent is induced by fear, and the property may be immovable. Step 3: in all robbery there is theft or extortion; extortion becomes robbery only if the offender is present and the fear is of instant death, hurt or wrongful restraint. Incident 2 therefore stays extortion. Step 4: dacoity counts those who commit plus those present and aiding: 4 + 1 = 5, meeting the threshold. Step 5: property received by chance gives misappropriation; by entrustment, criminal breach of trust.
Common traps
- Reading "victimless" as harmless: Schur meant no complaining victim, not no harm.
- Defining white-collar crime by the act: Sutherland defined it by the offender's status and occupation.
- Treating a threat of future harm as robbery: without presence and instant fear it is extortion.
- Swapping cyber-enabled and cyber-dependent: only cyber-dependent crimes vanish without the network.
- Saying Shreya Singhal struck down s. 66: it struck down s. 66A only.
Speed technique
- Property ladder: theft, plus fear is extortion, plus instant fear and presence is robbery, plus five persons is dacoity.
- Old-to-new: IPC 304B to BNS 80, 498A to 85–86, 302 to 103, 378 to 303.
- Number anchors: seven years (dowry death), five persons (dacoity, mob lynching), three persons and four years (Palermo).
Check yourself
- Who wrote Crimes Without Victims?
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Edwin Schur, 1965 — consensual offences with no complaining victim. - Within what period of marriage must a woman's unnatural death occur to be a dowry death?
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Seven years — BNS s. 80, formerly IPC s. 304B. - Which case struck down s. 66A of the IT Act?
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Shreya Singhal, 2015 — vague and overbroad under Art. 19(1)(a). - Lemert's term for deviance adopted as a role after societal reaction?
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Secondary deviance — primary deviance leaves self-image intact. - Under the Palermo Convention, how many persons make an organised criminal group?
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Three or more — acting to commit crimes punishable with four years or more.
Try it: Crime, Deviance and Types of Crime questions
Real questions from the NET Criminology bank on exactly this skill. Pick an answer to see the full solution — the intuition, the worked steps, the faster methods and the traps.
Match the thinkers in List – I with the ideas or works associated with them in List – II and choose the correct answer from the options. List – I (Thinker) | List – II (Idea or work) --- | --- (a) Paul Tappan | (i) Crime and Personality (1964) (b) Emile Durkheim | (ii) Deviance as the product of labels that others apply (c) Hans Eysenck | (iii) Crime as an intentional violation of criminal law, without defence or justification (d) Howard Becker | (iv) Crime as an act that offends the collective conscience
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Answer: option D
Tappan (1947) gave the legal definition of crime as an intentional act or omission violating criminal law, without defence or justification (a – iii); Durkheim held an act criminal because it offends the collective conscience (b – iv).
Eysenck explained crime through personality in Crime and Personality (1964) (c – i); Becker argued in Outsiders (1963) that deviance is created by the labels others apply (d – ii).
So matching List I, from "Paul Tappan", gives a – iii, b – iv, c – i, d – ii, option D.
Conduct such as failing to renew a vehicle's registration, which is wrong only because a statute forbids it and not because it is inherently evil, is classed as:
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Answer: option B
Mala in se are acts wrong in themselves, such as murder, rape or theft, condemned in almost every society.
Mala prohibita are acts wrong only because the law prohibits them, such as regulatory and licensing offences, so failing to renew a registration belongs here.
So such conduct is classed as mala prohibita, option B.
Under David Wall's elimination test, which of the following would disappear entirely if the internet were removed?
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Answer: option A
Wall's test asks what is left of a crime when the network is taken away: cyber-assisted crimes, such as planning a burglary by app, go on by other means.
Cyber-enabled crimes, such as phishing or online fraud, fall back to smaller, local versions, while cyber-dependent crimes, such as hacking and malware, exist only because of networked computers.
So the crime that vanishes is hacking a server to plant malware, option A.
Read the following Assertion (A) and Reason (R) and choose the correct answer from the given options: Assertion (A) : Under the NDPS Act 1985, an addict charged with consuming a drug, or with an offence involving a small quantity, who volunteers for de-addiction treatment can escape prosecution for that offence. Reason (R) : The NDPS Act prescribes the same punishment for every drug offence, whatever the quantity involved.
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Answer: option C
Assertion: s. 64A of the NDPS Act gives immunity from prosecution to an addict charged with consumption or a small-quantity offence who voluntarily seeks de-addiction treatment; the assertion is true.
Reason: the Act grades punishment by the quantity involved, separating small from commercial quantities and reserving the heaviest sentences for commercial quantities; the reason is false.
So the assertion "Under the NDPS Act 1985, an addict…" is true but (R) is false, option C.
Consider the following two statements: Statement I: The POCSO Act 2012 protects only girls below the age of eighteen. Statement II: Under the BNS, the offence of rape in s. 63 can be committed against a person of any gender. In the light of the above statements, choose the correct answer from the options.
Show the answer and worked solution
Answer: option B
Statement I: the POCSO Act 2012 is gender-neutral and protects every child, boy or girl, below eighteen; Statement I is false.
Statement II: BNS s. 63 defines rape as an offence by a man against a woman, so it does not extend to male or transgender victims; Statement II is false.
So Statement I, "The POCSO Act 2012 protects only girls…", and Statement II are both false, option B.
Answer above — every one shows its working.