著者

土井 隆義

出版者

社会学研究会

雑誌

ソシオロジ

巻号頁・発行日

vol.33, no.2, pp.61-76,188, 1988

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The sociology of crime has provided a number of explanations about motives for crime up to this day. As the basis of these theories, there is the background-hypothesis which assumes that the individual is motivated to crime previous to concrete offences as a result of the internalization of unfavorable social environments. But this background-hypothesis doesn't notice the view that the reality of motives is constructed through the social interaction process where actors request explanations of behaviour. This particular view is a result of advancements of the sociology of knowledge, especially as promoted by C. W. Mills early work and his followers'. The motives for crime cannot be exceptions to this result, because the reality of crime is also socially constructed.<br> The labelling theory is the most appropriate of all theories to approach the study of the motives for crime from the perspective of the sociology of knowledge. This is so because it succeeded in introducing the conception of relativity into the definition of crime and made it quite clear that a definition of crime is constructed through the prosesses of interaction where actors demand categories of deviance. Of couese, in relation to the motives forcrime, the current labelling theory shares the above background-hypothesis with other theories of crime , which is evident in the problem which treats the increasing motives for crime as a never ending vicious circle. It is an extension of the cultural learning theory. However, it is possible for the motives of crime to be removed from the realms of this background-hypothesis by virtue of the labelling theory, if implications in the concept of a definition of crime are put into the perspective of motives for crime.<br> Accordingly, it is very fruitful to examine the possibility of studying motives for crime from the perspective of 'a definition of crime' as it occurs in the labelling theory. Such examination leads to a study of motives for crime as seen from the perspective of the sociology of knowledge, because it enables us to step back and reinterpret our attitudes in relation to the motives for crime in daily life. In short, labelling of criminal acts involves the construction of mitives for crime and the imputation of them to the actors. Therefore, it is possible to say that the motives for crime reveal themselves, not before concrete criminal acts, but after them. And they must be treated not as mental facts but as social facts, because we construct the motives for crime within the paradigms of the interpretation of acts in daily life, based on a common perception of the meaning of human behaviour.