Order from us for quality, customized work in due time of your choice.
Introduction
Violating the law is criminal and regardless of the degree of criminality or indecency of an action, the regard of its being criminal only comes following its prohibition by the criminal law. The criminal laws are a set of rules determining the conduct of people defined through the powers of political authority. These laws ought to be applicable to all members of a community regardless of class and contrary action calls for punishment by the state. Specificity, politicality, penal sanction, uniformity and specificity define the rules determining the rules set by a state (Gomme, 1998). These components help in defining the activities of a criminal system in guiding the conduct of people. However, there are no clear-cut determinations of the acceptable human conduct. At the same time, the characterization of a criminal law only exemplifies an active concept of criminal laws. The varied rules defining criminal behaviors are through the determinations within treaties, common laws and constitutions as enacted by legislations.
Politicality
These focuses on violations of state set laws and not mistakes committed within constructs of families, churches and trade unions. Politicality focuses on the distinction of crimes in groups and those against the state regulations. These are groups without legislative authorities and cannot enforce legal punishment to offenders. In the Canadian laws, there are neglected statutes rarely enforced or only regarded in rare occasions leading to a lack of uniformity in their application. Since politicality is under the application of the state legislation, the Canadian system has a political guideline, which allows for the formation of criminal law by the federal government. However, the administration and enforcement of criminal law in Canada is a provincial responsibility, this allows judges to create modifications using case laws, and they set precedents. There are criminal laws with too many exemptions because of conscientious agreements from the public such as the laws regarding robbery and murder. These are offences taken to be bad in nature.
On the contrary, other offences have minimal consensus from the public, as there is their consideration of being less offensive such as cases of morality like pornography, drugs abuse, drunkenness in the public and prostitution (Dean and Gottschalk, 2011). There are controversies over such offences, as they raise concerns regarding over criminalization. There are claims of their being overt criminalization of activities not critically against the law while others feel their overlook may lead to the undermining of the law. It is not easy to enforce the legislation on morals of the public, that makes law enforcement hard, and there are possibilities of promotion of corrupt and discriminatory processes of law enforcement. This in turn diverts resources necessary for enforcing the law to fight serious crime to minor cases. Another issue is the representation of the majority populations interest through the criminal laws. This is because there are cases of disproportionate representation of interest from powerful fronts. Such issues have political influences especially during instances of moral offences.
Specificity
Specificity focuses on the differentiation of criminal and civil laws. Criminal laws give specifications for actions while the civil laws are general codes of conduct. The specificity of the criminal law is another important component. This focuses on two significant objectives of criminal laws in Canada. The focus settles on the capacities of preserving due processes and controlling of crimes. Crime control involves citizen safety as well as the safety of property. The Canadian law meets these objectives in its criminal law through a clear definition of the constitution of crimes and appropriate measurements for each scenario. At the same time, the system has set rules for guiding the due process for the protection of the rights of accused. It is specific on the requirements for evidence to provide evidence to have an offender convicted, legal capacities for seizures and searches and provides for the rights of bail and counsel for the accused (Young, 2009).
Objectivity and subjectivity are factors, which create debates on sociological considerations for societal norms. These nest upon the fact that societal norms have external links to individuals making them objective. The objective opinion of societal norms created an absolute assumption that the society has a consensus on proper and acceptable behaviors. They need to conform to societal expectations and in cases of nonconformity comes violation of the societal norms. There is a disagreement on factors comprising of criminal activities with sociologists attentions on the growing disagreements and the implications on the absence of consensus about what defines deviance. Subjective approaches focus on the constructions of societal norms and the means of applying social rules. They focus on the creation and determination of appropriate attributions, ideas and behaviors that are acceptable or unacceptable. For this aspect, deviance depends on the point of view of the observer, since what one society thinks as deviant may be a conformation on another society (Dean and Gottschalk, 2011).
Since the other component in the Canadian criminal laws worth considering is its specificity. It is also worth noting that this is the determination of exact and clear definitions of prohibited acts and the punishment that such an offence can face. This defines the extent of courts determination of maximum or minimum penalties for offences. However, in this section there is conflict in the efforts for meeting the goals and objectives for controlling of crime and maintaining the due process. Taking an extreme approach in one direction may be substantial for the reduction of crime, and that may on the other hand, lead to an increase of cases of mistaken punishment of innocent people. Subsequently, over protection of the rights of defendants creates a tough possibility for controlling of crime. Therefore, it remains that there is a serious tension for the striking of a reasonable balance between maintaining of the due process and controlling of crime.
Uniformity
Uniformity focuses on the provision of standard attempts of application of justice without any exceptions to persons because of aspects such as their social class. Perpetration of a crime is regardless of the individual and the process of law enforcement needs fair administration from commitment to the definitions of laws for all forms of crimes. There is a failure in the practice of the ideal and that leads to multiple forms of injustice and through the discretion of the police and the judiciary, chances of softening on some individuals occur. In the rigidity of laws, a system treats individuals with equal cognizance in all offences. However, the classification of offenders lead to individualization and that leads to the classification of delinquencies through negotiated processes creating a flaw in the application of equity (Dean and Gottschalk, 2011).
Uniformity focuses on the processes of courts, correctional institutions and police. The details of this section call for equal application of law to all citizens with consideration of extralegal components such as ethnicity, social class, gender and race as not factors to determine the application of punishment through criminal law. All personnel applying criminal justice ought to act based on legality and the nature of crime, prior record of the offender and seriousness of the crime (Stuart, 2010). In the legal constructs of the Canadian criminal law, the application of theory does not match with the application of legal and extralegal aspects of the criminal law. These make it necessary for ample consideration during practice and application of legal aspects of the control of crime (Dean and Gottschalk, 2011).
Penal sanction
Penal sanction also makes an orthodox component of the law. This defines the need for punishing or threatening offenders with punishment. It defines the capacity of punishment for an offence to create judgment for the penalty of a committed crime. On the focus of penal sanctions, the corrections system takes charge for applying all sanctions by the courts. In the Canadian laws, the seriousness of an offence determines the severity of sanctions. However, regardless of the means of compensating victims, the Canadian criminal law does not have adequate emphasis for restrictions as it leaves much of that process to civil courts. In the Canadian criminal law, there is little emphasis on restitution. That bit remains as a part of the civil law as much as there is provision for seeking monetary compensation from Canadian civil suits (Stuart, 2010).
Contemporary laws in Canada
The contemporary sociologists approach deviance from two approaches as being subjective humanists and objective positivists approaches. Both approaches have no valid denial of each others standpoints as the differences they possess are on the grounds of degree. Scientific tradition, positivist, and objectivist approaches are the aspects used by social scientists out of the understanding of the facts of variation of rules determined by space and time. For that matter, the Canadian pay attention on having explanations regarding the reasons for people behaving in a certain manner and people act in violation of social norms. The other focus looks upon means through, which there can be situation of such behaviors in the society. On the other hand, those using the approach of humanist traditions focus on the origins of social rules, the means of applying them and the possible impacts they produce in the society. They focus on the dependency between social power and definition of deviance.
By this, the definition of deviance comes from the link with its rarity of occurrence. As such, cases such as homosexuality, rape and prostitution are not frequent when compared to other events, conditions and activities. However, it does not mean that all rare occurrences produce negative results in nature as there are several occasions when they result to positive public responses. Therefore, rarity is not an adequate reason for creating a conclusive definition of deviance of beliefs, acts and traits. Other routine activities can be deviant on some occasions and that involves activities people involve in frequently. The violation of formal rules is crime and the focus is on the protection of the rights of people. In comparison to crime, deviance takes a low a low consideration of seriousness though it is more rampant and more pervasive. This is another determination of the relationship between crime and deviance because several forms of deviance can be crimes (Young, 2009).
There are occurrences, which can cause concerns regarding societal norms, but in the absence of a law prohibiting the act, they are not crimes. In the Canadian law, the prohibition of certain acts and legal contraventions are void of the legal constructs and that leaves them without consideration as deviances. There is also no connection between the consequences of harm and crime or deviance. Some of such occasions are devoid of laws forbidding and that provides a slack connection between deviance and crime. At the same time, there are varying definitions of crime according to definitions provided by criminologists and sociologists. The definition takes in the incorporation of crime as a connection between human injustice and human rights with social and legal aspects (Young, 2009). There are socially harmful activities, which in turn qualify as crime under the law. However, out of the broadness of such a division, there is the possibility of transforming many social issues and problems as crimes. However, there are occasions when crime merely violates the law and not necessarily deviant of criminal law. Behaviors against criminal codes committed by people are adversely punishable that those out of control deviant perpetrators. The Canadian criminal laws are specific on the determination of crimes and the possible punishments for deviant activities.
There is also a consideration of defining deviance in the social contexts. These occur in the society and face differentiating circumstances influenced by time and place. That leaves the definition of deviance to the determination of an audience and an actors traits as well as the characteristics of a situation to determine the degree as to, which an act conforms or deviates to place or time. The complexity of a society determines the degree of the effect of consensus regarding behaviors, traits and beliefs. This makes it very hard to determine acceptable and deviant behaviors in heterogeneous societies such as Canada. It is not always possible to create consensus on acceptable aspects by the society comprising of subcultures with different attitudes regarding behaviors. Different subcultures have different opinions about behaviors as defined by class, race, age and gender. For example, there are tough penalties on narcotic use and that goes even for mere possession of cocaine and heroin (Gomme, 1998).
On the other hand, while there are considerations for legalization of marijuana for personal use in Canada, there is tolerance of the same in the United States. Statutes are also affects by the statutes of actors such as age and that leads to determination of punishment or consideration of deviance in that aspect. At the same time, there is also deviance determination depending on the sex of an actor with some behaviors being acceptable for one sex and unacceptable for the other. Occupational and economic statuses also determine the consideration of deviance and the degree of of their rankings. Other aspects are the interactions between actors. In addition, that involves the setting of the action such as the belief of the Canadian laws that a husband is incapable of raping his wife (Dean and Gottschalk, 2011).
References
Dean, G. & Gottschalk, P. (2011). Continuum of police crime, an empirical study of court cases, International Journal of Police Science & Management. 13(1), 16 28. doi:10.1350/ijps.2011.13.1.222.
Gomme, I., M., D. (1998). The shadow line, Deviance and crime in Canada. Toronto: Harcourt Brace.
Stuart, D. (2010). Charter justice in Canadian criminal law. Toronto: Creswell.
Young, S., N., M. (2009). Civil forfeiture of criminal property: Legal measures for targeting the proceeds of crime. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.
Order from us for quality, customized work in due time of your choice.