CRIME AND DEVIANCE IN THE CONTEXT OF “LATE” MODERNITY AND

Аннотация

The aim of this paper is to present and analyse some contemporary

sociological approaches to crime and deviance in the context of “late”

modernity and globalization, as well as to emphasize some of the

contemporary sociological debates about wider social, economic and

cultural changes that have an impact not only on the ways we understand

or think about crime and deviance, but on the forms and patterns of crime

and deviance themselves. In this regard various new sociological

theories of “high”, “late” or “reflexive” modernity and theories of

globalization are developing among which the special emphasis is given

on some theories that contribute to a better understanding of the role and

the implications that the transition to “late” modernity and different

dimensions of globalization have on crime and deviance such as the

theory of “the exclusive society” (Young), “reflexive modernity” (Beck,

Giddens), “revised theory of modernization” (Inglehart, Welzel),

“global criminal economy” (Castells), “global criminal flows” (Ritzer)

etc. Selected theories emphasize the following: first, the need to relate

crime and deviance to major structural, economic and cultural changes

in “late” modern societies, such as the different aspects of the

“exclusion”, the rise of relative deprivation, the rise of individualism,

diversity, difference, pluralism, “risk”, insecurity etc., and the second,

the need to relate them with the complex processes of globalization, new

technologies, mass consumerism, marketisation, inequality etc., in order

to understand and propose some sociological explanations of the causes

of the crime and deviance in the global age.