al," as "non-deviant." This is not to say that there is no deviance in the individual criminal, for there is certainly such deviance, or the potential for it, in any individual. But the process of labeling simply nurtures that deviance and thereby brings it to a fruition in an individual that otherwise might not have occurred at all. As Hart et al. write, "We know that individual craziness becomes entangled in social craziness" (p. 354).
The definition of crime is criminally subjective. So is society's response to persons who commit crimes. Crime is an act that is believed to be socially harmful by a group that has power to enforce its beliefs and that provides negative sanctions to be applied to persons who commit these acts (Oatman, p. 49).
...