necessary since without the presence of crime, laws would not evolve. “His crime, namely, the independence of his thought, rendered a service not only to humanity but to his country. Crime, therefore, must no longer be conceived as an evil that cannot be too much repressed. This however, does not lead Durkheim to condone crime or to present an apology for crime. When he stated that crime merely a normal element he viewed the whole of society as reality.” (Lunden, 1958) Durkheim’s contribution to criminology, including the social structure theories and functionalism have evolved our understanding which I will discuss further. “Criminology as a discipline has been described as a rather tenuous area of study. In other words, it is an area of study not defined by a particular unit of social reality, it is defined by its substantive concern: crime.” (Walklate, 1998) That is to say that through the work of Durkheim, it has allowed people to understand crime, perhaps by definition or to recognise that it is not to be constantly feared. In relation to crime, deviance can also be misinterpreted due to various understandings of it.

“Who is doing the disapproving? The functionalist approaches to deviance, for example, have built their work around the assumption of a consensus as the product of socialisation processes. Those outside the posited consensus are then viewed as either deviant themselves, or marginal groups whose opinions are perverse and therefore unimportant.” (Mclaughlin & Muncie, 2013)

To put it another way, a change in society can lead to deviance as new ideas or laws must challenge existing values and norms. This can often lead to protests which is viewed as deviant