When deviance exceeds what a society can process, the society redefines the threshold rather than address the conduct.
Moynihan's 1993 essay built on Durkheim. It is contested as an account of the period after it was written, since American crime fell sharply through the 1990s rather than being defined away.
In practice
- A city that stops recording low-level theft reports a fall in low-level theft.
- A company that redefines "critical incident" upward reports fewer critical incidents in the first quarter after the change.
- Possible explanations
- The explanation, taken from Durkheim, is that a society tolerates a roughly fixed quantity of deviance, so when conduct exceeds that capacity the threshold moves rather than the conduct.
- In its favour
- The mechanism is visible in specific cases, including the reclassification of offences and changes in what police record, and the essay named something real about how statistics respond to pressure.
- Against it
- American crime fell sharply in the decades after the essay, which the thesis did not anticipate, and thresholds have also moved the other way, with conduct once tolerated now treated as serious.
- Standing
- Built on Durkheim; contested as an account of falling crime in the decades after it was written.
- Subject
- Sociology & Culture
- Essay
- How societies hold together, sort people, and change