Quinney (1969; 1970) provided important group conflict ideas. His social reality of crime model (Quinney 1970) builds on Simmel's psychic nature of society. The social types of "villain", "hero", and "anti-hero" are analyzed in terms of "reactive norms" and rules on spontaneity. Segments or socio-demographic aggregates are seen as providing conflicting normative systems, behavioral learning opportunities, and self-conceptions. Crime is explained by the conceptual conflict inherent in these competing definitions of behavior, realities, and self. The powerless will have their definitions labeled criminal by agents of social control, and law enforcement is seen as an extension of law enactment. The image is of an innocent offender who happens to conform too much to the belief system of the "wrong" social group. This is exactly the thrust behind Simmel's lament that secrecy, strangeness, marginality, and deceit were likely to be our collective fate.
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