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Durkheim rejected the definition of crime, which would constitute the commonsense of any society, that crimes are acts that are harmful to society. He pointed to the enormous variations between societies in the acts, which have been regarded as criminal in order to rebut the claim that conceptions of crime are rooted in the social evil represented by particular actions. The only attribute applicable to crimes in general is that they are socially proscribed and …

…such as stealing, vandalism and truancy, not only rejecting mainstream culture, but also reversing it. Cohen argues that in this way lower-working class boys solve the problem of status frustration. However, this theory is class and gender biased as it only looks at lower working class boys. Cohen goes so far in looking at crime that the eighteen per cent of crime that achieves nothing, that he does not look at crime that achieves something.