Essay on interaction between criminalization and culture in Iran's legal system from the perspective of the theory of cultural lag

Sadeghi, Mohamadmehdi; Javanjafari, Abdolreza; Seyedzadeh, Seyed Mehdi

doi:10.22034/jclc.2024.483592.2056

Essay on interaction between criminalization and culture in Iran's legal system from the perspective of the theory of cultural lag

Articles in Press

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Mohamadmehdi Sadeghi ¹

Abdolreza Javanjafari ²

Seyed Mehdi Seyedzadeh ²

¹ Department of criminal law and criminology, University of Ferdowsi Mashhad

² Faculty of law and political sciences, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad

10.22034/jclc.2024.483592.2056

Abstract

Culture is a set of various elements such as values, subcultures, lifestyles and law that bind people of a society together. According to the theory of cultural lag, the speed of evolution of these elements is not the same and some of them evolve faster than others. The field of emergence of this lag in culturally diverse societies like Iran may be the dominant culture that governs the behavior of the majority of society members or a subculture. In this research, Two types of lag have been extracted between some types of criminalization and cultural norms governing the behavior of all or a group of society member with examples in the criminal laws of Iran: First, the lag of the subculture in relation to criminalization is when the behavior subject to criminalization is only accepted by some subcultures and is not accepted by the dominant culture of the society. Such as the criminalization of fuel smuggling or the carrying and use of illegal weapons. Second, The lag of criminalization compared to the culture, which is realized in the case of acceptance or at least not rejection of the behavior of the subject of criminalization by the dominant culture; Such as the presence of women in the street with a veil Inappropriate or use of satellite network receiving devices as a normal thing by some members of the society.

Keywords

Culture

cultural lag

criminalization

criminal law

cultural norms

social context