WE ARE ALL CRIMINALS: DEMYSTIFYING AND BLURRING THE THIN DIVIDING LINE BETWEEN CONFORMITY AND CRIMINALITY

 

 Introduction: The Uncomfortable Truth

 “We are all criminals.”

The statement sounds outrageous. It offends our moral sensibilities. It appears to insult the honest citizen, the religious devotee, the respected public servant, the loving parent, and the law-abiding professional. Yet, before dismissing it as absurd, it is worth examining what we mean by crime, criminality, conformity, and deviance.

 The central argument of this essay is simple, yet profoundly disturbing: the line separating the criminal from the conformist or law-abiding person is far thinner than society is willing to admit. Indeed, that line is often so thin, so fragile, and so dependent on circumstance that many of us stand on both sides of it simultaneously.

 To understand this, we must begin where all discussions of crime properly begin – not with the criminal, but with the law.

 Crime Exists Because Law Exists

A crime is not merely a harmful act. It is not simply an immoral act. It is not even necessarily an evil act. A crime is an act prohibited by law and punishable by the state.

 Without law, there can be no crime.

 The Apostle Paul recognized this fundamental principle nearly two thousand years ago when he wrote: “Where no law is, there is no transgression” (Romans 4:15, KJV). Similarly, Romans 5:13 declares: “Sin is not imputed when there is no law.” These passages express a profound legal and philosophical truth: transgression presupposes a rule – a body of laws. Before there can be a violation, there must first be a command by the law-giver to observe certain laws or be punished for violating them. Hence, before there can be a criminal, there must first be a lawgiver.

 The Constitution, the Criminal Code, the Penal Code, legislative enactments, judicial decisions, and administrative regulations collectively create the categories through which conduct becomes criminalized. Remove these legal frameworks and the concept of crime evaporates. This insight forms the foundation of the sociological perspective known as the labelling theory.

 Howard S. Becker and the Social Construction of Deviance

The renowned sociologist Howard S. Becker captured this idea brilliantly when he wrote:

Social groups create deviance by making the rules whose infraction constitutes deviance, and by applying those rules to particular people and labelling them as outsiders. From this point of view, deviance is not a quality of the act the person commits, but rather a consequence of the application by others of rules and sanctions to an “offender.” The deviant is one to whom that label has successfully been applied; deviant behaviour is behaviour that people so label. [Becker, 1963, p. 9. Outsiders: Studies in the sociology of deviance. New York, NY: Free Press].

 Becker’s observation turns conventional thinking upside down.

 The criminal is not merely someone who has committed a prohibited act. The criminal is someone upon whom society has successfully imposed that label of “criminal”. Thus, criminality is not simply about behaviour; it is also about detection of that behaviour, accusation of such a behaviour, prosecution of same, judgment by a competent court, and labelling the person a “criminal”. Hence, to become a criminal is not a one-off thing, but a process that must begin and end in proving that a person must be slammed with the label of “criminal.” The implications are staggering.

 We Are All Potential Criminals

 The first proposition of this essay is that we are all potential criminals.

 Every legal system contains thousands upon thousands of rules governing conduct. Many citizens are unaware of most of them. Ignorance, however, rarely constitutes a defence, as Ignorantia legis non excusat (Ignorance of the law is not an excuse.)

 The ordinary citizen routinely violates regulations concerning traffic, taxation, licensing, copyright, environmental standards, public order, business practices, and countless other legal requirements. Even beyond legal infractions lie moral failings that often shade into criminal conduct. Human beings lie, deceive, manipulate, envy, insult, betray confidences, exploit opportunities, evade responsibilities, and rationalize wrongdoing. Given sufficient investigation, scrutiny, surveillance, and legal interpretation, many lives would reveal conduct that falls somewhere within the vast spectrum of deviance or offending.

 The distinction between the “criminal” and the “law-abiding citizen” therefore becomes less absolute than we often imagine. The difference may not always be character. Sometimes it is opportunity to escape being labelled. Sometimes it is circumstance to be caught and labelled as such. And sometimes it is merely discovery of the wrongdoing, offence, deviant act, or criminal conduct by others – such as the police, victims, witnesses, journalists, regulatory agencies, or society at large.

 We are All Actual Criminals – Or Sooner or Later We Would be Labelled as Such

 The second proposition is even more unsettling.

 The official criminal (the one caught and labelled) is not necessarily the greatest offender. He is simply the offender who has been caught, processed, convicted, and labelled. The legal system itself acknowledges this reality. In law, one is generally presumed innocent until proven guilty by a competent court of jurisdiction. This principle is indispensable for justice. Without it, society would descend into accusation and mob rule.

 Yet the same principle creates an uncomfortable paradox.

 Many individuals known by the public to have engaged in corruption, bribery, fraud, embezzlement, election manipulation, violent abuse, rape, or other offenses continue to enjoy freedom, prestige, and influence because their guilt has not been legally established. The law cannot punish suspicion. Consequently, there are countless people whom society calls respectable, who may never have faced meaningful scrutiny, who, if properly scrutinised, come dangerously under the label of “criminal.” Meanwhile, those who are caught, usually the poor and less-privileged – those not highly connected in society – become the visible face of criminality.

 The prison population therefore represents not necessarily the totality of offenders, but the subset of offenders whom the machinery of law has successfully apprehended.

 The Mirror of Scripture

The Christian Scriptures offer a sobering parallel. Romans 3:23 states: “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” Likewise, 1 John 1:8 warns: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” The Bible does not divide humanity into sinners and non-sinners: it divides humanity into sinners who acknowledge their condition and sinners who deny it.

 Perhaps nowhere is this illustrated more dramatically than in the account of the woman caught in adultery. When her accusers demanded punishment, Jesus responded: “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her” (John 8:7). One by one, the accusers departed. Why? Because each recognized the same uncomfortable truth: the distance between the accused and the accuser was not nearly as great as it appeared. They realised the woman had been caught, they had not.

 A Society of Hidden Offenders

Look honestly at the world around us. From legislators to judges, from executives to civil servants, from business leaders to religious figures, from professionals to ordinary citizens, society is saturated with conduct that often violates both law and morality. Bribery. Corruption. Contract inflation. Kickbacks. Perjury. Smuggling. Domestic violence. Child abuse. Sexual harassment. Rape. Fraud. Tax evasion. Electoral manipulation. Embezzlement. Criminal Complicity. Cybercrime. Ritual killings. Financial scams. Abuse of office. Violations of due process. The list is endless. Most of these acts occur behind closed doors. Many occur in private conversations. Others occur in hidden transactions. Some occur in places where witnesses are absent and evidence is scarce. The long arm of the law, though powerful, is not omniscient. Many offenders remain beyond its reach.

 So Why are Few Reported

Suppose every crime were reported. Suppose every citizen possessed the courage to expose every wrongdoing committed by spouses, children, parents, pastors, employers, friends, political allies, and benefactors. Suppose every individual voluntarily confessed every offence committed beyond public observation. What would happen? The answer is obvious. No prison system on earth could contain the resulting flood of offenders. The administration of justice would collapse beneath the sheer weight of human misconduct. The reality is that society functions partly because people overlook, conceal, excuse, rationalize, negotiate, forgive, or ignore vast amounts of wrongdoing. This is not necessarily a defence of crime. It is simply recognition of the social reality of deviance or offending.

 The Prison of Conscience

Perhaps this is why the deepest prison is not constructed of concrete and steel. It is constructed within the human conscience. Many individuals escape legal punishment. Very few people can completely escape their own conscience, memories, guilt, self-knowledge, or awareness of the wrong they have done. The public may never know. The courts may never know. The police may never know. Yet the individual knows. The conscience remembers. The hidden act lingers. The secret offence persists. The private guilt survives. In this sense, many who walk freely through society are imprisoned by criminal memories known only to themselves.

 The Great Illusion

One of the greatest illusions of modern society is the belief that humanity can be neatly divided into criminals and non-criminals. Reality is far messier. The distinction often separates not the guilty from the innocent, but the detected from the undetected, the prosecuted from the unprosecuted, the labelled from the unlabelled. This does not mean all offences are equal. A murderer and a traffic offender are not morally equivalent. A fraudster and a liar are not identical. The point is not that every crime carries the same gravity. The point is that human imperfection is universal, while criminal labels are selective.

 Conclusion: The Criminal Within

The purpose of this essay is not to glorify crime or excuse wrongdoing. Rather, it is to cultivate humility. Before condemning others, we should remember how much of our own lives remains hidden from public scrutiny. Before celebrating our conformity or law-abidingness, we should consider how dependent that reputation may be upon circumstance of not being detected or being shielded from the law because we are “big fishes”. Before casting stones, we should recall that the difference between ourselves and many offenders may be narrower than we would like to believe. The law labels some of us criminals. Conscience indicts many more. Scripture implicates us all. And, perhaps, that is the most unsettling truth of all: that the criminal we fear, condemn, prosecute, and imprison is not merely out there in society.

 He is also, in some measure, within us.

Okom, Emmanuel Njor (PhD)

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