The Ontology of Criminology (thoughts while watching the crappy 24 Fitness TV)

I thought about this rough concept while I was watching the trashy crime news on the 24 Hour Fitness television with its crappy closed captioning:

The study of Criminology, social deviance, what does or not does constitute a crime, by legal as well as moral standards, is veritably the dark mirror for the society whose stipulates (both legal and moral) are being examined. A crime is what legal dictates have decided it is. A crime is also what collective consensus has deemed immoral and worth punishing – which has also become law. Therefore, everything that a society or a population deems as worthy of punishment = everything that it desires not want to allow into itself; everything that it chooses to identify itself against.

But whose decision is this, what “we” decide is our cultural/social identity? The media is biased, politics are corrupt, voters are in many circumstances uninformed. And we punish those who are other than what has been decided.

And, to support my point, which I read after the fact, here's a quote from the LA Times:

"Our treatment of prisoners, even the most dangerous and irredeemable, is a fundamental expression of American values."

...Or any society's values.