Sociology: Deviance

1. Chapter 7 Sociology: Deviance

2. What is Deviance? • Deviance – the recognized violation of cultural norms • Crime – violation of a society’s formally enacted criminal law. • What deviant attitudes or actions have in common is some element of difference that causes us to view another person as an outsider.

3. Social Control • Social control – attempts by society to regulate people’s behavior and thoughts • The criminal justice system – a formal response by courts, police, and prison officials to alleged violations of the law • Deviance is more than a matter of individual choice or personal failing. • How a society defines deviance depends on how that society is organized.

4. The Biological Context • Caesare Lombroso believed that criminals could be identified by certain physical traits. • William Sheldon proposed that body shape could predict criminality. • Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck proposed that powerfully built sons grow up less sensitive toward other people. • However, there is no conclusive evidence linking genetics to criminality.

5. Personality Factors Psychological explanations focus on individual abnormality. Walter Reckless and Simon Dinitz found that “good boys” display strong conscience. “Bad boys” demonstrate weak conscience.

6. The Function of Deviance: Structural – Functional Analysis *All behaviors are shaped by society. Deviance varies according to the cultural norms of a society. People become deviant as others in society define them that way. Both the acts of rule-making and rule-breaking involve social power.

7. Structural-Functional Analysis: Emile Durkheim • Durkheim felt that there was nothing abnormal about deviance. • Deviance affirms cultural norms and values. • Responding to deviant behavior clarifies a society’s moral boundaries and promotes community unity. • Deviance also encourages social change.

8. Robert Merton: Structural-Functional Analysis • Merton proposed that excessive deviance results from certain social arrangements. • The type of deviance depends on whether a society provides people the means to achieve cultural norms. • For example, the strain between our own culture’s emphasis on wealth and the limited opportunities people have gives rise to crime.

9. Deviant Subcultures • Richard Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin suggested that crime results from easily accessible illegal opportunity. • Albert Cohen proposed that delinquency is most pronounced in lower class youths because they have the least opportunities to achieve in society. • Walter Miller characterized delinquent subcultures.

10. Labeling Deviance: Symbolic-Interaction Analysis • Labeling theory – conformity and deviance result less from what people do than how others respond to those actions. • Primary deviance – has little effect on one’s self-concept. • Secondary deviance – a person starts to to take on a deviant identity.

11. Medicalization of Deviance • The growing influence of medicine and psychiatry in the U.S. has influenced definitions of deviance. • Medicalization of deviance – the transformation of legal and moral deviance into a medical condition

12. Medicalization of Deviance: Sutherland and Hirschi Sutherland’s Theory Hirschi’s Theory • A person’s tendency toward deviance depends on the degree or amount of contact they may have with other deviants. • Social control depends on a person imagining the consequences of his/her behavior.

13. Deviance and Inequality: Social-Conflict Theory • Deviance reflects social inequality. • People we think of as deviant share the trait of powerlessness. • The norms of any society generally reflect the values and interests of the wealthy and the powerful • People who threaten the rich are defined as radicals and/or thieves.

14. Deviance and Inequality: Steven Spitzer • Spitzer contends that deviant labels are attached to people who interfere with the operation of capitalism. • People who threaten the property of others are labeled as deviants. • Those who will not or cannot work also risk being labeled as deviant.

15. Deviance and Capitalism White-collar crime - committed by people in high social positions in the course of their occupations. Corporate crime – the illegal actions of a corporation or the individuals acting on behalf of the corporation. Organized crime – a business supplying illegal services and/or goods.

16. Deviance and Social Diversity • Ethnic and racial hostility motivate hate crimes. • Hate crime – a criminal act against a person or his/her property motivated by racial or other bias. • Gender is another important variable affecting deviant labeling. • Men often escape direct responsibility for actions that victimize women. • (page 173 has chart of three theories)

17. Crime • Crime consists of the act itself AND the criminal intent. • Crimes against the person – violence or threat of violence against a particular person. • Victimless crimes – no readily apparent victims • Is prostitution a victimless crime? !! The crime rate is 2-4 times higher than reports indicated. (map pg. 175, graph pg. 176)

18. The Criminal Justice System • The criminal justice system is society’s formal system of social control. • Police serve as the primary point of contact between the system and the people. • 90% of criminal cases are resolved before trial through plea bargaining. • The oldest justification for punishment is the public’s craving for revenge. (map pg. 180, chart pg. 182, map pg. 184, graph pg. 185)