Deviance and Social Control

3. Deviance and Social Control

4. Deviance • Deviance – behavior that departs from societal or group norms • Can vary from group to group and society to society • Negative deviance – involves behavior that underconforms to accepted norms • Obesity • Positive deviance – involves behavior that overconforms to social expectations • Anorexia

5. Social Control • Social control – ways to encourage conformity to society’s norms • Internal social control • Lies w/in the individual • Is developed during the socialization process • External social control • Based on social sanctions – rewards or punishments that encourage conformity to social norms

6. Costs and Benefits of Deviance • Negative effects • Erodes trust • Can cause nonconforming behaviors in others • Expensive

7. Benefits of deviance • Clarifies norms • Temporary safety valve • Watching TV to relieve stress • Increases unity • Promotes needed social change

8. Theories of Deviance • Strain theory – theory that deviance is more likely to occur when a gap exists between cultural goals and the ability to achieve these goals by legitimate means

9. Responses to strain • Innovation – individual accepts goal of success but uses illegal means to achieve it • Robbery, drug dealing

10. Ritualism – individual rejects goal of success but still uses the legitimate means • Teacher going about daily routine of teaching w/out concern for students

11. Retreatism – deviant response that rejects both legitimate means and approved goals • Drug addicts, “bag ladies”

12. Rebellion – reject both success and approved means for achieving it • Live in isolation, threaten violent behavior

13. Differential association theory – individuals learn deviance in proportion to number of deviant acts they are exposed to • Deviance increases with • Greater # of people known • Closer relationship with deviants • Younger age of exposure

14. Labeling theory – society creates deviance by identifying particular members as deviant • Primary deviance – involves occasional breaking of norms and isn’t part of person’s lifestyle • Secondary deviance – individual’s life and identity are organized around breaking norms • Stigma – undesirable trait or label that is used to characterize an individual

20. Race, Ethnicity and Crime • African Americans and Latinos are more likely than whites to be convicted and serve more time in prison than whites • Victim discounting – process of reducing the seriousness of crimes that injure people of lower status

21. White collar crime – job-related crimes committed by high-status people • Usually economic crimes

22. Approaches to Crime Control • Deterrence – discouraging criminal acts by threatening punishment • Retribution – criminals pay compensation for their acts • Incarceration – keeping criminals in prison

23. Rehabilitation – changing or reforming a criminal through socialization • Success measured through recidivism – repetition of or return to criminal behavior

24. Alternatives to prison • Combination of prison and probation – designed to shock offenders into recognizing realities of prison life • Community-based programs – designed to reintroduce criminals into society • Diversion strategy – prevents or reduces offender’s involvement in criminal justice system through referral to community-based treatment programs

26. Overcrowding in California prisons • Sean Bell video • Education experience of young men of color

27. States with the death penalty • Information about the death penalty • A case of mistaken identity