Introduction to Sociology SOC-101

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Introduction to SociologySOC-101

• Unit 11 - Deviance

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What is Deviance?

• Sociologists use the term deviance to refer to a
  violation of norms
• According to sociologist Howard S. Becker, it is
  not the act itself that makes an action deviant,
  but rather how society reacts to it
• Deviance is a relative concept
• What is deviant to some is not deviant to others
  since different groups have different norms
• Crime is the violation of rules that have been
  written into law

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What is Deviance?

• Sociologists use the term deviance
  nonjudgmentally to refer to any act to which
  people respond negatively
• To sociologists, all people are deviants because
  everyone violates rules from time to time
• Stigma
• Erving Goffman
• Attributes that discredit ones claim to a
  normal identity
• A stigma (e.g., physical deformities, skin color)
  defines a persons master status, superseding all
  other statuses the person occupies

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What is Deviance?

• Norms allow social ordera groups customary
  social arrangementsbecause they lay out the
  basic guidelines for how we play our roles and
  how we interact with others
• Deviance is often seen as threatening because it
  violates a groups customary social arrangements
  and undermines the predictability that is the
  foundation of social life
• Human groups develop a system of social control
  formal and informal means of enforcing the norms

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What is Deviance?

• Societys disapproval of deviance takes the form
  of negative sanctions
• Ranges from frowns and gossip to imprisonment and
  capital punishment
• Most negative sanctions are informal
• Positive sanctions are used to reward people for
  conforming to norms
• The sociological explanations of deviance differ
  from the biological and psychological ones
• Psychologists and sociobiologists explain
  deviance by looking within individuals
• Sociologists look outside the individual

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What is Deviance?

• Biological explanations focus on genetic
  predisposition
• Includes factors such as intelligence, XYY
  theory, or body type
• Psychological explanations of deviance focus on
  personality disorders
• Includes bad toilet training, suffocating
  mothers, etc.
• Yet these do not necessarily result in the
  presence or absence of specific forms of deviance
  in a person
• Sociological explanations search outside the
  individual
• Social influencessuch as socialization,
  subcultural group memberships, or social
  classaccount for why some people break norms

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• What is deviance?

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Symbolic Interactionist Perspective

• Edward Sutherland and Differential Association
• We learn to deviate from or conform to societys
  norms mostly from the people with whom we
  associate
• The key to differential association is the
  learning of ideas and attitudes favorable to
  following the law
• Because we learn both from the various people we
  associate with, the end result is an imbalance
• We conform or deviate depending on which set of
  messages is stronger
• Studies have demonstrated that families do teach
  their members to violate the norms of society
• Families involved in crime tend to set their
  children on a lawbreaking path

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Symbolic Interactionist Perspective

• Differential Association (cont)
• The neighborhood is also likely to be influential
• Sociologists have found that delinquents tend to
  come from neighborhoods in which their peers are
  involved in crime
• Symbolic interactionists stress that we are not
  mere pawns, but help produce our orientation to
  life
• Our choice of associates helps to shape our sense
  of self

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Control Theory

• Walter Reckless and Control Theory
• Everyone is propelled towards deviance, but two
  control systems work against these motivations to
  deviate
• Inner controls are ones capacity to withstand
  temptations toward deviance
• Include internalized morality, integrity, fear of
  punishment, and the desire to be good
• Outer controls involve groups that influence a
  person to stay away from crime
• Include family, friends, the police

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Symbolic Interactionist Perspective

• Travis Hirschi
• Noted that strong bonds to society lead to more
  effective inner controls
• Bonds are based on attachments, commitments,
  involvements, and beliefs
• The likelihood that we will deviate from social
  norms is related to the strength of our control
  systems
• If the systems are strong we will be less likely
  to deviate than if they are weak

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Labeling Theory

• Labeling theory
• The labels people are given affect their own and
  others perceptions of them, and thus channel
  their behavior either into deviance or into
  conformity
• Most people resist being labeled as deviant, even
  when engaging in deviant behavior
• There are five different techniques of
  neutralizations
• Denial of responsibility (I didnt do it)
• Denial of injury (Who really got hurt?)
• Denial of a victim (She deserved it)
• Condemnation of the condemners (Who are you to
  talk?)
• Appeal to higher loyalty (I had to help my
  friends)

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Labeling Theory

• Some people invite a deviant label
• Examples motorcycle gangs may pride themselves
  on getting into trouble, laughing at death, etc.
• Chamblisss study of the Saints and the
  Roughnecks provides an excellent illustration of
  labeling theory
• There were social class differences not only in
  terms of the visibility of the law-breaking
  behavior, but also in the styles of interaction
  with those in authority
• These influenced the way in which teachers and
  the police saw and treated them
• The study showed how labels open and close the
  door of opportunity for the individuals involved

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• Robert Merton
• (1910-2003)

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Functionalist Perspective

• Emile Durkheim
• Stated that deviance is functional, for it
  contributes to social order
• Deviance clarifies moral boundariesa groups
  ideas about how people should act and thinkand
  affirms norms
• Deviance promotes social unity
• Deviance promotes social change (if boundary
  violations gain enough support, they become new,
  acceptable behaviors)

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Strain Theory

• Robert Merton and Strain Theory
• What happens when people are socialized to desire
  a cultural goal but denied the institutionalized
  (i.e., legitimate) means to reach it?
• Anomie
• The strain people experience when they are
  blocked in their attempts to achieve those goals
• Deviants are products of their society
• Some people experience greater frustration in
  achieving cultural goals because of their
  location in society, making them more likely to
  deviate

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Strain Theory

• Merton identified five reactions to cultural
  goals and institutionalized means
• Conformity - Using acceptable means to seek the
  goals society sets
• Deviant innovation - Using illegitimate means to
  achieve them
• Ritualism Giving up on achieving cultural
  goals, but clinging to conventional rules of
  conduct
• Retreatism - Rejecting cultural goals, dropping
  out
• Rebellion - Seeking to replace societys goals

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Illegitimate Opportunity Theory

• According to illegitimate opportunity theory,
  social classes have distinct styles of crime due
  to unequal access to institutionalized means of
  achieving socially acceptable goals
• Many poor children in industrialized societies,
  who are socialized into wanting to own things,
  end up dropping out of school because of
  educational failure
• Therefore, the doors are closed on many
  legitimate avenues to financial success

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Illegitimate Opportunity Theory

• Richard Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin suggest that
  opportunities for remunerative crime are woven
  into the texture of life
• May result when legitimate structures fail
• In this way the poor may be drawn into certain
  crimes in unequal numbers
• Illegal income-producing activities are
  functional for those who want to make money, but
  whose access to legitimate activities is blocked
• This includes robbery, drug dealing,
  prostitution, pimping, gambling, and other
  hustles

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Illegitimate Opportunity Theory

• Gangs offer disadvantaged youth an illegitimate
  opportunity structure
• Research by Martin Sanchez Jankowski demonstrated
  that young men joined gangs because they provided
  them with access to steady money, recreation,
  anonymity in criminal activities, protection, and
  a way to help the neighborhood
• White-collar crime refers to crimes that people
  of respectable and high social status commit in
  the course of their occupations
• Such crimes exist in greater numbers than
  commonly perceived, and can be very
  costlytotaling 400 billion a year
• They can involve physical harm and sometimes death

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• Conflict Theory

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The Conflict Perspective

• Conflict theorists address the issue of why the
  legal system is inconsistent in terms of
  providing justice for all
• This inequality is central to their analysis of
  crime and the criminal justice systemthe police,
  courts, and prisons
• The criminal justice system is controlled by the
  wealthy and powerfula power elite
• This group determines the basic laws whose
  enforcement is essential to the preservation of
  its power

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The Conflict Perspective

• According to conflict theory, the law is an
  instrument of repression
• It is a tool designed to keep the powerful in
  privileged positions and the powerless from
  rebelling and overthrowing the social order
• When members of the working class get out of
  line, they are arrested, tried, and imprisoned in
  the criminal justice system
• While the criminal justice system tends to
  overlook the harm done by the corporations,
  flagrant violations are prosecuted
• The publicity given to white collar criminals
  helps to stabilize the system by providing
  evidence of fairness

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The Conflict Perspective

• Usually the powerful bypass the courts
  altogether, appearing instead before some agency
  whose members are people from the same wealthy
  background
• Given this, it is not surprising that the usual
  sanction is a token fine
• Property crimes committed by the masses are
  handled by the courts
• These crimes not only threaten the sanctity of
  private property, but ultimately, the positions
  of the powerful

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• Reactions to Deviance

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Reactions to Deviance

• Imprisonmenta reflection of a get-tough
  orientationis an increasingly popular reaction
  to crime
• There has been a tremendous growth in the U.S.
  prison population
• It is estimated that more than 1.8 million people
  are currently incarcerated
• About 94 percent are men, and about half are
  African American
• The recidivism rate in the U.S. runs as high as
  79, and those given probation do no better

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Reactions to Deviance

• Research on the death penalty reveals that the
  death penalty is not administered evenly
• Biases including differential treatment based on
  geographic location, gender, social class, as
  well as racial and ethnic biases
• As opinions change, or different groups gain
  access to power, definitions of deviance and laws
  also change

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Reactions to Deviance

• Medicalization of Deviance
• View that deviance is a symptom of some
  underlying illness that needs to be treated by
  physicians
• Thomas Szasz argues that mental illness is simply
  problem behaviors
• Some forms of mental illnesses have organic
  causes (e.g., depression caused by a chemical
  imbalance in the brain)
• While others are responses to trouble with
  various coping devices
• Some sociologists find Szaszs analysis
  refreshing because it indicates that social
  experiences, and not illnesses of the mind,
  underlie bizarre behaviors

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Reactions to Deviance

• Just the experience of being homeless can cause
  mental illness
• Because you are on the streets and often have no
  place to wash yourself or your clothes, you are
  stared at or ignored, which results in withdrawal
• Homelessness and mental illness can be
  reciprocal
• Just as mental illness can cause homelessness,
  so can the trials of being homeless and living on
  the streets can lead to unusual and unacceptable
  thinking and behaviors

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Reactions to Deviance

• With deviance inevitable, one measure of a
  society is how it treats its deviants
• The larger issues are how to protect people from
  deviant behaviors that are harmful to their
  welfare, to tolerate those that are not, and to
  develop systems of fairer treatment for deviants