Here are three key things sociology can offer to those in law enforcement according to Special Agent Vezzani: 1. Sociology provides an understanding of how social forces influence human behavior and decision-making. This helps law enforcement understand why people may engage in certain deviant or criminal acts. 2. A sociological perspective recognizes that the response to an act, not just the act itself, determines whether something is defined as deviant. This helps law enforcement avoid prejudices and apply the law fairly across different groups. 3. Sociological theories give frameworks for analyzing broader social and economic factors that may contribute to crime rates. This perspective can help law enforcement develop more effective crime prevention strategies.

1. Deviance, Crime,
and Social Control 7
3rd edition
Copyright © 2016 McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved.
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Sociology in Modules
Richard T. Schaefer

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Social Control
• Social control: techniques and
strategies employed for preventing
deviant human behavior in any society
– Parents
– Peer groups
– Government
– Bureaucratic organizations

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Social Control
• Sanctions: penalties and rewards
for conduct concerning a social norm
– If we fail to live up to the norm we may face
informal sanctions (fear and ridicule) or formal
sanctions (jail sentences or fines)

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Conformity and Obedience
• The Milgram Experiment
– Experimenter instructed people to administer
increasingly painful electric shocks to a
subject
– Conformity: going along with peers who have
no special right to direct behavior
– Obedience: compliance with higher
authorities in a hierarchical structure

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Conformity and Obedience
• Reflecting on the Milgram Experiment
– Two-thirds of participants fell into category of
“obedient subjects”
• People in modern industrial world accustomed
to submitting to impersonal authority figures
• Recent replications of experiment confirm findings

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Informal and Formal
Social Control
• Informal social control: used casually to
enforce norms
– Smiles, laughter, raised eyebrows, ridicule
• Formal social control: carried out by
authorized agents
– Informal social control can undermine
formal social control, encouraging
people to violate social norms

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Law and Society
• Some norms are so important to a
society that they are formalized into laws
– Law: governmental social control
• The legal order reflects values of
those in a position to exercise authority
• Control theory: connection to
members of society leads people to
systematically conform to society’s norms

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Figure 23-1: Executions by State Since 1976

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Figure 23-2: The Status of Medical Marijuana

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What Is Deviance?
• Deviance: behavior that violates the
standards of conduct or expectations of
a group or society
– Involves violation of group norms, which
may or may not be formalized into law
– Subject to social definition within a
particular society and at a particular time

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What Is Deviance?
• Deviance and Social Stigma
– Stigma: labels society uses to devalue
members of certain social groups
• Deviance and Technology
– Technological innovations can redefine social
interactions and standards of behavior related
to them

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Sociological Perspectives
on Deviance
• Why do people violate social norms?
• Early explanations blamed supernatural
causes or genetic factors (“bad blood”)
• Sociobiologists critical of emphasis on
genetic roots of crime and deviance

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Functionalist Perspective
• Durkheim’s Legacy
– Punishments established within a culture help
define acceptable behavior and contribute to
stability
– Erikson illustrated boundary-maintenance
function of deviance
– Anomie: loss of direction felt in society when
social control of individual behavior has
become ineffective

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Functionalist Perspective
• Merton’s Theory of Deviance
– Anomie theory of deviance: five basic forms
of adaptation
• Conformity
• Retreatism
• Innovation
• Ritualism
• Rebellion

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Table 24-1: Merton’s Deviance Theory

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Interactionist Perspective
• Cultural Transmission
– Cultural transmission: humans learn how to
behave in social situations, whether properly
or improperly
– Differential association: process through
which exposure to attitudes favorable to
criminal acts leads to the violation of rules
(Sutherland)

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Interactionist Perspective
• Social Disorganization Theory
– Increases in crime and deviance attributed
to absence or breakdown of communal
relationships and social institutions
– Some claim social disorganization theory
seems to “blame the victim”

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Labeling Perspective
• Labeling theory: attempts to explain
why some people are viewed as deviants
while others are not; also known as
societal-reaction approach
– Societal-reaction approach: another term for
labeling theory, designed to remind us that
the response to an act, not the behavior,
determines deviance

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Labeling Perspective
• Labeling and Agents of Social Control
– Focuses on police, probation officers,
psychiatrists, judges, teachers, employers,
school officials, and other regulators of social
control
– Social constructionist perspective:
deviance is a product of the culture we live in

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Conflict Perspective
• People with power protect their own
interests and define deviance to suit their
needs
• Contends that the entire criminal justice
system in the United States treats
suspects differently based on their race,
ethnicity, or social class
– Differential justice: differences in way social
control is exercised over different groups

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Feminist Perspective
• Adler and Chesney-Lind suggest existing
approaches to deviance and crime
developed with men in mind
– Great effort undertaken by feminist
organizations to redefine legal definitions
of rape
– Cultural views and attitudes toward women
influence how they are perceived and labeled

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Table 24-2: Sociological Perspectives on Deviance

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Crime
• Crime: violation of criminal law for which
governmental authority applies formal
penalties
– Six types differentiated by sociologists:
• Victimless crimes
• Professional crime
• Organized crime
• White-collar and technology-based crime
• Hate crimes
• Transnational crime

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Types of Crime
• Victimless Crimes
– Willing exchange among adults of widely
desired, but illegal, goods and services
• Professional Crime
– Committed by a professional criminal:
person who pursues crime as a day-to-day
occupation

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Types of Crime
• Organized Crime
– Group that regulates relations between various
criminal enterprises involved in illegal activities
– Dominates world of illegal business, just as
large corporations dominate conventional
businesses
– Serves as means of upward mobility for
groups of people struggling to escape poverty
– Can be characterized by the process of ethnic
succession

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Types of Crime
• White Collar and
Technology-Based Crime
– White-collar crime: illegal acts committed in
the course of business activities
– Computer crime: use of high technology to
carry out embezzlement or electronic fraud
– Corporate crime: any act by a corporation that
is punishable by the government

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Types of Crime
• Hate Crime
– Offender is motivated to choose a victim
based on race, religion, ethnic group, national
origin, or sexual orientation, and when
evidence shows that hatred prompted
offender to commit the crime
– In 2013, official reports of more than 7,200
hate crimes and bias-motivated incidents

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Figure 25-1: Categorization of Reported Hate Crimes

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Types of Crime
• Transnational Crime
– Crime that occurs across multiple national
borders
– Once often limited to shipment of goods
across single border; now, spans the globe
– Slavery
– Trafficking in endangered species, drugs,
stolen art and antiquities

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Table 25-1: Types of Transnational Crime

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Crime Statistics
• Index Crimes and Victimization
Surveys
– Index crimes include eight types of crime
tabulated by the FBI
– Violent crimes against people
• Murder, rape, robbery, assault
– Crimes against property
• Burglary, theft, motor vehicle theft, arson

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Crime Statistics
• Index Crimes and Victimization
Surveys
(continued)
– Crime index is disproportionately
devoted to property crimes
• Only crimes reported to law enforcement agencies
tracked
– Victimization surveys: surveys of ordinary
people, not police officers, to determine
whether they have been victims of crime

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Crime Statistics
• Crime Trends
– Public regards crime as major social
problem, yet rate of crime being reported in
2012 was comparable to what it was in 1963
• Changes in public policy, public health,
technology, and demographics may explain
– Feminist scholars: proportion of major crimes
committed by women has increased

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Crime Statistics
• International Crime Rates
– Violent crimes much more common in U.S.
than western Europe in 1980s and 1990s
– England, Ireland, Denmark, and New Zealand
have higher rates of car theft than U.S.
– Rapid rise in homicide rates in developing
countries that supply drugs to industrialized
countries

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Table 25-2: National Crime Rates and Percentage Change

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Figure 25-2: Victimization Rates, 1993–2012

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Social Policy and Social Control:
Gun Control
• Looking at the Issue
– Guns are big business in the U.S.; very high ratio
of guns to people in the U.S.
– Number of citizens favoring stricter gun control
has dropped
– Role of firearms in crime has remained steady
– Brady Act requires background checks for gun
purchases
– Supreme Court has recently favored more gun
rights

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Social Policy and Social Control:
Gun Control
• Applying Sociology
– Sociologists find it difficult to get funding for
studies of gun violence
• Near total cutoff of federal funding for gun studies
– Conflict theorists point out power of NRA over
legislative process
– Interactionists note use of symbols by both
pro- and anti-gun rights activists

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Social Policy and Social Control:
Gun Control
• Initiating Policy
– Advocates for more gun control favor
strengthening law enforcement, extending
background checks, regulating powerful guns,
ending large-volume gun sales
– The NRA has had major success in battling
candidates for office that favor greater gun
regulation
– Public health advocates advocate making
guns themselves safer to use

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23-1: Binge Drinking
– Why do you think most college
students regard binge drinking as a
normal rather than a deviant
behavior?
– Which do you think would be more
effective in stopping binge drinking on
your campus, informal or formal
social control?
Sociology on Campus

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24-1: Does Crime Pay?
– Do you know anyone who has stolen
out of need? If so, did the person feel
justified in stealing, or did he or she feel
guilty? How long did the theft continue?
– Economically, profit is the difference
between revenues and costs. What
are the costs of the illegal drug trade,
both economic and social? Is this
economic activity profitable for society?
Research Today

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25-1: Campus Crime
– Do some research on campus crime.
What is the crime rate on your
college campus, and how does it
compare to crime rates at other
schools? Relate what you have
learned to sociological theory.
– What have officials at your college
done to discourage campus crime?
Sociology on Campus

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Stephanie Vezzani,
Special Agent, U.S. Secret Service
– Besides an awareness of different
beliefs, values, and cultures, what
else might sociology offer to those
who serve in law enforcement?
– Law enforcement is a relatively
new career option for women.
What special strengths do you think
a woman might bring to police work?
Taking Sociology to Work