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Chapyter6devianceandcrime with poll
1) Social deviance refers to any violation of established social norms, ranging from minor informal transgressions to serious criminal acts. What is considered deviant can change over time. 2) Sociological theories of deviance examine how social norms are established and enforced through both informal social pressures and formal laws and punishments. They also seek to understand why some individuals violate norms. 3) Symbolic interactionist theories focus on how social interactions and labels influence perceptions of deviance. They view deviance as a social construct rather than an intrinsic quality.
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Chapyter6devianceandcrime with poll
- 1.
- 2. What Is SocialDeviance? • Social deviance is any transgression of socially established norms. – Formal deviance or crime involves the violation of laws. 2
- 3. Minor transgressions ofthese norms can be described as informal deviance. 3
- 4. Definitions of DevianceChange Over Time Can you think other examples? 4
- 5. Once Deviant NowFashion 5
- 6. Deviance and SocialControl Social cohesion refers to the way people form social bonds, relate to each other, and get along on a day-to-day basis. 6
- 7. Deviance and SocialControl • Normative compliance is the act of abiding by society’s norms or simply following the rules of group life. • Social control is the set of mechanisms that create normative compliance in individuals. 7
- 8. Deviance and SocialControl • Informal social sanctions: – are unspoken rules and expectations about people’s behavior. – help maintain a base level of order and cohesion in society and form a foundation for formal social control. 8
- 9. Deviance and SocialControl • Punitive justice is focused on making the violator suffer and thus defining the boundaries of acceptable behavior. • Rehabilitative justice examines the specific circumstances of an individual transgressor and attempts to find ways to rehabilitate him or her. 9
- 10. Deviance and SocialControl (Structural Functionalism) Émile Durkheim theorized that social cohesion is established either through: mechanical solidarity — based on the sameness of society’s parts or members (fraternity – sorority) organic solidarity — based on the interdependence of specialized parts or members. (football team) 10
- 11. Deviance and SocialControl A Functionalist View Robert Merton’s strain theory argues that deviance occurs when a society does not give all its members equal ability to achieve socially acceptable goals. 11
- 12.
- 13. Strain Theory Conformists accept thegoals of the society and the means of achieving those goals
- 14. Strain Theory Innovators accept the goals of the society, but they look for new, or innovative, ways of achieving those goals
- 15. Strain Theory Ritualists aren’t interestedin the goals of the society, but they do accept the means of achieving those goals.
- 16. Strain Theory Retreatists don’t accept the goals of the society or the means of achieving those goals.
- 17. Strain Theory Rebels don’taccept the goals of the society or the means of achieving those goals, so they create their own goals using new means.
- 18. Weaknesses of StrainTheory 1. It is difficult to empirically test. 2. It works on the assumption that conformity is the norm and assumes a concensual society. 3. It doesn't explain all forms of criminal behavior. 4. It over-predicts criminality. does not explain hate-crime, violence etc.
- 19. Differential Opportunity Theory 1.Legitimate opportunities to pursue culturally approved goals are socially structured and unevenly distributed— especially by class. 2. The social structure of a community determines access to both the learning and performance structures that underwrite career delinquency and criminal subcultures. When young people grow up in a bad environment, they are more likely to have troubles. Opposite would be true, if a child grows up in an enriched, good environment, they would less likely grow up to practice delinquent behavior.
- 20. Symbolic Interactionist Theories of Deviance • Symbolic interactionists take a micro view of society, examining the beliefs and assumptions people bring to their everyday interactions to find the causes or explanations for deviance. 20
- 21. Symbolic Interactionist Theories of Deviance • Labeling theory – People see how they are labeled and accept the label as being “true.” – People behave the way that they think someone with their label should behave. 21
- 22. Symbolic Interactionist Theories of Deviance • Primary deviance: – the first act of rule breaking, which may result in the rule breaker being labeled “deviant” and thus influence how people think about and act toward him or her. • Secondary deviance: – refers to acts of rule breaking that occur after primary deviance and as a result of a person’s new, deviant label. 22
- 23. Symbolic Interactionist Theories of Deviance • Stigma – negative social label that changes your behavior toward a person; also changes that person’s self- concept and social identity – has serious consequences in terms of the opportunities made available – or rather, not made available – to people in a stigmatized group 23
- 24. Symbolic Interactionist Theoriesof Deviance Broken window theory of deviance (Philip Zimbardo):explains how social context and social cues impact the way individuals act People who wouldn‘t exhibit a certain behavior in one social context might do so in another context where the behavior seems more permissible. 24
- 25. People inspect anabandoned car in the South Bronx. Zimbardo placed this car in New York City and University in Palo Alto, California. The car near Stanford went untouched for days, but the car pictured above was in New Your City was relieved of its hubcaps and other parts almost immediately.
- 26. Deviance and SocialControl • Examples of formal social control include laws and the authority of police officers. 26
- 27. Formal deviance orcrime involves the violation of laws. George Zimmerman Trevor Martin 27
- 28. Crime • street crime— refers to crime committed in public and is often associated with violence, gangs, and poverty • white-collar crime — committed by a professional against a corporation, agency, or other business • corporate crime — type of white-collar crime committed by the officers or executives of a company 28
- 29. Which is it? Corporate Crime White-collar Crime Street Crime
- 30. Crime • It canbe difficult to measure crime rates over time for a variety of reasons, including: 1. changes in how crimes are defined. 2. fluctuations in whether people report crimes. 3. in the case of murders, improvements in medical technology. CSI 30
- 31. Number of prisonersper 100,000 population. 31
- 32. You May AskYourself, 2nd Edition Figure 6.2 Total U.S. Violent Crime Rate, 1960–2008 Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & Company
- 33. Crime Reduction Deterrence theoryis a philosophy of criminal justice based on the notion that crime results from a rational calculation of its costs and benefits. 33
- 34. Crime Reduction Since the1970s, there has been a change from a more rehabilitative sense of justice to a more punitive one in the United States. This is evidenced by historically high rates of incarceration. 34
- 35. Unintended Consequences ofDeterrence 35
- 36. Societal Effects ofMass Incarceration http://www.youtube.com/embed/lUt_fIB6A_Y • staggering costs • the disenfranchisement of millions of former felons • a disproportionately high rate of imprisonment for black males • a ripple effect throughout black communities and beyond. 36
Editor's Notes
- #3 Deviance isn ’t necessarily bad, it’s just different from what the group considers to be normal. For instance, a woman having a size 13 shoe isn’t bad , but it’s definitely different, so it may elicit a reaction from the group that makes up the majority (those with average shoe sizes). When sociologists use the term deviant , they are making a social judgment, not a moral one.
- #7 Without seeing deviant behavior, we would have a hard time classifying what is normal. It isn ’t until our group norms are challenged that we come together as a group to defend these norms. For example, the tragic events following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, challenged a norm that many people in the United States took for granted: safety. When those norms were challenged by the attacks, new policies and procedures were put into place (for instance, airport security) to preserve that norm. Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Silhouette_of_Trio.png
- #8 We generally don ’t question why we comply with society’s norms. For instance, on the first day of class, everyone probably came into the room without thinking about it and just automatically sat down in one of the seats. Why do we use this arrangement? Could there be a better arrangement? At the grocery store, why do we use checkout lanes and cashiers? Could there be a more efficient system? We just go along with the status quo and don’t question why these systems are in place.
- #9 Earlier, we talked about norm breaching. We said that if you breach an important norm, you ’ll get a bigger response than if you breach a relatively unimportant norm. The response that you receive could be an informal social sanction. If someone tells you that you’re not supposed to act that way, dress that way, or talk that way, then they are trying to get you to conform to what they consider to be a norm.
- #10 Ask the class: do you think we have more punitive justice or rehabilitative justice in the United States? What are the pros and cons of each? Rehabilitation has different degrees of success or failure depending on the crime committed, however, although rehabilitation is usually less expensive than incarceration, we tend to see more sentences of incarceration than rehabilitation. Why do you think this is? Are there certain crimes that you think should receive more rehabilitation that incarceration? (What about illegal drug use or possession?)
- #11 If you think of the United States, we are a rather diverse group. However, if you think of smaller groups like college students at your school, you might find many similarities. In many societies, you can find examples of both mechanical and organic solidarity. Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-N1113-0332,_Gro%C3%9F-Neutz,_Reparatur_einer_Futterm%C3%BChle.jpg
- #12 Strain theory, sometimes also called structural strain theory , acknowledges that there are certain goals that society deems acceptable. Ask your students if they can think of what these goals might be. Common responses include: a nice car, a big house, a family, a good job, lots of money, and so on. You may be able to discuss the “American Dream” and the idea that there is a common theme about what Americans should achieve to be called successful. Strain theory then discusses the difficulties that many people have in trying to achieve these goals. The frustration that occurs between knowing what the goals are and not being able to achieve those goals is the basis of Merton’s strain theory typologies.
- #14 These are the people who work hard in school, go to college, get a job, and save money because they want to buy a nice house, have a prestigious car, wear expensive clothes, and contribute to their retirement plans.
- #15 These are people who want all of the same things: nice house, prestigious car, expensive clothes, but they aren ’t interested in going to college and working their way up the company. For discussion, ask you class if they can think of examples. Some popular responses are: Bill Gates, who dropped out of college, drug dealers, and celebrities. They have all found different means to achieving the culturally accepted goals.
- #16 Ritualists don ’t seem to think about the goal or the big picture. Instead they live their lives day to day, paycheck to paycheck. They go to work, have a steady job, and so on, but they probably live in an apartment or in their parents’ basement. They don’t talk about career moves or retirement, they just keep doing their routine everyday. It’s generally difficult for students to think of popular examples of this category of people, because famous people generally don’t present themselves as ritualists. However, you can ask them if they can think of any characters in a movie or TV show who would fit this typology or if they have friends or relatives who may fall into this category.
- #17 Retreatists aren ’t interested in the goals, and they don’t follow the day-to-day routine to achieve the means either. Oftentimes, retreatists are withdrawn from the system completely. An example could be a hermit or a person who goes to the mountains to live with the wild goats. Students sometimes include people who are homeless in this category. While it is possible that a person would give up their home because they want to withdraw from the system, I always caution students about making that assumption because the majority of homeless people are not in their circumstance by choice.
- #18 Rebels are those people who don ’t accept the goals of society and disagree with the means of achieving them. That means that these people don’t covet lots of money, a fancy house, a nice car, or similar things.
- #21 Symbolic interactionists zoom in on the individual and try to figure out how a person interacts with others and how he or she responds to the surroundings. Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Logviewer_bw.png
- #22 People unconsciously notice how others see or label them, and over time they internalize these labels and come to accept them as “truth.” People then behave in accordance to expectations surrounding the label they ’ve been assigned or that’s been assigned to another — in this way deviance is a social construct. Labeling a person can lead to that person acting out their label. This is especially true if that label is anchored or confirmed among many agents of socialization. (So, if a child is labeled as bad by the parent, and then by the school, and then at after school care, and then by friends, the label is more likely to become part of that individual ’s self-perception.)
- #24 Stigma can be physical, moral, or tribal. For instance, a physical impairment might stigmatize or devalue a potential employee from a workplace. A moral stigma could include character flaws – for instance, talking too much – which could devalue a person ’s input in a group setting. A tribal stigma could be based on membership to a discredited group, which could be a group that a person chooses to belong to like a club or an organization or a group that a person is born into, like a race or socioeconomic status. Just like deviance, stigma will depend on the culture and context.
- #25 Do you think that people would be more likely to vandalize a car in a “rundown” neighborhood than in a gated community? This theory tells us that they would – but not because there are more criminals in that area. Instead, people might be more likely to vandalize a car because in that context it looks like vandalism is more acceptable.
- #27 Your friend might tell you, “Don’t drive so fast, you’re going to get pulled over.” While your friend doesn’t have the authority to make you drive slower, he or she is reinforcing the norm and reminding you of the formal social control that legally enforces that norm. Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Leggings_%28PSF%29.png
- #29 Again, deviance is referring to an act or behavior that is simply different from what the majority group typically does, and thus, it generally receives a negative response. In the United States, eating your guinea pig would be considered deviant because most people don ’ t do that, but in Peru, many people eat guinea pigs as a staple part of their diet. Eating or not eating guinea pigs isn ’ t wrong, but depending on the culture that you ’ re from, it can definitely be different than the group norm! Crime, though is a kind of deviance that is so offensive to society that it has been codified into law. The punishment for this kind of deviance could include a state-backed sanction, making this a worse punishment than for a non-criminal type of deviance.
- #33 Figure 6.2 Total U.S. Violent Crime Rate, 1960-2008
- #34 According to this theory, stiffer penalties, increased prison terms, and stricter parole guidelines should thus help reduce crime. Photo courtesy of AP Photo
- #35 The consequences of this mass incarceration include staggering costs, the disenfranchisement of millions of former felons, and a disproportionately high rate of imprisonment for black males, which has a ripple effect throughout black communities and beyond.