crime and deviance

© Copyright 2010 Alan S. Berger 1
Deviance
Crime, Deviance And
Social Control

What Do we want to Know
• How is deviance defined and who defines it
– Is it the person or the action?
• How is deviance distributed in society and how do we
know
• What causes deviance
• How is deviance controlled

Social Control
• Social control: techniques and strategies for
preventing deviant human behavior in any society
• Sanctions: penalties and rewards for conduct
concerning a social norm
• Society partly defined by people’s willingness to
accept shared beliefs and practices
– Society can limit individual freedom and advance
interests of some at expense of others

Conformity and Obedience
• Conformity: the act of going along with peers—
individuals of our own status who have no special
right to direct our behavior
• Obedience: compliance with higher authorities in a
hierarchical structure

Informal and
Formal Social Control
• Informal social control: used casually to enforce
norms
• Formal social control: carried out by authorized
agents
• Interplay between formal and informal social
control can be complicated because we have to
balance one source of control against another

Law and Society
• Some norms are so important to a society that they
are formalized into laws
• Law: governmental social control
• Control theory: our connection to other members of
society leads us to systematically conform to
society’s norms

Defining Deviance
• Deviance is the violation of Norms, especially widely held
norms
• Crime is an action declared illegal by some government or
agency
– Usually, by a legislative body
– Sometimes by administrative actions
• Is all deviance criminal ?
– Pushing children into fashion shows, sports ?
– Subcultures and deviance

Defining Deviance
• Not all crimes are deviant
– PETA
– Bullying
– Speeding
– Gambling
– White Collar crime
• Non Criminal Deviance
– Music preferences
– Body piercing
– Marrying someone
• Your parents disapprove of
• Your parents want you to
– Being a Geek or a Nerd
• Where do “rolling Stops” and other trivial driving violations
go?

Distribution of Deviance
• Crime Rates vs Crime Statistics
– Variance in Reporting Issues
• To Police
• To FBI
– By Type of Crime
• By nature of offender and victim
• Blaming the Victim
• Location
• Organized Crime
• White Collar Crime
• Non Criminal Deviance… What do we Know
– Not much

Explanations of Deviance
• Historical non Social-scientific explanations
– Patterns of Bumps on head
– The Devil made me do it
– Mental issues
– Bad Seed
• Sociological Explanations
– Functionalist:
• Deviance provides an example of what must be avoided because it
is wrong
• Some deviance can lead to positive social change

Controlling Deviance
• Is all deviance controlled?
– What choices does society have in controlling deviance?
• Internal
• External
• Who controls Deviance
– Under what circumstances some forms of deviance not controlled
– What is required to control deviant behavior?
• How about deviant thoughts?
– Presidential Candidate who admitted “Lusting in his thoughts”
• How does the nature of society impact the nature, extent and
control of deviance?

• Anomie The norms are weak or are in conflict. This is the
basis for Strain theory
– Social structure limits the abilities of certain groups to satisfy culturally
dictated goals and aspirations and means to achieve them.
• Cultural goals which are acceptable in our society
– Wealth
– Power
– Status
– Material Goods
• Acceptable means to achieve them
– Education
– Jobs
– Some talents

• Conflict or Strain between goals and means produce "anomie”
and possibly a high level of maladaptive behavior due to
cultural imbalance between goals and means.
• Social structure explains differences in upper and lower class
crime rates.
– Distribution of legitimate opportunities to achieve wealth through
legitimate means.
• Since goals are not always achieved, means become valuable in
themselves.
– Often times, means are placed under severe stress.
– Little reward in means alone.
• Strain falls on a wide variety of people:
– mostly concentrated in lower-classes.
– because of differential emphasis placed on ability to attain goals.
– Goals "open to all."

• Anomie created by disjunction of goals and means causes
great discomfort. To overcome sense of anomie, different
modes of adaptation are used:
Source http://www.indiana.edu/~theory/Kip/Strain.htm#Strain

Symbolic Interactionist Theories
• Social control or Social Bonding
– Doesn’t ask why people are deviant, but why they aren’t.
• http:faculty.ccc.eduabergerIt's Not A Crime If I Can't be Caught
.pdf
– Strong Interpersonal ties often lead to strong commitment to the norms
• Cultural Transmission, Differential association and subcultures
– Who you associate with
– Learned behaviors
– Interaction with other groups with other norms

White-Collar Crime
• White-collar crime: illegal acts committed in the
course of business activities, often by affluent,
“respectable” people
– Corporate crime: any act by a corporation that is
punishable by the government
– Computer crime: use of high technology to carry
out embezzlement or electronic fraud

Victimless Crimes
• Victimless crime: willing exchange among
adults of widely desired, but illegal, goods and
services
– Supporters of decriminalization are
troubled by attempts to legislate moral code
for adults
– Critics object to notion that these crimes
are “victimless”

Social Order, Deviance,
and Crime
• Durkheim’s Theory of Deviance
– Nothing inherently deviant or criminal in any act
– Society identifies criminals for the sake of social
order
– When societies experience anomie, social
integration is weak and people are free to pursue
deviant paths

Social Order, Deviance,
and Crime
• Merton’s Theory of Deviance
– Anomie theory of deviance: five basic forms of
adaptation to cultural expectations
• Conformist
• Innovator
• Ritualist
• Retreatist
• Rebel

Interpersonal Interaction
and Local Context
• Cultural transmission: individuals learn
criminal behavior by interacting with others
• Differential association: process through
which exposure to attitudes favorable to
criminal acts leads to the violation of rules

Interpersonal Interaction
and Local Context
• Social disorganization theory: attributes increases in
crime and deviance to the absence or breakdown of
communal relationships and social institutions
• Labeling theory: attempts to explain why certain
people are viewed as deviants while others engaged in
the same behavior are not
– Also known as the societal-reaction approach

Power and Inequality
• Criminal justice system serves the
interests of the powerful; protect their own
interests and define deviance to suit their
own needs
• Race and Class
– Suspects are treated differently based on their
race, ethnicity, and social class
– Differential justice: differences in the way
social control is exercised over different
groups

Power and Inequality
• Gender
– Existing approaches to deviance developed
with only men in mind
– Society tends to treat women in stereotypical
fashion
– Cultural views and attitudes toward women
influence how they are perceived and labeled
– As women take on more active and powerful
roles both in the household and in business,
gender differences in deviance and crime
have narrowed

The Criminal Justice System
• Based on Adversarial system, Conflict
• Only available for crimes, not for non criminal deviance
– Religious laws deal with some of the non criminal deviance
• Made up of
– Courts
– Police
– Corrections
• How else is deviance sanctioned?
– Hiring practices
– Public Opinion
– ?

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