Chapter 7 slides

1. 7 Deviance, Crime, and Social
Control
 Washington is one of several states where
marijuana use has been legalized,
decriminalized, or approved for medical use.

3.  Tattoos, vegan lifestyles, single parenthood,
breast implants, and even jogging were
once considered deviant but are now widely
accepted.
 The change process usually takes some
time and may be accompanied by significant
disagreement, especially for social norms
that are viewed as essential.

4. DEVIANCE AND CONTROL
 Deviance is a violation of established
contextual, cultural, or social norms, whether
folkways, mores, or codified law.
 Sociologists recognize that deviance is not
necessarily bad.
 Whether an act is labeled deviant or not
depends on many factors, including location,
audience, and the individual committing the
act.

5. Definitions of deviance
change from time to time.
Although same-sex marriage
is still viewed by many
Americans as a form of
deviance, prohibitions have
loosened to the point that
many gays, such as this
California couple in 2008,
are willing to legally
acknowledge their living
relationship.

6.  All societies practice social control.
 The regulation and enforcement of
norms.
 The underlying goal of social control
is social order.
 An arrangement of practices and
behaviors on which society’s members
base their daily lives.

7.  The means for enforcing rules are known
as sanctions.
 Sanctions can be positive or negative.
 Positive sanctions are rewards given for
conforming to norms.
 A promotion at work
 Negative sanctions are punishments for
violating norms.
 Being arrested

8.  Sociologists classify sanctions as formal
or informal.
 Informal sanctions emerge in face-to-face
social interactions.
 Formal sanctions are ways to officially
recognize and enforce norm violations.

9. Formal and informal sanctions may be positive
or negative. Informal sanctions arise in social
interactions, whereas formal sanctions
officially enforce norms.
Informal Formal
Positive An expression of
thanks
A promotion at
work
Negative An angry
comment
A parking fine

10. THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ON
DEVIANCE
FUNCTIONALISM
 Emile Durkheim believed that deviance is a
necessary part of a successful society.
 One way deviance is functional is that it
challenges people’s present views.
 When deviance is punished, it reaffirms currently
held norms, which also contributes to society.

11.  Robert Merton expanded on Durkheim’s ideas by
developing the strain theory, which notes that
access to socially acceptable goals plays a part in
determining whether a person conforms or
deviates.
 Merton defined 5 ways that people respond to the
gap between having a socially accepted goal and
having no socially accepted way to pursue it.
 These are listed and defined on page 139.

13.  Social disorganization theory asserts that crime
is most likely to occur in communities with weak
social ties and the absence of social control.
 It points to broad social factors as the cause of
deviance.
 A person isn’t born a criminal but becomes one over
time, often based on factors in his or her social
environment.

14.  Proponents of social disorganization theory
believe that individuals who grow up in
impoverished areas are more likely to
participate in deviant or criminal behaviors.

15.  Cultural deviance theory suggests that conformity to
the prevailing cultural norms of lower-class society
causes crime.
 Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay studied crime patterns
in Chicago in the early 1900s.
 They found that violence and crime were at their worst in
the middle of the city and gradually decreased the farther
someone traveled from the urban center toward the
suburbs.
 They concluded that socioeconomic status correlated to
race and ethnicity resulted in a higher crime rate.

16. Conflict theory
 Conflict theory looks to social and
economic factors as the causes of crime and
deviance.
 They don’t see deviant behaviors as positive
functions of society.
 They see them as evidence of inequality in the
system.
 They look for answers to the correlation of
gender and race with wealth and crime.

17.  Conflict theory was greatly influences by
Karl Marx.
 Marx believed that the general population
was divided into 2 groups.
 The wealthy, who controlled the means of
production and business—bourgeois.
 The workers who depended on the bourgeois for
employment and survival—proletariat.
 .

18.  Marx believed that the bourgeois centralized
their power and influence through
government, laws, and other authority
agencies in order to maintain and expand
their positions of power in society.
 His ideas created the foundation for conflict
theorists who study the intersection of
deviance and crime with wealth and power.

19.  C. Wright Mills described the existence of
what he dubbed the power elite in his book
The Power Elite.
 A small group of wealthy and influential people
at the top of society who hold the power and
resources.
 The rules of society are stacked in favor of a
privileged few who manipulate them to stay
on top.
 It is these people who decide what is
criminal and what is not.

20. Symbolic Interactionism
 A theoretical approach that can be used to
explain how societies and/or social groups
come to view behaviors as deviant or
conventional.

21.  Labeling theory is the ascribing of a deviant
behavior to another person by members of a
society.
 What is considered deviant is determined not so
much by the behaviors themselves or the people
who commit them, but by the reactions of others to
these behaviors.
 What is considered deviant changes over time and can
vary significantly across cultures.

22.  Edwin Lemert expanded on the concepts of
labeling theory and identified 2 types of deviance
that affect identity formation.
 Primary deviance is a violation of norms that does
not result in any long-term effects on the
individual’s self-image or interactions with others.
 Getting a speeding ticket
 Secondary deviance occurs when a person’s self-
concept and behavior begin to change after his or
her actions are labeled as deviant by members of
society.
 When a person’s lifestyle is so deviant that they are
given that label.

23.  Secondary deviance can be so strong that is
bestows a master status on an individual.
 A label that describes the chief characteristic of
an individual.
 Doctors, artists, or grandfathers can be master
statuses.
 But so can beggar, convict, or addict.

24.  Some young people
decorated this Duke of
Wellington statue in
Glasgow, Scotland, with
a traffic cone. Were they
engaged in primary or
secondary deviance?

25.  Edwin Sutherland sought to understand how
deviant behavior developed among people.
 He established differential association
theory.
 Suggests that individuals learn deviant behavior
from those close to them who provide models of
and opportunities for deviance.
 Deviance is less a personal choice and more
a result of differential socialization processes.
 May explain why crime is multigenerational.

26.  Control theory states that social control is directly
affected by the strength of social bonds and that
deviance results from a feeling of disconnection
from society.
 Individuals who believe they are a part of society
are less likely to commit crimes against it.
 Travis Hirschi identified 4 types of social bonds
that connect people to society.

27.  Attachment measures our connections to
others.
 Commitment refers to the investments we
make in the community.
 Levels of involvement or participation in
socially legitimate activities lessens a
person’s likelihood of deviance.
 Belief is an agreement on common values
in society.
 See definitions and examples on page 143.
 See Table 7.2 on page 144.

28. CRIME AND THE LAW
 Crime is a behavior that violates official law
and is punishable through formal sanctions.
 Ambiguity exists concerning what
constitutes a crime and whether all crimes
are “bad” and deserve punishment.

29.  All societies have informal and formal ways
of maintaining social control.
 Within these systems of norms, societies
have legal codes that maintain formal social
control through laws which are rules
adopted and enforced by a political
authority.

30. Types of Crimes
 Violent crimes are based on the use of
force or threat of force.
 Rape
 Murder
 Armed robbery
 Also known as “crimes against a person.”

31.  Nonviolent crimes involve the destruction
or theft of property but do not use force or
the threat of force.
 Larceny
 Car theft
 Vandalism
 Sometimes called “property crimes.”

33.  Street crime is offenses committed by
ordinary people against other people or
organizations, usually in public places.
 Corporate crime, or crime committed by
white-collar workers in a business
environment.
 Embezzlement
 Insider trading
 Identity theft

34.  Victimless crimes are activities against the
law, but that do not result in injury to any
individual other than the person who
engages in them.
 Underage drinking
 Prostitution
 Drug use

35.  Attacks based on a person’s race, religion,
or other characteristics are known as hate
crimes.
 The KKK is a group famous for committing hate
crimes.
 An average of 195,000 Americans are
victims to hate crimes each year, but less
than 5% are reported.
 The majority of hate crimes are racially
motivated, but many are based on religious
prejudice.

36. In the United States, there were 8,336 reported
victims of hate crimes in 2009. This represents
less than five percent of the number of people
who claimed to be victims of hate crimes when
surveyed.

37.  The FBI gathers data from 17,000 law
enforcement agencies .
 The Uniform Crime Reports is the annual
publication of this data.
 The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics
publishes a separate self-report study
known as the National Crime Victimization
Report.
 A collection of data gathered using voluntary
response methods.


38.  Crime rates, particularly for violent and gun-
related crimes, have been on the decline
since peaking in the early 1990s.
 However, US adults believe crime is worse now
than it was 20 years ago. Why?
 Popular crime shows like CSI, Criminal Minds, etc.
 People who monitor media reports of crime
 People who watch news coverage of things like 9/11
and The Boston Marathon Bombing

39. Crimes in the U.S.

41. The U.S. Criminal Justice System
 A criminal justice system is an
organization that exists to enforce a legal
code.
 There are 3 branches of the US criminal
justice system: the police, the courts, and
the corrections system.

42.  Police are a civil force in charge of
enforcing laws and public order at a federal,
state, or community level.
 Federal officers operate under specific
government agencies such as the FBI, the
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and
Explosives (ATF), and the Department of
Homeland Security.

43.  Federal officers can only deal with matters
that are explicitly within the power of the
federal government.
 State police have the authority to enforce
statewide laws, including regulating traffic on
highways.
 Local or county police have a limited
jurisdiction with authority only in the town or
county in which they serve.

44.  Once a crime has been committed and a
violator has been identified by the police, the
case goes to court.
 A system that has the authority to make
decisions based on law.
 The US judicial system is divided into
federal courts and state courts.

45.  Federal courts (including the US Supreme
Court) deal with federal matters, such as
trade disputes, military justice, and
governmental lawsuits.
 Judges who preside in federal courts are
selected by the president with the consent of
Congress.

46.  State courts vary but generally include 3
levels:
 Trial courts (traffic court and small claims court)
 Appellate courts
 State supreme courts
 Criminal cases are heard in trial courts. Any
member of the prosecution or defense can
appeal the trial court’s decision to a higher
court. The first of these is the appellate
court. If appealed again, it goes to the
highest state court, the state supreme court.

47.  The corrections system (or the prison
system) is charged with supervising
individuals who have been arrested,
convicted, and sentenced for a criminal
offense.
 At the end of 2010, approximately 7 million
US men and women were behind bars.

48.  In 2008, more than 1 in 100 US adults were
in jail or prison, the highest benchmark in
our nation’s history.
 The US accounts for 5% of the global
population, and we have 25% of the world’s
inmates--the largest number of prisoners in
the world.

49.  A jail provides temporary confinement,
usually while an individual awaits trial or
parole. (small and local)
 Prisons are facilities built for individuals
serving sentences of more than a year. (run
by either the state or federal government)

50.  Parole refers to a temporary release from
prison or jail that requires supervision and
the consent of officials.
 Probation is supervised time used as an
alternative to prison.
 They can both follow a period of incarceration in
prison, especially if the prison is shortened.

51. Incarceration