It is detail presentation on the different theories of deviant behavior and crime

2. Title of the Presentation
Chapter Four:
Major Theories of Deviance
• Anomie Theory
• Conflict Theories
• Labeling Theory
• Control Theory
• Learning or Socialization Theory

3. ANOMIE or STRAIN THEORY
Main contributor Robert K Merton (1968)
Society is composed of two structures:
• A value structure and a normative structure.
• The value structure determines culturally identified desired end-states (or goals),
• while the normative structure defines culturally prescribed means to achieve those goals.
Socialization initially prepares every person in society to accept each of these two structures. In some
societies, however, an imbalance results when certain values carry more weight than the standards for
acceptable means to attain them. This imbalance creates social strain, which affects some groups more than
others, and the members of those groups must adapt to the social circumstances.
• Anomie is the condition in society that results when the normative structure does not let individuals
achieve valued goals. Therefore, people are not anomic, whole societies are.

4. Anomie or Strain Theory cont…
• Robert Merton came up with the strain theory which says that
deviance is more likely to occur when a gap exists between
cultural goals and the ability to achieve those goals by legitimate
means like hard work and education.
• There are four types of deviation involved with the strain theory.

5. Cont…
• Conformity According to Merton, the most common adaptation leads
people to conform to society’s norms and avoid becoming deviant
• Innovation- When a person accepts the goals of success but uses illegal
means to achieve it. Ex. drug dealing, robbery, etc.
• Ritualism- When the person rejects the goal but continues to use the
legitimate means. This person will go through daily routines without any
concern for the quality of their work
• Retreatism- This is when both the legitimate means and illegitimate
means are rejected. This person is not successful by either means and they
don't seek success. ex. homeless person who chooses not to work
• Rebellion- This is when people reject both success and the approved
means for doing so. At the same time they substitute a new set of goals
and means.

6. Conflict Theory or Conflict Perspective on Deviance
• The conflict approach to deviance can be said to involve five
broad themes .
• First, deviance is related to the inequalities of power and materialism
that are inevitable in a capitalist system. Such inequalities lead to
both street crime and corporate criminality.
• Second, what is considered “deviant” is not the result of an impartial
decision-making process. Rather, the key to being able to define
some behavior as deviant is social power. In general, the injurious
acts of the powerless (like burglary, taking crack cocaine, and
drinking in public) are said to be deviant, while the injurious acts of
the powerful and rich (like the manufacture of defective products,
taking powder cocaine, and drinking in one’s own living room) often
escape sanction.

7. Cont.…
• Third, the system of social control, in the form of the criminal
justice system, psychiatrists, counselors, religious officials, and
parents, often uphold the interests of the capitalist system rather
than those of the poor and socially marginal.
• Fourth, the root cause of deviance is capitalism, which often ignores
the needs of the poor. the school system, welfare authorities, and the
police among others—the poor often turn to crime and forms of
escapism, such as alcohol and drugs, and suicide.
• Fifth, the solution to most forms of deviance is a more equitable
society. Reducing the gaps between the rich and the poor is essential,
as is the reform of systems of social control to make them more
responsive to the needs of the poor.

8. Differential Association theory
Differential Association: Edwin H. Sutherland’s view that criminality is a
function of the socialization process
• The differential association theory says the more we are exposed to people
who break the law, the more apt we are to breaking the law ourselves.
• Criminal behavior is learned
• Learning is a by-product of interacting with others
• Learning criminal behavior occurs within intimate personal groups
• Learning criminal behavior involves assimilating the techniques of committing
crime, including motives, drives, rationalizations, and attitudes
• The specific direction is learned from perceptions of various aspects of the legal
code as favorable or unfavorable

9. Cont.….
• A person becomes criminal when perceiving the consequences of violating
the law as favorable
• Differential associations vary in frequency, duration, priority, and intensity
• The process of learning criminal behavior involves the same mechanisms as
any other learning process
• Criminal behavior and noncriminal behavior express the same needs and
values

10. Cont.…

11. Social Bond or Control Theory
The Social Control Theory, originally known as The Social Bond
Theory in 1969, was developed by Travis Hirschi. The central
question of the theory asks why do people follow the law? The
theory suggests that people engage in criminal activity when their
bond to society has weakened. “social control theory refers to a
perspective which predicts that when social constraints on
antisocial behavior are weakened or absent, delinquent behavior
emerges.” In other words, when an individual has experienced a
lack of social connections or a lack of social network that would
normally prohibit criminal activity, the likelihood that the
individual will participate in criminal activity increases

12. Elements of Social Control Theory
Four Main Concepts or Elements of Social Bonding Theory
1.Attachment: - close, affective ties to others,; identification
with others (to parents)(the more insensitive we are with others
the less we care about their values.
Attachment to parents
Attachment to peers
Attachment to school

13. Cont.…
2. Commitment: Feelings that conventional activities offer
rewards; development of a “stake in conformity” and the feeling
that deviance jeopardizes valued benefits
3. Involvement: The amount of time spent in conventional
activities; insufficient idle time for possible deviance
4. Belief: The extent of internalization of conventional norms;
development of “inner controls” over deviance

14. Testing Social Bond Theory
• Hirschi’s Supporting Research
• Youths who were strongly attached to their parents were less likely to commit
criminal acts.
• Commitment to conventional values, such as striving to get a good education and
refusing to drink alcohol and “cruise around,” was indicative of conventional
behavior.
• Youths involved in conventional activity, such as homework, were less likely to
engage in criminal behavior.
• Youths involved in unconventional behavior, such as smoking and drinking, were
more delinquency prone.
• Youths who maintained weak and distant relationships with people tended
toward delinquency.
• Those who shunned unconventional acts were attached to their peers.
• Delinquents and no delinquents shared similar beliefs about society.

15. Labelling theory
• Labelling Theory is “An approach to the study of deviance which
suggests that people become ‘deviant’ because certain labels are
attached to their behaviour by political authorities and others”
- (Giddens, 2006: p1022)
• Meaning that people are not inherently deviant or non-deviant by
nature but rather that, they are seen as deviant by others, causing
them to become deviant.
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16. Who Labels Whom?
• “People who represent the forces of law and order, or are able to
impose definitions of conventional morality on others, do most of the
labelling”
• Thus by “wealthy for the poor, by men for women, by older people for
younger people, and by ethnic majorities for minority groups”
- (Giddens, 2006:p800)
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17. Howard Becker
 Becker believed that the act done by the person was
not deviant, rather that the labelling caused it to be
viewed as such.
 Becker’s Outsiders (1963) shows that smoking of
marijuana in the early 1960s, was a marginal activity,
within sub-cultures.
 Also that it depended on acceptance into the culture,
association with current users and disassociation with
non-users.
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18. Edwin Lemert
• Lemert (1972) created a theory for how deviance might
occur through labelling.
• Primary deviance is the first deviant act committed by a
person, sometimes it is normalised. If not the person is
labelled as criminal.
• Secondary deviance is when the person accepts the
label. This may lead to the reproduction of that
behaviour more frequently.
• Becker described this as becoming a ‘master status’ or
when the label becomes the most important part of the
person’s identity and it is self-fulfilling.
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