Deviance and Social Control: A Sociological Perspective
What is Deviance?
Deviance refers to the recognized violation of cultural norms. It encompasses actions, qualities, or behaviors that deviate from accepted societal standards.
Social Foundations of Deviance
Social Control
Social control refers to the attempts by society to regulate individuals’ thoughts and behaviors, encouraging conformity to established norms. It operates through:
- Informal responses: Everyday interactions like praise or scolding from parents.
- Formal responses: Institutionalized systems like laws and law enforcement agencies.
The Biological Context
Early theories attributed criminal behavior to biological factors like physical structure and genetics. However, contemporary research emphasizes the interplay between genetic predisposition and social environment.
Personality Factors
Unsuccessful socialization is considered a contributing factor to deviant behavior. Individuals who haven’t internalized societal norms may be more prone to deviance.
Non-conformity
- Negative rule breakers: Individuals who engage in harmful activities like theft or violence.
- Positive rule breakers: Individuals who challenge norms for perceived social good, often labeled as righteous.
The Biological Context
While outdated theories linked criminal behavior to biological instincts, modern research acknowledges the influence of both genetic composition and social factors.
Social Foundations of Deviance
Both biological and psychological perspectives view deviance as an individual trait. However, sociological theories emphasize the role of social forces in shaping deviant behavior.
Functions of Deviance (Structural and Functional Theories)
Emile Durkheim
Durkheim, a pioneer of functionalist thought, argued that deviance is a necessary element of social organization. He outlined four key functions of deviance:
- Deviance affirms cultural values and norms: By defining certain behaviors as deviant, society establishes boundaries of acceptable conduct.
- Responding to deviance clarifies moral boundaries: Societal reactions to deviance reinforce collective understanding of right and wrong.
- Responding to deviance brings people together: Shared outrage against serious deviance strengthens social bonds and reaffirms collective values.
- Deviance encourages social change: Challenges to existing norms can lead to social innovation and progress.
Robert Merton’s Strain Theory
Merton argued that societal structures can create strain, leading individuals to deviance. His strain theory identifies five modes of adaptation:
- Conformity: Accepting cultural goals and pursuing them through legitimate means.
- Innovation: Accepting cultural goals but using unconventional or illegitimate means to achieve them (e.g., theft, drug dealing).
- Ritualism: Adhering rigidly to conventional means but abandoning or scaling down cultural goals.
- Retreatism: Rejecting both cultural goals and means, effectively withdrawing from society (e.g., drug addicts, alcoholics).
- Rebellion: Rejecting existing cultural goals and means and seeking to replace them with new ones, often through countercultural movements.
Deviant Subcultures (Richard Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin)
Cloward and Ohlin argued that crime often stems from limited access to legitimate opportunities and the availability of illegitimate ones. They emphasized the role of relative opportunity structures in shaping individual choices.
Labeling Theory
Labeling theory highlights the subjective nature of deviance, emphasizing that the same behavior can be interpreted differently depending on societal perceptions.
Symbolic Interactionism
- Primary deviance: Fleeting acts of deviance that don’t significantly impact an individual’s self-concept.
- Secondary deviance: Deviant acts that are internalized into an individual’s self-concept, leading to a deviant identity.
- Tertiary deviance: When individuals embrace their deviant identity and potentially challenge its negative connotations.
Key Concepts in Labeling Theory
- Stigma: A powerfully negative label that alters an individual’s self-concept and social identity.
- Degradation ceremonies: Formal rituals that publicly stigmatize individuals (e.g., criminal trials).
- Retrospective labeling: Interpreting an individual’s past behavior in light of their present deviance.
- Projective labeling: Using a deviant identity to predict future actions.
Medicalization of Deviance
Defining deviance as a medical issue has significant consequences:
- Shifts response from punishment to treatment: Instead of law enforcement, medical professionals become the primary responders.
- Impacts perceptions of personal responsibility: Medicalization can lead to viewing deviance as a result of illness rather than personal choice.
Other Theories of Deviance
Differential Association Theory (Edwin Sutherland)
Sutherland proposed that individuals learn deviant behavior through interaction with others who hold deviant values and engage in deviant activities.
Hirschi’s Control Theory
Hirschi argued that social bonds prevent individuals from engaging in deviance. He identified four key elements of social control:
- Attachment: Strong social connections to family, friends, and institutions encourage conformity.
- Opportunities: Access to legitimate opportunities for education, employment, and social mobility reduces the likelihood of deviance.
- Involvement: Engagement in conventional activities leaves less time and energy for deviant pursuits.
- Belief: Internalizing societal norms and values strengthens conformity.
Social Conflict Analysis
Deviance and Power
Conflict theory emphasizes the role of power in shaping definitions of deviance and the application of social control:
- Laws and norms reflect the interests of the powerful: Those in power create and enforce rules that benefit themselves and maintain their social dominance.
- The powerful can resist deviant labels: Resources and influence protect the privileged from being labeled as deviant, even when engaging in harmful behavior.
- Ideology masks the political nature of laws: The powerful promote the idea that laws are neutral and objective, obscuring their role in maintaining social inequality.
Types of Crime
- White-collar crime: Offenses committed by individuals in high-status positions during their professional activities.
- Corporate crime: Illegal actions undertaken by corporations or individuals acting on behalf of a corporation.
- Organized crime: Providing illegal goods or services through structured criminal enterprises.
Deviance, Race, Ethnicity, and Gender
- Hate crimes: Criminal acts motivated by bias against individuals based on their race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or other characteristics.
- Feminist perspectives: Critique traditional theories of deviance for neglecting the experiences of women and the role of gender inequality in shaping deviant behavior.
Types of Crime
- Violent crimes: Offenses involving physical harm or the threat of harm, such as murder, assault, and robbery.
- Property crimes: Offenses involving the theft or destruction of property, such as burglary, larceny, and arson.
- Victimless crimes: Offenses where there is no readily identifiable victim, such as drug use, prostitution, and gambling.
Criminal Statistics
-crime declined through 2004
– homicide average rates (06-2010) have declined or risen very slightly
almost everywhere in Canada except in Nunavut
-2010, Canada registered its lowest homicide rate in 40 years
Street Criminal: A Profile –Arrest
Statistics:
Age- persons between ages 20-34
are 25% of total population yet constitutes 62% of inmates
Gender- 85+ of arrests involve
males and 97% of all prisoners are males
Social Class: Rich and poor
commit crimes, but of different kinds of offences
Race and ethnicity: Aboriginals
and Blacks are arrested/imprisoned disproportional
Criminal Justice System
-Police: primary point of
contact between population and criminal justice system, much
-Court: determine innocence and
guilt – plea bargaining: legal negotiation in which a prosecutor reduces a
charge or a defendant’s guilty plea
Punishment
1. Retribution: “An eye for
an eye”: oldest punishment, is to satisfy people’s need for retribution, an
act of moral vengeance by which society makes the offender suffer as much as
the suffering caused by the crime
2. Deterrence: Threat of Prison,
the attempt to discourage criminality through punishment
3. Rehabilitation: Correctional
Facility
4. Societal Protection:
Incarceration or execution