Socy 100 - Deviant Behavior

Defining Deviance: John Kitsuse’s Modest Agenda

James A. Holstein

Published online: 13 December 2008 # Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2008

Abstract This article highlights and appreciates an often overlooked aspect of John Kitsuse’s work in the sociology of deviance. Years before he invented a new sociology of social problems, Kitsuse crafted theoretical and empirical statements that helped establish the “labeling” or “societal reaction” definition of, and perspective on, deviance. Kitsuse’s work was a key in the movement to forge labeling theory’s distinctively radical edge. At the same time that he pioneered new sociological territory, Kitsuse also resisted the conceptual slippage that plagued so many others working on the frontier.

Keywords Deviance . Labeling theory. Social control . Social problems . Societal reaction . Sociological theory

A social constructionist approach to the study of social problems will undoubtedly stand as John Kitsuse’s most well-known and enduring sociological legacy. In Constructing Social Problems ([1977] 1987) and a series of related articles (Kitsuse and Spector 1973, 1975; Spector and Kitsuse 1973), Kitsuse and Malcolm Spector introduced a strategy for analyzing social problems that was both sociologically distinctive and conceptually coherent. At the time, Spector and Kitsuse had the audacity to announce that “There is no adequate definition of social problems within sociology, and there is not and never has been a sociology of social problems” (p. 1). They were, of course, correct. Constructing Social Problems (CSP) was a major step towards rectifying the situation.

Kitsuse has drawn plenty of attention and accolades—as well as skepticism, even reproach—for his reformulation of social problems. It is rightfully known as a landmark development on the sociological landscape. But if this is his signature contribution, it is only one of several indelible imprints he left on the scene. I take this opportunity to highlight another aspect of Kitsuse’s work that may have faded somewhat from the limelight, but that is equally noteworthy in its own right. Years before he invented a new sociology of social problems, John Kitsuse was a pioneer in the sociological analysis of “deviance.” His early theoretical and empirical statements clearly lay the groundwork for his perspective on social problems, yet

Am Soc (2009) 40:51–60 DOI 10.1007/s12108-008-9058-6

J. A. Holstein (*) Department of Social and Cultural Sciences, Marquette University, P.O. Box 1881, 526 N. 14th Street, Milwaukee, WI 53201-1881, USA e-mail: James.Holstein@Marquette.edu

recent generations of sociologists may not fully appreciate these contributions and their historical and theoretical significance. As much as CSP revolutionized the analysis of social problems in the 1970s, Kitsuse had “said it all before”—or at the very least, adumbrated most of it—15 years earlier in relation to deviance. Kitsuse’s contributions—in particular, his radically sociological definition of deviance—were ground-breaking and paradigm-shaping. At the same time, they were carefully- measured, not overly expansive. Kitsuse’s modest agenda for the sociological study of deviance, I would suggest, helped sustain his work’s distinctively radical edge. Moreover, it provided the substance for it to stand as a firm foundation of a constitutive, constructionist paradigm that would inspire and intellectually fortify generations to come.1

In the 1950s, Kitsuse had studied with Edwin Lemert, one of the most original and important figures in the formulation of a sociology of deviance. Kitsuse came of age as a sociologist at the very time when Howard Becker, Erving Goffman, and others of their brilliant generation were crafting new approaches in this area. He worked in Chicago, at Northwestern University, in the midst of perhaps the most vibrant community of sociologist ever to coalesce on the American scene. With all due respect to the many other innovators and luminaries of this cohort (and great respect is indeed due), I urge sociologists to remember that Kitsuse was a seminal, staunch, and uncompromising voice in the discussion that resulted in the so-called “labeling” or “societal reaction” perspective on deviance. Kitsuse stands out thanks to the clarity, consistency, and modesty of his statements. The relatively circum- scribed scope of his analytic ambitions differentiates Kitsuse’s work from other less successful forays into this realm. Sometimes the less said, the better. Kitsuse’s theoretical restraint, focus, and discipline bear this out.

A Sociological Definition of Deviance

Perhaps the most exciting sociological debates of the 1960s and 1970s emerged in relation to a new sociology of deviance. Many of us had our sociological imaginations galvanized by new claims that virtually turned commonsense notions on their heads. Controversy swirled most animatedly around what came loosely to be called “labeling theory.” The theoretical foundations of the labeling perspective are most often located in Howard Becker’s Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance (1993), Kai Erikson’s “Notes on the Sociology of Deviance” (1962), Kitsuse and Aaron Cicourel’s “A Note on the Official Use of Statistics” (1963), and Kitsuse’s “Societal Reaction to Deviant Behavior” (1962).

1 While John was a friend and inspiration to me, the observations in this article derive only in small part from our personal relationship. Unfortunately, I seldom had the opportunity to engage in the conversations that would have valuably informed my understanding of John’s work in relation to the issues I raise here. My remarks pertain almost completely to John’s published work and associated published commentaries. Prudence Rains (1975), Malcolm Spector (1976), and Peter Ibarra (2008) offer trenchant commentary regarding the societal reaction/labeling perspective and Kitsuse’s contributions that presage and resonate with my present remarks.

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Among these pioneers, Howard S. Becker deserves abundant credit. Perhaps the most frequently quoted, definitive statement of the labeling position is Becker’s proclamation in Outsiders (1963) that deviance:

… is created by society…. social groups create deviance by making the rules whose infraction constitutes deviance and by applying those rules to particular people and labeling them as outsiders. From this point of view, deviance is not a quality of the act the person commits, but rather a consequence of the application by others of rules and sanctions to an “offender.” The deviant is one to whom that label has successfully been applied. Deviant behavior is behavior that people so label. (Becker 1963, pp. 8–9, italics in the original.)

This pronouncement shaped a paradigm. Highly accessible and timely, Outsiders was widely read and profoundly influential. It was arguably the single publication most responsible for revolutionizing how social scientists might conceptualize deviance.2

Nevertheless, for all the acclaim and attention Outsiders deservedly garnered, it was not the first published statement of the societal reaction perspective. Kitsuse, Cicourel, and Erickson all published their papers before Outsiders was in print. Indeed, Kitsuse’s “Societal Reaction to Deviant Behavior” apparently offers the first published definition of deviance as “the processes by which persons come to be defined as deviant by others” (Kitsuse 1962, p. 248). This paper had its roots in an interview project conducted shortly after Kitsuse arrived at Northwestern University in 1958. He had been developing his own version of the societal reaction approach, which was undoubtedly informed by his working friendship with Aaron Cicourel— who had been a fellow graduate student at UCLA—as well as by the work of Becker and others.3

Still, to give credit where ample credit is due, Becker had been circulating his thoughts and informal drafts on the labeling perspective since the 1950s (Debro 1970; Spector 1976). When it was ultimately published in 1963 (and reissued in 1973), Outsiders was a more elaborate and ambitious project than any of the other contemporary ventures in the societal reaction literature. Moreover, Becker was the editor of the journal Social Problems at the time when the aforementioned papers were all published. If there is a central figure in popularizing the labeling perspective, it is surely Howard Becker.4

It is also possible to cast Edwin Lemert as the progenitor of the societal reaction perspective, especially with reference to his 1951 book, Social Pathology. Here,

2 As important as it was, Outsiders was not wholly clear on the parameters of the societal reaction perspective. For example, while the quotation cited immediately above is considered canonical, Becker proceeded, to introduce conceptual slippage in the very next paragraph of Outsiders, and in subsequent chapters, as he tried to link his societal reaction formulation to more conventional views of “deviant behavior” and secondary deviation. Further discussion follows. 3 Interview with John Kitsuse conducted and recorded by Jim Holstein, Gale Miller, and Courtney Marlaire at Marquette University, March 1992. 4 In Outsiders (1963), Becker cites Lemert (1951) as an earlier statement of the labeling view, and acknowledges Kitsuse (1962) as offering a “position very similar to mine” (p. 9, note 6)

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Lemert initiated the argument that “deviations are not significant until they are organized subjectively and transformed into active roles and become the social criteria for assigning status (1951, p. 75; also see Lemert 1967). While this perspective was most significantly the launching pad for Lemert’s groundbreaking arguments regarding primary and secondary deviance, it was also a precursor, if not a direct inspiration, for later societal reaction arguments regarding the definition of deviance more generally. But Lemert’s primary interest was not to build a labeling paradigm for understanding deviance, and others didn’t especially gravitate to those aspects of his work that resonated with the societal reaction definition. As Prudence Rains (1975, p. 2) points out,

… while references to Lemert’s work are a routine feature of every discussion of the labeling perspective, these references have largely been more honorary than substantive. The usual reference is to his early text Social Pathology (1951) and more particularly to his distinction between primary and secondary deviation…. Social Pathology did not so much set out the framework within which the work of others was done, but has instead provided a kind of retrospective theoretical touch point as the single most comprehensive and programmatic version of the labeling view.

From this point of view, then, Lemert’s influence on the societal reaction perspective was somewhat muted and largely post hoc.5

Regardless of its origins, the introduction of the societal reaction or labeling perspective offered the first truly coherent and sociologically viable approach to deviance. Previously, the term deviance had been a “catch-all” rubric for discussing the “Big Four” types of rule or norm violation: crime and delinquency, mental illness and other psychological problems, drug use and addiction, and homosexuality and other sexual misbehavior (Best 2004, p. 11). While sociologists sought to illuminate commonalities across the different phenomena, such efforts continued to amalgamate diverse concepts and divergent causal arguments (Best 2004). The societal reaction approach, however, transformed the focus from the myriad forms of “deviation” that might be considered into a more tightly focused examination of the processes through which persons are defined as deviant by others (Kitsuse 1962). Due, in no small measure, to the eloquent and compelling statements offered by Becker, Kitsuse, Cicourel and others, the “labeling school” of deviance quickly gained currency and popularity among scholars of the 1960s. According to Joel Best’s (2004) concise history of sociological conceptions of deviance, “the labeling framework had become the most visible, the leading, fashionable—if not exactly dominant—stance within the sociology of deviance” (p. 31). John Kitsuse was one of its primary architects.

5 Rains (1975) notes that Lemert’s substantive work stood for quite some time in isolation from other sociological work on deviance and social control because most of it was published in outlets not routinely consulted by sociologists. She argues that this work was “not effective as an ongoing programmatic influence on the emerging labeling literature” (p. 2) because it was not readily accessible until its consolidation in Lemert’s (1967) book Human Deviance, Social Problems, and Social Control. Becker (1963) and Kitsuse (1962) both acknowledge Lemert’s work, but not especially prominently.

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Compromising Positions

My point, however, is not that Kitsuse was the first, best, or the most influential among those who argued that deviance be defined in terms of societal reaction. Instead, I want merely to suggest that Kitsuse’s statement of the societal reaction perspective was especially noteworthy because it was relatively concise, modest, and consistently on point. As a consequence, perhaps, his position was less likely than others’ to stray from a truly sociological definition of deviance. It is Kitsuse’s comparatively tight analytic focus and theoretical restraint that renders his statement of the societal reaction/labeling perspective more radically sociological.

While I do not want to belabor what might unfairly be construed as the shortcomings of other’s contributions to the societal reaction perspective, it is instructive to compare Kitsuse’s work to other important presentations. On the surface, many of the cardinal conceptual statements are quite similar, virtually interchangeable (e.g., Becker 1963; Kitsuse 1962; Lemert 1951) yet Becker and Lemert, among others, offer informative contrasts. Becker’s classic statement, for example, seems straightforward enough: “Deviant behavior is behavior that people so label” (1963, p. 9). But Becker proceeds immediately to broaden the terrain of his discussion, ultimately to pursue explanations for deviant roles, identities, and careers. In the very next paragraph of Outsiders, for instance, he offers the following elaboration:

… students of deviance cannot assume that they are dealing with a homogeneous category when they study people who have been labeled deviant. That is, they cannot assume that these people have actually committed a deviant act or broken some rule, because the process of labeling may not be infallible; some people may be labeled deviant who in fact have not broken a rule. Furthermore, they cannot assume that the category of those labeled deviant will contain those who actually have broke a rule, for many offenders may escape apprehension and thus fail to be include in the population of “deviants” they study. (Becker 1963, p. 9)

This line of argument, of course, adumbrates Becker’s well-known four-fold table—“Types of Deviant Behavior”—in which Becker introduces the possibility of “pure deviants,” “secret deviants,” and “falsely accused” deviants (1963, p 20). While the typology has been widely popularized, it has also been criticized for conceptual inconsistencies (see Holstein 1993; Ibarra 2008; Katz 1972; Kitsuse and Spector 1975; Pollner 1974, 1987; Rains 1975). The gist of the critique is that by positing a category of behavior that is “deviant” but undiscovered (“secret deviant”), Becker identifies some behaviors as objectively or inherently “deviant.” (Other cells of the table pose similar conceptual problems.) This, of course, violates the precept that deviance is behavior so labeled. By introducing the possibility of pure, secret, or false deviance, Becker breaches his own tenet that “deviance is not a quality that lies in behavior itself” (Becker 1963, p. 14).6

6 Kitsuse, of course, was familiar with the critiques of the alternate statements of the societal reaction perspective. Indeed, he offered his own critique, which resonates with the comments offered above (see Kitsuse and Spector 1975). Becker, too, recognized the conceptual confusion residing his own formulations, which he attempted to address in a second edition of Outsiders (see Becker 1973, chapter 10, “Labelling Theory Reconsidered”).

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Lemert was similarly inconsistent regarding precisely what constitutes deviant behavior. He was not especially interested in what he called “primary deviation,” except in the ways that it provided the basis for societal responses that could transform and solidify “secondary deviation” by forcing the significant reorganiza- tion of the “deviant’s” identity and roles (Ibarra 2008). In discussing the transformation from primary to secondary deviation, however, Lemert raises the issue of “reactions to deviance,” which prompts questions about just what such reactions were reactions to (Rains 1975).

According to Rains (1975), Lemert introduced the term putative deviation to characterize the object of societal reaction. This was an “ostentatiously careful” way of referencing forms of behavior without fully committing to their “actuality” (Rains 1975, p. 3). Rains (1975, p. 3), however, goes on to point out that Lemert defined putative deviation as “that portion of the societal reaction which has no foundation in… objective behavior (1951: 56), and consistently uses the expression to mean ‘not objectively warranted.’” As Rains astutely notes, “if there is a putative or unwarranted part of the societal reaction, there is also a ‘warranted’ part which reflects and depends on the objective features of deviance” (p. 3). Lemert thus joins Becker in acknowledging objective forms of deviance, distinct from societal reaction. In this sense, their formulations of the societal reaction perspective contain theoretical compromises (Ibarra 2008; Kitsuse and Spector 1975; Rains 1975).

Of course Becker and Lemert were not the only ones guilty of theoretical inconsistencies. They were certainly not the only ones to allow “actual deviance” to sneak into sociological analysis through the “back door,” so to speak. For example, Thomas Scheff (1964, 1966, 1967, 1974) took up the labeling banner, arguing that societal reaction was more responsible for the application of psychiatric labels and sanctions associated with “mental illness” than were actual symptoms of mental illness or acts of “residual rule breaking” themselves. This argument clearly conceded the existence of actual mental illness in the process, slipping dramatically away from the constitutive position. To his credit, Scheff fought the good fight in support of his position, trading empirical body-blows with researchers working from the more conventional, psychiatric perspective on mental illness (see Gove 1975). Through all this, labeling theory found itself at the heart of a vigorous controversy vis-à-vis conventional theories of deviance as well as involved in several serious “dust-ups” within the labeling community, to which the profusion of labeling critiques attests.7

Kitsuse’s place in this discussion is significant. At first glance, his approach diverges little from Becker’s or Lemert’s. Differences, however, emerge in the details, as Kitsuse specified his position:

… a central problem for theory and research in the sociology of deviance may be stated as follows: What are the behaviors which are defined by members of the group, community, or society as deviant, and how do these definitions

7 Kitsuse himself had his say in relation to the various labeling theory controversies (see Kitsuse 1975). His argument was predictably modest and forthright, insisting that the constitutive version of the societal reaction approach was not in the business of etiological explanations. Rather it pointed away from such social psychological concerns, focusing instead on the processes by which imputations of deviance were formulated (Kitsuse 1975).

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organize and activate the societal reactions by which persons come to be differentiated and treated as deviant?… Accordingly, deviance may be conceived as a process by which the members of a group, community, or society (1) interpret behavior as deviant, (2) define persons who so behave as a certain kind of deviant, and (3) accord them the treatment considered appropriate to such deviants. (Kitsuse 1962, p. 248).

Kitsuse thus unequivocally proposed to

… shift the focus of theory and research from the forms of deviant behavior to the processes by which persons come to be defined as deviant by others. Such a shift requires that the sociologist view as problematic what he generally assumes as given—namely, that certain forms of behavior are per se deviant and are so defined by the “conventional or conforming members of a group…. Clearly, the forms of behavior per se do not activate the processes of societal reaction which sociologically differentiate deviants from non-deviants. (Kitsuse 1962, p. 248)

Kitsuse thus makes it clear that he is not interested in deviant behavior per se, thus avoiding some of the explanatory temptations that seduced Lemert and Becker. He is unambiguous that, as a theoretical sociological construct, deviance is the upshot of societal reaction; societal reaction literally constitutes deviance.8

Like Lemert, Kitsuse attempted to be ostentatiously careful in discussing behavior or persons that came to be labeled deviant. Using terms such as “putative,” “imputation,” and “alleged,” Kitsuse (1962) conscientiously tried to distance his analysis from the issue of “actual” deviance. As Rains (1975) suggests, he used the terms differently from Lemert, refusing to draw distinctions between real (warranted) and labeled deviance. For Kitsuse, “actual” deviance was irrelevant; he was stridently agnostic—analytically indifferent—to the notion of “real deviance.” From his perspective, societal reaction solely and wholly constitutes deviance. “Forms of behavior per se do not differentiate deviants from non-deviants” (Kitsuse 1962, p. 253). It is the responses of others “who identify and interpret behavior as deviant which sociologically transform persons in to deviants” (Kitsuse 1962, p. 253).

Less can be Better

Again, let me reiterate that I am not arguing that Kitsuse was the paramount architect of the societal reaction approach. He was, however, less likely than others to occupy a conceptually compromised position. There is less theoretical “slippage” in his work, largely because he was theoretically and strategically indifferent to the actuality of deviant behavior. He did not aspire to etiological explanations of deviant behavior—primary or secondary. In a sense, his sociological project was con-

8 Of course Kitsuse cannot completely avoid or stand outside the linguistic complications inherent in discussing the interactional constitution of his phenomenon of interest. From the very title of his article “Societal Reactions to Deviant Behavior,” for example, he occasionally invokes the category “deviance” in some descriptive or explanatory capacity at the same time that he is trying to define it.

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siderably less ambitious than Lemert’s or Becker’s. In particular, both Becker and Lemert sought descriptions and explanations of secondary deviance, deviant identity, and deviant careers. Each of these is a worthy topic in its own right,9 but the accompanying descriptions and causal explanations were not compatible with the constitutive societal reaction perspective (see Pollner 1974, 1987 for further discussion of the constitutive version of labeling theory).

Kitsuse’s ambitions, however, are notably more modest by comparison. He worked without the “encumbrance” of the etiological goals that characterized many of his contemporaries (Ibarra 2008). Rather than seeking explanations of deviant behavior, he was interested in describing the behavior of those doing the labeling— those persons or groups who created deviance by formulating and applying “deviance” designations. Thus, Kitsuse’s interest was actually in what is typically called social control. Deviance, in Kitsuse’s terms, is an artifact of social control; it is produced or manufactured through processes of societal reaction.10 As Peter Ibarra (2008) puts it, the societal reaction perspective “inverted” the usual order of things vis-à-vis deviance by positing that social control produces deviance, not the other way around. Kitsuse’s version was the most consistently constitutive version of labeling theory at the time. It is precisely this focused vision and modest ambition that sets Kitsuse’s work apart.11

Kitsuse brought this same focus and modesty to the study of social problems. Ibarra (2008) argues convincingly that Kitsuse’s early work (e.g., 1962; Kitsuse and Cicourel 1963) offered a preliminary version of what would later come to be known as social constructionism (see Holstein and Gubrium 2008), “namely a focus on the definitional practices and organizational considerations that are embedded in the moral differentiation of populations” (Ibarra 2008, p. 359). This development came to full fruition in Kitsuse’s landmark work with Malcolm Spector (Kitsuse and Spector 1973, 1975; Spector and Kitsuse 1976, 1977 [1987]).

In developing a constructionist approach to social problems, Kitsuse and Spector reintroduced the sociological “inversion” employed in the societal reaction perspective on deviance. Social problems, they argued, do not lead to social responses (e.g., social movements), but, rather, claims-making processes (often in the form of social movements) produce social problems in the sense that they constitute them as meaningful phenomena. Ibarra (2008) suggests that the 1975 article, “Social Problems and Deviance: Some Parallel Issues” was pivotal in bringing societal reaction sensibilities into the new arena of social problems. Just as importantly, Ibarra (2008, p. 363) notes that Kitsuse and Spector were especially “concerned with preventing the derailment of their fledgling conception into the analytically com- promised terrain previously visited by definitional approaches to deviance.”

9 Kitsuse and Cicourel (1963), themselves, acknowledged as much, noting the importance of addressing such behavior-producing social processes. 10 Kitsuse and Cicourel (1963) reconfigured this statement in relation to the production of “official statistics” to make the same point. Distinguishing between “behavior-producing processes” and “rate- producing processes,” they noted that the latter refers to “the actions taken by persons in the social system which define, classify, and record certain behaviors as deviant” (Kitsuse and Cicourel 1963, p. 135). 11 Kitsuse was not an especially prolific author. This may have made it easier for him to stay “on track,” to avoid theoretical slippage and analytic compromise.

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To that end, Kitsuse and Spector again tried to be ostentatiously careful with respect to the analytic language of social problems. They eschewed the description of deplorable social conditions (i.e., “objective” or “actual” social problems), focusing instead on the claims-making activities” about “putative conditions” that construct social problems. Once again, the approach was controversial because it ignored or rejected conventional analytic concerns and because its proponents were occasionally guilty of selective relativism and/or theoretical slippage (see Woolgar and Pawluch 1985). Consistent with his longstanding concerns, Ibarra and Kitsuse (1993, 2003) responded by further disciplining their analytic vocabulary, replacing the notion of “putative conditions” (Spector and Kitsuse 1977 [1987]) with the more precise concept of “condition categories.”

Kitsuse’s other Legacy

In the mid to late 20th century, the notion of deviance captivated sociologists and their students arguably more than any other field. Today, however, distinctly sociological analysis of deviance may be waning as that era recedes into the past. Indeed, Joel Best (2004) suggests that “deviance has come to occupy an insecure, even precarious, place in sociology (p. ix). The problem is the same one Kitsuse, Becker, and others sought to address in the 1960s. As we can easily infer from Best’s (2004) historical text and the uses (and misuses) to which the concept has been put, the conventional notion of deviance that has persisted is too amorphous, too expansive, to be analytically useful. It is too ambitious. Sociologists attempt to fit too many disparate phenomena under the same theoretical or conceptual canopy. The general term deviance has virtually no sociological utility when it is employed as a “catch-all” rubric or unifying gloss.

John Kitsuse tried to rectify this situation through a disciplined societal reaction definition of deviance. To date, this perspective is the only approach that makes consistent sociological sense of the term. To paraphrase Spector and Kitsuse (1977 [1987]), other than the societal reaction formulation of deviance, there has been no adequate definition of deviance within sociology, and there is not and never has been a viable, coherent sociology of deviance beyond this perspective. This perspective stands as an important part of Kitsuse’s legacy. His modest agenda to define deviance in terms of societal reaction provides to this day both a theoretical touchstone and a vital and viable foundation for contemporary constructionist studies. Ironically, for a man attracted to the iconoclastic—and for one who relished a good argument or debate—labeling theory would have been far less controversial (especially internecine squabbles) if the societal reaction approach had retained the limited theoretical aspirations and disciplined parameters John Kitsuse suggested for it.

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