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Ch.7Deviance_updatedSP.pptxINTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY
Chapter 7: DEVIANCE, CRIME, AND SOCIAL CONTROL
College Physics
Chapter # Chapter Title
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Deviance and Crime
Deviance: is the violation of established contextual, cultural, or social norms.
Deviance is not necessarily bad.
No straightforward manner to describe what is deviant
Crime (click for video) is the violation of a law that is punishable by fines, imprisonment or both.
Deviance: is defined by it’s social context (rules change, norms vary across cultures and time)
Is not an intrinsic (biological or psychological) attribute of individuals, nor of the act themselves, but a product of social processes
The word deviance connotes odd or unacceptable behavior, but in the sociological sense of the word, deviance is simply any violation of society’s norms. Deviance can range from something minor, such as a traffic violation, to something major, such as murder. Each society defines what is deviant and what is not, and definitions of deviance differ widely between societies. For example, some societies have much more stringent rules regarding gender roles than we have in the United States, and still other societies’ rules governing gender roles are less stringent than ours.
An Act can be criminal and deviant
An act can be criminal and deviant i.e. breaking both social and legal rules. For example, most people would agree that battering an old lady to death is both criminal and deviant and deserves punishment. Other acts of killing may be more complex, what happens for instance if killing occurs in times of war? Or in self-defense? So context matters.
An act can be deviant but not criminal
An act can be deviant but not criminal i.e. breaking social, but not legal rules. Ex. Male manager wearing a dress to the office or someone talking loudly in the middle of a quite concert. Minor transgressions of behavior, which may be acceptable in our own private realm, become very different when occurring in public.
Relativism and Deviance
Deviance is a relative issue, and standards for deviance change based on a number of factors, including the following:
Location: A person speaking loudly during a church service would probably be considered deviant, whereas a person speaking loudly at a party would not. Society generally regards taking the life of another person to be a deviant act, but during wartime, killing another person is not considered deviant.
Age: A five-year-old can cry in a supermarket without being considered deviant, but an older child or an adult cannot.
Social status: A famous actor can skip to the front of a long line of people waiting to get into a popular club, but a non-famous person would be considered deviant for trying to do the same.
Individual societies: In the United States, customers in department stores do not try to negotiate prices or barter for goods. In some other countries, people understand that one should haggle over the price of an item; not to do so is considered deviant.
Mala prohibita: “acts bad according to law”
Morality crimes
Traffic Violations
Mala in se: “acts bad in themselves”
Murder
Rape
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Types of Deviance
Cultural Norms and Deviance
In Japan, there are strict norms involving the exchange of business cards. One person presents his or her business card with the writing facing the recipient, who looks at it for a moment and asks a question about some of the information on the card. The question may be irrelevant, but it tells the giver that the recipient has read the card and acknowledges the person and his or her company. A Japanese executive who receives a business card and does not take the time to look at it and ask a question would be considered deviant.
John Hagen (1994) provides a typology to classify deviant acts in terms of their perceived harmfulness, the degree of consensus concerning the norms violated, and the severity of the response to them.
*Severity of social response
•Harmfulness of deviant or criminal act
•Degree of public agreement on if the act is deviant
The most serious acts of deviance are consensus crimes about which there is near-unanimous public agreement. Acts like murder and sexual assault are generally regarded as morally intolerable, injurious, and subject to harsh penalties. Conflict crimes are acts like prostitution or smoking marijuana, which may be illegal but about which there is considerable public disagreement concerning their seriousness.
Social deviations are acts like abusing serving staff or behaviors arising from mental illness and addiction, which are not illegal in themselves but are widely regarded as serious or harmful. People agree that they call for institutional intervention. Finally there are social diversions like riding skateboards on sidewalks, overly tight leggings, or facial piercings that violate norms in a provocative way but are generally regarded as distasteful but harmless, or for some, cool.
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Social Control
Social Control: the regulation and enforcement of norms
Folkways, Mores and Laws
Sanctions: the means of enforcing rules.
Positive Sanctions and Negative Sanctions
Informal Sanctions and Formal Sanctions
Social Control
Punishing people for deviant behavior reminds people what is expected of them and what will happen if they do not conform to society’s norms. Every society has methods of social control, or means of encouraging conformity to norms. Informal and formal social control: unofficial and casual reaction to deviant behavior; smiles, ridicule or scorn and can be done by anyone. Formal social control: done by authorized agents who enforce institutionalized rules and punish those who violate them.
***These methods of social control include positive sanctions and negative sanctions. A positive sanction is a socially constructed expression of approval. A negative sanction is a socially constructed expression of disapproval.
Positive Sanctions
Society uses positive sanctions to reward people for following norms. Positive sanctions can be formal, such as an award or a raise. They can also be informal and include words, gestures, or facial expressions.
Example: The smile that a mother gives her child when he says “thank you” is a positive sanction.
A reaction to an individual’s actions can be a positive sanction, even if it is not intended to be.
Example: If a three-year-old learns a four-letter word at day care and says it to her parents, they might giggle and tell the child not to say it anymore. But the child repeats it because she likes seeing them laugh. Without realizing it, the girl’s parents positively sanction her actions by laughing when she says her new word. Even though what they said was intended to discourage her, their actions conveyed the opposite meaning.
Negative Sanctions
Like positive sanctions, negative sanctions can range from formal to informal.
Example: A speeding ticket or a prison sentence is a formal negative sanction. A raised eyebrow or a stare is an informal negative sanction.
Some subcultures dole out negative sanctions for behaviors generally condoned by the rest of society. In our society, academic achievement is usually held in high esteem. But in some subcultures, succeeding in a way that the dominant society approves of is not considered a good thing. In some gangs, getting good grades is not acceptable, and gang members who do well in school are criticized by their friends for “selling out.” Conformity to traditional figures of authority, such as teachers, is negatively sanctioned.
Penal social control functions by prohibiting certain social behaviors and responding to violations with punishment.
Compensatory social control obliges an offender to pay a victim to compensate for a harm committed.
Therapeutic social control involves the use of therapy to return individuals to a normal state.
Conciliatory social control aims to reconcile the parties of a dispute and mutually restore harmony to a social relationship that has been damaged.
While penal and compensatory social controls emphasize the use of sanctions, therapeutic and conciliatory social controls emphasize processes of restoration and healing.
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Age and Crime
Relationship Between Age and Arrest for Serious Crimes
Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation. (2015). Uniform crime reports. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice.
Trends in Crime
Age Trends:
15-24 make up 14% of the population
Account for 31.8% of all arrests in 2015
Crime commission declines with age.
Juveniles under age 18 more likely to be arrested for robbery
Property crime peaks at age 16
Persons between 18 and 34 most likely to be arrested for violence crime
Violent crime peaks at age 18
White-collar crime = exception
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Trends in Crime
Gender Trends:
Gender is the best predictor of criminality across time and place.
Males accounted for 63% of arrests for property crime and 80% of arrests for violent crime.
Doubly Deviant
Honor Killings (click for video)
Gender and Deviance
In the United States, women who cry in public in response to emotional situations are not generally considered deviant—even women who cry frequently and easily. This view of women has remained relatively constant. Over the past fifty years, however, society’s perception of men who cry has changed. A man who cried publicly in the 1950s would have been considered deviant. Today, men who cry in response to extreme emotional situations are acting within society’s norms. Male politicians cry when announcing defeat, male athletes cry after winning a championship, and male actors cry after winning an award. By today’s standards, none of these men is committing a deviant act.
Deviant Traits
A person does not need to act in a deviant manner in order to be considered deviant. Sometimes people are considered deviant because of a trait or a characteristic they possess. Sociologist Erving Goffman used the term stigma to identify deviant characteristics. These include violations of the norms of physical ability or appearance.
Trends in Gender:
Gender is the best predictor of criminality across time and place.
Gap is smaller, but still significant in contemporary Western society.
Males accounted for 63% of arrests for property crime and 80% of arrests for violent crime.
Women show up often for larceny-theft (43% of arrests are of women), fraud (41%), embezzlement (48%), and prostitution (68%).
Doubly Deviant (because women who violate contextual rules/regulations for both ‘normal’ behavior and gender, they could be said to be deviant twice (doubly deviant). This usually produces a great stigma for women, where for men, being deviant could be a status booster in more social circles.
Possible reasons for gender gap:
Socialization: Sex Role Theory
For some males, crime enhances status
For women, crime is stigmatizing
Social expectations of women centers on nurturing, beauty, virtue, and stereotypes of femininity
Differences in types of offending:
Men more likely to engage in violent crime
Women more likely to engage in shoplifting or employee theft (feminization of poverty)
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Low-Stakes Writing
How do you feel the media influences your perception of crime and/or criminals? Think of race, gender, age, etc.
Are you fearful of becoming a victim of crime? How does your age, gender, sex and race affect your response?
Nature of Victimization
Males and females have similar rates of violent victimization
Females at increased risk of rape and sexual assault
African Americans experience higher victimization rates
Persons of mixed race, Alaskan, or Native Americans experience highest victimization
Routine Activities Theory
A person’s routine activities increase risk of victimization
Lifestyles Theory
Certain lifestyles or behaviors place people in situations where victimization is likely to occur
Victim precipitation
Extent to which a victim is responsible for his or her own victimization
Some victims are responsible for being victimized
Both parties (victim and offender) are acting and often reacting before, during, and after the incident
Leads to risk of blaming the victim while ignoring offender’s role
Victim facilitation
Occurs when a victim unintentionally makes it easier for an offender to commit a crime
Victim may be the catalyst
Example- woman who leaves her purse in plain sight in her office as she uses the restroom and has it stolen
Victim provocation
Occurs when a person does something that incites another person to commit an illegal act
Without the victim, the crime would actually not have occurred
Example: individual is shot while trying to break into a home
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Media and Crime
Research has found that the media DISTORT the picture of crime, criminals, victims and reasons for crime.
Focusing on violent crime, cultural/ethnic differentiation, masculinization of crime, etc.
Catharsis hypothesis
"exposure to media violence enables an indirect letting-off-steam and thus has a calming effect“
Precipitation hypothesis
"exposure to media coverage of violence, fact or fiction, will produce greater propensities to aggression and violence."
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Media and Crime
Media has a profound effect on attitudes, values and behavior and our perceptions of crime/criminals.
Imitation
Desensitization (click for video)
transmitting knowledge of criminal techniques
glamorizing crime
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Crime Statistics
Crime against property is crime that involves theft of property belonging to others.
Crime against persons is crime that involves violence or the threat of violence against others.
burglary, larceny-theft, motor-vehicle theft, arson
murder and manslaughter, aggravated assault, forcible rape, and robbery
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Crime Rates
Rate has been falling since 1993
Murder victims:
78% are male
51% are African American
46% are white
Arrests made in 63% of all murders
78% of all murder victims knew the offender; in 23% of the cases, they were related.
Nationally, only 28% of women who are raped make a report to the police.
Most attackers know their victims, but arrests are made in only 21% of reported cases.
Statistics include attempted rape and male rape victims, but not sex with a minor (statutory rape).
Anger rape: sexual attack becomes a means of expressing rage or anger
Power rape: assailant primarily wishes to express domination of the victim
Sadistic rape: perpetrator combines sexuality and aggression in psychotic desires to torment, torture, or otherwise abuse the victim
Least likely of all violent crimes to result in an arrest; just 29% were cleared in 2012.
Offenders:
87% male
62% under age 25
55% African American
43% white
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Violent Crime
Stalking is defined as repeated efforts by someone to establish or reestablish a relationship against the will of the victim.
75% of stalking victims are women.
IPV: Gender and Deviance
85% of domestic abuse victims are women: physical, emotional and financial abuse
3 women are murdered each day by current or former partner
Women with disabilities have increased numbers of abuse
Every 20 minutes people are victims of ipv
1 in 4 women will experience ipv in their lifetimes; 1/7 men
928$ average ER cost for women related to ipv
Rejected Stalker
Motivation: This type of stalker begins to stalk after their partner (romantic or close friendship) has ended their relationship or indicates that they intend to end the relations. This type of stalker wants to be in a relationship with the survivor again or seek revenge on the survivor. The stalker's goals may vary, depending on the responses of the survivor.
Resentful Stalker
Motivation: This stalker wants to frighten or distress their survivor and often stalks their survivor to get revenge against someone who has upset them. This type of stalker views their survivor as being similar to those who have oppressed or humiliated them in the past and may view themselves as a survivor striking back against an oppressor.
Predatory Stalker
Motivation: This type of stalker stalks their survivor as part of a plan to attack them, usually sexually, and is motivated by the promise of sexual gratification and power over the survivor.
Intimacy Seeker
Motivation: This type of stalker seeks to establish an intimate, loving relationship with the survivor and may believe that the survivor is in love with them. This is a delusion.
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Functionalist Theoretical Perspectives on Deviance
Durkheim: The Essential Nature of Deviance
Deviance is a necessary part of a successful society
Claudette Colvin and Rosa Parks
Functionalism:
Functions of Deviance
Durkheim argued that deviance is a normal and necessary part of any society because it contributes to the social order. He identified four specific functions that deviance fulfills:
Affirmation of cultural norms and values: Seeing a person punished for a deviant act reinforces what a society sees as acceptable or unacceptable behavior. Sentencing a thief to prison affirms our culturally held value that stealing is wrong. Just as some people believe that the concept of God could not exist without the concept of the devil, deviance helps us affirm and define our own norms.
Clarification of right and wrong: Responses to deviant behavior help individuals distinguish between right and wrong. When a student cheats on a test and receives a failing grade for the course, the rest of the class learns that cheating is wrong and will not be tolerated.
Unification of others in society: Responses to deviance can bring people closer together. In the aftermath of the attacks on September 11, 2001, people across the United States, and even the world, were united in their shock and grief. There was a surge in patriotic feeling and a sense of social unity among the citizens of the United States.
Promoting social change: Deviance can also encourage the dominant society to consider alternative norms and values. Rosa Parks’s act of deviance in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955 led to the U.S. Supreme Court’s declaration that segregation on public transportation was unconstitutional.
4 justifications for punishment:
Retribution
Reform/Rehab
Protection
Deterrence
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Functionalist Theoretical Perspectives on Deviance
Shaw and McKay: Cultural Deviance Theory
Conformity to the prevailing cultural norms of lower-class society causes crime.
Asserts that crime is most likely to occur in communities with weak social ties and the absence of social control.
Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay called cultural deviance theory.
The theory states that the individual is not responsible for their deviance as much as the community within which they reside.
People are influenced by the place, people, and social structure of the community in which they reside.
Delinquency is most common among lower-class youths because they have the least opportunity for conventional success.
Deviant Subcultures
When individuals share a particular form of deviance, they often form a deviant subculture, a way of living that differs from the dominant culture and is based on that shared deviance. Within the deviant subculture, individuals adopt new norms and values and sometimes feel alienated from the larger society. They end up relying more on the group to which they feel they most belong. When an individual becomes a member of a deviant subculture, the members of his immediate group often become his primary source of social interaction. The deviant feels comfortable among others who have also been rejected from the dominant society.
Example: People released from prison often find that the dominant society does not welcome them back with open arms, and they often drift toward other ex-convicts to attain a sense of belonging and purpose, thereby forming a subculture. This deviant subculture helps to explain why rates of recidivism, or repeated offenses by convicted criminals, are so high. The ex-convict subculture sanctions and encourages further acts of deviance
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Functionalist Theoretical Perspectives on Deviance
Travis Hirschi: Social Control Theory
Social control theory is used to help us understand and reduce levels of criminal activity.
It's based upon the idea that an individual's basic belief system, values, morals, commitments and relationships foster a lawful environment.
Individuals who have these beliefs and commitments often have a level of self-control over their actions or are
they are accordingly prepped to stay on the right side of the law.
Furthermore, social control theory examines how society influences criminal behavior. It also underscores the idea that when individuals are involved and in touch with their community, they are less likely to commit criminal acts.
States of deviance and social control are directly affected by the strength of social bonds and that deviance results from a feeling of disconnection from society.
Control Theory
Sociologist Walter Reckless developed the control theory to explain how some people resist the pressure to become deviants. According to control theory, people have two control systems that work against their desire to deviate. Each person has a set of inner controls and outer controls.
Inner controls are internalized thought processes such as a sense of morality, conscience, or religious beliefs. People may also refrain from doing acts of deviance because they fear punishment or couldn’t live with the guilt that would come from acting outside of society’s norms. Inner controls represent a sort of internalized morality.
Outer controls consist of the people in our lives who encourage us not to stray. They could be family members, police officers, clergy, or teachers. Whoever they are, they influence us to conform to society’s expectations. A person who is tempted to engage in a deviant act can resist the temptation by imagining how others would react to his or her behavior.
Travis Hirschi and Control Theory
Sociologist Travis Hirschi elaborated on the control theory. He identified four elements that would render an individual more or less likely to commit deviance: attachment, commitment, involvement, and belief.
Attachment: People who feel a strong attachment to other people, such as family or close friends, are less likely to be deviant. If people have weak relationships, they feel less need to conform to the other person’s or group’s norms. They are more likely to commit a deviant act.
Commitment: Individuals who have a sincere commitment to legitimate goals are more likely to conform to society’s norms. Those goals could be a legitimate job, higher education, financial stability, or a long-term relationship. When people have little confidence in the future, they are more likely to engage in deviance.
Involvement: The more involved people are with legitimate activities, the less likely they are to deviate from appropriate behavior. A person with a job, a family, and membership in several clubs or organizations is less likely to commit deviance. Not only does he not have time to waste in potentially harmful activities, but he has a lot to lose if he does.
Belief: An individual who shares the same values as the dominant society, such as respect for authority, the importance of hard work, or the primacy of the family, is less likely to commit deviance. Individuals whose personal belief systems differ from those of the dominant society are more likely to commit deviance. A person raised to believe that it is acceptable to cheat, lie, and steal will probably not integrate into mainstream society as well as someone whose beliefs conform to the values of the larger society.
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Access to socially acceptable goals plays a part in determining whether a person conforms or deviates.
1. Conformity:
2. Innovation:
3. Ritualism:
4.Retreatism:
5. Rebellion:
Strain Theory of Deviance
Sometimes people find that when they attempt to attain culturally approved goals, their paths are blocked. Not everyone has access to institutionalized means, or legitimate ways of achieving success. Strain theory, developed by sociologist Robert Merton, posits that when people are prevented from achieving culturally approved goals through institutional means, they experience strain or frustration that can lead to deviance. He said that they also experience anomie, or feelings of being disconnected from society, which can occur when people do not have access to the institutionalized means to achieve their goals.
Example: In a class of graduating high school seniors, 90 percent of the students have been accepted at various colleges. Five percent do not want to go to college, and the remaining five percent want to go to college but cannot, for any one of a number of reasons. All of the students want to succeed financially, and attending college is generally accepted as the first step toward that goal. The five percent who want to attend college but can’t probably feel frustrated. They had the same goals as everyone else but were blocked from the usual means of achieving them. They may act out in a deviant manner.
Institutionalized Means to Success
In the 1960s, sociologists Richard Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin theorized that the most difficult task facing industrialized societies is finding and training people to take over the most intellectually demanding jobs from the previous generation. To progress, society needs a literate, highly trained work force. Society’s job is to motivate its citizens to excel in the workplace, and the best way to do that is to foment discontent with the status quo. Cloward and Ohlin argued that if people were dissatisfied with what they had, what they earned, or where they lived, they would be motivated to work harder to improve their circumstances.
In order to compete in the world marketplace, a society must offer institutionalized means of succeeding. For example, societies that value higher education as a way to advance in the workplace must make educational opportunity available to everyone.
Illegitimate Opportunity Structures
Cloward and Ohlin further elaborated on Merton’s strain theory. Deviant behavior—crime in particular—was not just a response to limited institutionalized means of success. Rather, crime also resulted from increased access to
Illegitimate opportunity structures, or various illegal means to achieve success. These structures, such as crime, are often more available to poor people living in urban slums. In the inner city, a poor person can become involved in prostitution, robbery, drug dealing, or loan sharking to make money. While these activities are clearly illegal, they often provide opportunities to make large amounts of money, as well as gain status among one’s peers.
Reactions to Cultural Goals and Institutionalized Means
Merton theorized about how members of a society respond to cultural goals and institutionalized means. He found that people adapt their goals in response to the means that society provides to achieve them. He identified five types of reactions:
Conformists: Most people are conformists. They accept the goals their society sets for them, as well as the institutionalized means of achieving them. Most people want to achieve that vague status called a “good life” and accept that an education and hard work are the best ways to get there.
Innovators: These people accept society’s goals but reject the usual ways of achieving them. Members of organized crime, who have money but achieve their wealth via deviant means, could be considered innovators.
Ritualists: A ritualist rejects cultural goals but still accepts the institutionalized means of achieving them. If a person who has held the same job for years has no desire for more money, responsibility, power, or status, he or she is a ritualist. This person engages in the same rituals every day but has given up hope that the efforts will yield the desired results.
Retreatists: Retreatists reject cultural goals as well as the institutionalized means of achieving them. They are not interested in making money or advancing in a particular career, and they tend not to care about hard work or about getting an education.
Rebels: Rebels not only reject culturally approved goals and the means of achieving them, but they replace them with their own goals. Revolutionaries are rebels in that they reject the status quo. If a revolutionary rejects capitalism or democracy, for example, he or she may attempt to replace it with his or her own form of government.
Merton’s Goals and Means
Method of adaptation
Cultural goals/
Institutionalized means
Conformists
Accept
Accept
Innovators
Accept
Reject
Ritualists
Reject
Accept
Retreatists
Reject
Reject
Rebels
Reject/Replace
Reject/Replace
1. Conformity: Those who conform choose not to deviate. They pursue their goals to the extent that they can through socially accepted means.
2. Innovation: Those who innovate the pursuit of goals they cannot reach through legitimate means by instead using criminal or deviant means.
3. Ritualism: People who ritualize lower their goals until they can reach them through socially acceptable ways. These members of society focus on conformity rather than attaining a distant dream.
4. Retreatism: Others retreat and reject society’s goals and means. Some beggars and street people have withdrawn from society’s goal of financial success.
5. Rebellion: A handful of people rebel, replacing a society’s goals and means with their own. Terrorists or freedom fighters look to overthrow a society’s goals through socially unacceptable means.
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Symbolic Interactionism
Labeling Theory:
The ascribing of a deviant behavior to another person by members of society.
Primary Deviance
Secondary Deviance
Symbolic Interactionism:
Labeling Theory
A key aspect of the symbolic interactionist perspective of deviance is labeling theory. First proposed by sociologist Howard Becker in the 1960s, labeling theory posits that deviance is that which is so labeled. No status or behavior is inherently deviant until other people have judged it and labeled it deviant.
Example: Some parents absolutely prohibit physical punishment of children, such as spanking, while other parents regularly use physical punishment to enforce household rules. Are parents who spank their children deviant? The answer depends on what is considered acceptable behavior within that given household, or within the greater society in which the family lives. Though spanking is inherently neither right nor wrong, it is subject to the often harsh judgment of others.
Primary and Secondary Deviance
Sociologist Edwin Lemert differentiated between primary deviance and secondary deviance. The difference between primary deviance and secondary deviance is in the reactions other people have to the original act of deviance.
Primary deviance is a deviant act that provokes little reaction and has limited effect on a person’s self-esteem. The deviant does not change his or her behavior as a result of this act.
Example: An adolescent who smokes cigarettes with other adolescents is not at risk of being labeled a deviant among her peers, since they all smoke. Even though adolescents who smoke cigarettes are considered deviant by the larger American society, that teenager’s actions go relatively unnoticed, unpunished, and therefore unchanged. The primary deviance is of little consequence.
Secondary deviance includes repeated deviant behavior that is brought on by other people’s negative reactions to the original act of primary deviance.
Example: The same adolescent moves to a new school where his peers never smoke and where smoking is considered a deviant behavior. The students call him names and exclude him from all of their social activities. Because of their reactions to his smoking, he feels like an outcast and begins to smoke more, perhaps engaging in other deviant activities, such as alcohol or drugs.
According to Lemert, the reactions to the adolescent’s primary deviance provoked a form of secondary deviance. Because his alleged friends reacted so negatively to his behavior, he began to engage in more of the deviant behavior. This repeated deviance results in the adolescent having a deviant identity. He now has a “reputation,” and no one looks at him in quite the same way as before.
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. Speeding is a deviant act, but receiving a speeding ticket generally does not make others view you as a bad person, nor does it alter your own self-concept. Individuals who engage in primary deviance still maintain a feeling of belonging in society and are likely to continue to conform to norms in the future.
Sometimes, in more extreme cases, primary deviance can morph into secondary deviance.
Secondary deviance occurs when a person’s self-concept and behavior begin to change after his or her actions are labelled as deviant by members of society. The person may begin to take on and fulfill the role of a “deviant” as an act of rebellion against the society that has labelled that individual as such. For example, consider a high school student who often cuts class and gets into fights. The student is reprimanded frequently by teachers and school staff, and soon enough, develops a reputation as a “troublemaker.” As a result, the student starts acting out even more and breaking more rules, adopting the “troublemaker” label and embracing this deviant identity.
Master status: a label that describes the chief characteristic of an individual
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Symbolic Interactionism
Edwin Sutherland: Differential Association theory
Individuals learn deviant behavior from those close to them
Sociologist Edwin Sutherland studied deviance from the symbolic interactionist perspective. The basic tenet of his theory of differential association is that deviance is a learned behavior—people learn it from the different groups with which they associate. His theory counters arguments that deviant behavior is biological or due to personality. According to Sutherland, people commit deviant acts because they associate with individuals who act in a deviant manner.
He further explained exactly what one learns from people who commit deviance. He said that the future deviant learns values different from those of the dominant culture, as well as techniques for committing deviance.
Example: In a gang environment, current gang members resocialize new members to norms that oppose those of the dominant culture. From the gang, these new members learn that stealing, carrying a gun, and using drugs are acceptable behaviors, whereas they were not before. In the meantime, the norms they learned at home are no longer acceptable within the gang environment, and they must reject those norms and values to accept the new ones. Current gang members also teach new members how to commit specific deviant acts, such as hotwiring a car or breaking into a home.
Part of Sutherland’s theory is that if people learn deviance from others, the people with whom we associate are of utmost importance. The closer the relationship, the more likely someone is to be influenced. Parents who worry that their children are socializing with an undesirable crowd have a justified concern.
Example: If an adolescent changes schools and his new peer group smokes marijuana, the new student is more likely to smoke marijuana. On the other hand, if a student moves to a new school where no one smokes marijuana, he is less likely to take up the habit.
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Conflict Theory Perspective
Karl Marx: An Unequal System
Society is divided into two rigid social groups: Proletariat and the Bourgeois.
Bourgeois control the means by which society is regulated-laws, government, authority agencies- which allow them the opportunity to maintain and expand their power over society.
Conflict Theory and Crime
Conflict theorists believe that the broad division of people into these two categories is inherently unequal. They cite the criminal justice system to support their claim. The capitalist class passes laws designed to benefit themselves. These same laws are detrimental to the working class. Both groups commit acts of deviance, but the system the capitalists created defines deviance differently for each group. The criminal justice system judges and punishes each group differently.
In addition, the elite can often afford expensive lawyers and are sometimes on a first-name basis with the individuals in charge of making and enforcing laws. Members of the working class generally do not have these advantages.
C. Wright Mills: The Power Elite
A small group of wealthy and influential people at the top of society who hold the power and resources.
Great efforts are made by the capitalists to legitimize elite acts of deviance.
The higher-ups in society have greater ability to commit deviant acts, to escape sanction for those acts, and to create scapegoats to blame for those acts.
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Why?:
Race and class are linked to one another
Statistics don’t include crimes that are more likely to be committed by whites (drunk driving, embezzlement and tax fraud)
Overcriminalization: more easily assumed to be criminal and treated as such both by the police and the public at large
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Why?:
Race and class are linked to one another
Statistics don’t include crimes that are more likely to be committed by whites (drunk driving, embezzlement and tax fraud)
Overcriminalization: more easily assumed to be criminal and treated as such both by the police and the public at large
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Punishment
In 2016, more than 2.3 million people were incarcerated in the United States, almost five times the number in 1980.
The U.S. imprisons a larger share of its population than any other country.
Figure 6-4 Rates of Incarceration
for Selected Countries
Trends in Crime
Race and Crime:
African Americans= 13.3% of population
37% of Male Prison Population
Eurocentric bias: Implicit Bias (click for video)?
White privilege? Again (click for video), again (click for video)?
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Race and Ethnicity:
Most “street crime” arrests involve white suspects.
Black males are six times more likely than white males to spend time in jail.
One-third of black men in their twenties either in jail, on probation, or on parole
Crime Trends
Why does race play a large part in the street crime picture?
Deprivation faced by black youths may lead to hostility towards police and distrust of “the system.”
Prejudice based on race may prompt people to suspect blacks on the basis of skin color.
72% of black children are born to single mothers.
Asian Americans underrepresented in street crime statistics: higher income levels and strong cultural emphasis on family, discipline, and honor.
Blacks and Latinos disproportionately arrested and imprisoned over whites.
“War on drugs” policing focused on poor neighborhoods in the inner city.
Crowded, urban neighborhoods more likely to attract police attention than dispersed suburban neighborhoods.
Discrimination: people of color more likely to actually serve time in prison or jail.
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Trends in Crime
Social Class and Crime:
Majority who are arrested are from lower social classes
May be due to lack of power in society
Lower-class offenders more likely to be prosecuted
From 1986 until 2010, the punishment for possessing crack, a “poor person’s drug,” was 100 times stricter than the punishment for cocaine use, a drug favored by the wealthy. Crack vs. Cocaine (click for video)
The Structure and Context of Crime and Deviance
Prison-industrial complex – Policies that target and greatly expand the U.S. inmate population
“Get tough on crime”
“War on Drugs”
Prison Industrial Complex Explained (video)
Modern Day Slavery (video)
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Prison-Industrial Complex Stats
In order to make money, corporate prisons are set up so that they need prisoners, and lots of them. State governments sign contracts with the correctional corporations who agree to provide a certain number of prison beds, and to keep those beds filled, or at least 90 percent of them. If they don't keep the beds full, the states still pay for them. Trying to meet these lockup quotas, or minimum numbers of filled prison beds, has resulted in over two million people ending up in prison in the United States as of 2014. China, with five times as many people as the U.S., had about 500,000 fewer people living in prison during the same year.
In spite of the fact that violent crime has decreased, there are more people in American prisons than ever before. Adam Gopnik, in his article, The Caging of America, said that ''in 1980, there were about 220 people incarcerated for every hundred thousand Americans; by 2010, the number had more than tripled, to 731 per every hundred thousand. No other country even approaches that.'' The vast majority of these prisoners are not in jail for violent crimes. Most are in for drug charges other than trafficking and have no prior record.
Prison-Industrial Complex Facts
Prisoners work for pennies a day to perform labor for the military. The helmets, ID tags, canteens, and other items are assembled in prisons, along with other military supplies.
Corporations that run prisons make higher profits if they spend less money on the prisons they run. This can mean skimping on basics like food. A private prison in Mississippi was once investigated by a psychiatrist, who felt that the prisoners ''looked emaciated.'' These prisoners had lost a significant amount of weight during the time spent in prison. Health care services for prisoners are also often cut in the interest of spending less and profiting more.
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Law and Crime
American Legislative Exchange Council
Corporations funnel money (as tax write-offs) to ALEC
Implicates Politicians, Lobbyists and Legislators
ALEC holds conferences were these people meet to discuss ‘model’ legislation.
Participating legislators bring proposals home to introduce them in statehouses
Stand Your Ground Laws
Three Strike Laws
Corrections Corporations of America
Voter ID Laws; Disenfranchisement
The Structure and Context of Crime and Deviance
Prison Inmate Jobs
As the only Americans not protected from slavery and forced labor by the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, prison inmates have historically been required to perform routine prison maintenance jobs
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), inmates in prison work programs earn from 95 cents to $4.73 per day
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The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution declared that "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." Formally abolishing slavery in the United States, the 13th Amendment was passed by Congress on January 31, 1865, and ratified by the states on December 6, 1865.
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What impact does the Prison Industrial Complex have?
Prisons perpetuate and enable violence – putting someone in a cage is violent in itself. Prisoners experience violence in prisons themselves through physical and psycho-emotional assault, sexual assault and rape, harassment and neglect of many needs, especially health needs. Violence is also manifested in huge patterns of self harm and suicide, inside and outside prison, before and after sentences and interactions with the ‘criminal justice’ system.
Families, lovers and friends of those subjected to the prison industrial complex are also harmed through our culture of locking people up. Thousands of relationships are daily affected as people are separated from their communities. Individuals can loose their jobs, homes and possessions, as well as loose or deeply effect their relationships with children, parents and other family, lovers, friends and social ties.
Our current system does not meet the needs of individuals who have experienced harm either. Individuals and communities fail to feel safer with the growth of prisons and the prison industrial complex. The legal system is exclusive, intimidating, ineffective at meeting people’s needs and supporting their confidence that harm will be reduced. Instead of asking, ‘Who did it and how can we punish them?’ which is the function of our courts, we ask ‘Who was hurt? How can we support their healing? How can we prevent such harm in the future?’
Most people assume that the plight of contemporary African Americans is directly linked to issues of poverty and drugs. Yet Alexander asserts that the connection to the beginning of President Reagan's War on Drugs campaign is wrong. The campaign actually began before the boom in crack cocaine. Many in the African American community accused the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of genocide for allowing illegal drug smuggling from Nicaragua into inner city black neighborhoods. The impact of the War on Drugs, however, was enormous. The prison population grew in 30 years from 300,000 to more than 2 million—largely due to drug convictions. The United States now has the highest incarceration rate in the world, and the majority of the incarcerated are a racial minority. Yet minorities are not the majority of those who sell and use drugs. People of all races use and sell drugs at a similar rate, with white youths being more likely to engage in drug crime than any other race. Yet the majority of the nation's prisoners are black and brown drug offenders. Once released, many of them will be permanently locked out of mainstream society. Drug crime was actually in decline when the War on Drugs began. However, Alexander points to a study that shows how "governments use punishment primarily as a tool of social control," not in proportion to actual crime. Crime rates in the United States have dropped below the international average. Yet the United States' incarceration rate is six-to-ten-times greater than that of any other industrialized nation. Alexander, therefore, concludes that incarceration in America is a system of social control rather than a reflection of crime trends. People who commit crimes are far more likely to commit them again in the future. Anyone with economic and social opportunities is highly unlikely to commit a crime. Experts recommended in 1973 that no new prisons be built. This recommendation was based on the finding that prisons have a shocking record of failure. In fact, prisons create more crime rather than deter it. Instead of the prison population declining, it actually quintupled over the next 30 years.
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Incarceration
Mass Incarceration in the US (click)
California Prison Overcrowding (click)
Joe Arpaio: Maricopa County, Arizona (click)
Norway Luxury Prison (click)
PIC
Bail Bonds (click)
Modern Day Slavery? (click)
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Courts
97% of criminal cases are settled through plea-bargaining, a negotiation in which the state reduces a defendant’s charge in exchange for a guilty plea.
Relying too heavily on plea bargaining can take away a defendant’s constitutional right to a trial.
Types of Crime:
White-Collar Crimes
Conflict theorists also look at the types of crimes committed by members of the two classes. The working class is more likely to commit so-called street crime, such as robbery, assault, or murder. Members of the elite are less likely to commit acts of violence but more likely to engage in white-collar crime, or nonviolent crime committed by the capitalist class during the course of their occupations.
Example: White-collar criminal acts include embezzlement, insider stock trading, price fixing, and breaking regulatory laws.
White-collar criminals are difficult to catch and prosecute for two main reasons:
White-collar crime is difficult to identify. It leaves little physical evidence and no easily identifiable victim. In order to detect white-collar crime, authorities must have knowledge of high finance to discover that embezzlement, for example, has taken place.
White-collar criminals are sometimes able to use their power and influence to avoid prosecution. Because of their social and economic clout, white-collar criminals rarely face criminal prosecution. When prosecuted, they are much less likely than members of the working class to receive a prison sentence. They are more likely to pay a fine as punishment for their crime.
White-Collar Crime: Not Dangerous?
Generally, white-collar crimes are not harmful or dangerous to the general public. But there are exceptions. In 2001, consumer advocates accused the Ford Motor Corporation of equipping some of their vehicles with faulty tires, made by Bridgestone/Firestone. Ford had already recalled the tires from vehicles sold in other countries but made no such recall on tires on those sold in the United States. Over 200 people died and more than 800 were injured in automobile accidents allegedly caused by the defective tires.
Deviance and Power
Conflict theorist Alexander Liazos points out that the people we commonly label as deviant are also relatively powerless. According to Liazos, a homeless person living in the street is more likely to be labeled deviant than an executive who embezzles funds from the company he or she runs.
Because the people in positions of power make the laws of any given society, they create laws to benefit themselves. According to the conflict view of deviance, when rich and powerful people are accused of wrongdoing, they have the means to hire lawyers, accountants, and other people who can help them avoid being labeled as deviant. Lastly, members of a society generally believe that laws are inherently fair, which can draw attention away from the possibility that these laws might be unfairly applied or that a law itself might not be good or just
White-collar crime is just one type of crime. Crime, or the violation of a written law, is a specific kind of deviance. What constitutes a crime varies from society to society.
In our society, sociologists have identified three general categories of crime:
Crimes against the person: These are crimes in which an act of violence is either threatened or perpetrated against a person. A mugging is an example of a crime against the person.
Crimes against property: These are crimes that involve the theft of property or certain forms of damage against the property of another. Arson is an example of a property crime.
Victimless crimes: These are crimes in which laws are violated, but there is no identifiable victim. Prostitution is often classified as a victimless crime.
Profile of a Criminal
Sociologists studying crime and deviance study statistics on who commits crime. Identifying a criminal profile can help sociologists understand the causes of crime and other deviance. Sociologists use the categories of age, gender, social class, and race and ethnicity to create this profile.
Age
Young people, roughly between the mid-teens and early twenties, commit almost 40 percent of all crimes. The likeliness to commit crime, particularly violent crime, decreases as one ages.
Gender
Men are arrested for crimes far more often than women. Men are arrested for approximately 70 percent of all property crimes and 80 percent of all violent crimes. Several theories, including the following, attempt to explain this situation:
In all known societies, men are allowed more behavioral freedom than women are. More freedom means more opportunity to engage in deviant acts.
Traditionally, police have been less willing to define a woman as a criminal, and the court system has been less likely to convict a woman and sentence her to jail or prison.
The gap between the number of arrests for men and the number of arrests for women is narrowing, however. This could be due to greater gender equality or, as some believe, to the rising number of women who commit crimes.
Social Class
Street crime, particularly violent crime, is more prevalent in poor, inner-city neighborhoods than in affluent communities. Violent crime in inner-city neighborhoods tends to be committed by the same group of seasoned criminals. Their victims are most often the law-abiding inhabitants of those neighborhoods. White-collar crime tends to occur in more affluent communities.
Race and Ethnicity
African Americans represent approximately 12 percent of the population in the United States and comprise 30 percent of property-crime arrests and 38 percent of violent-crime arrests. White people represent 66 percent of the arrests for property crimes and 60 percent of the arrests for violent crimes.
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Policing
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The Problem with Policing in the US
Unwarranted or excessive and often illegal use of force against civilians
Assault and battery
Mayhem
Torture
Murder
Harassment
Intimidation
Verbal abuse
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Police Brutality: A Worldwide Issue
Police brutality is a human rights issue
We can find cases of police brutality around the world today
Combination of factors
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Public School to Prison Pipeline
The systemic process through which students are pushed out of public schools and into the criminal justice system.
How:
Zero-tolerance policies are enacted that over criminalize non-violent behavior.
These policies, nation-wide, have resulted in Black students facing disproportionately harsher punishments than their white counterparts.
Black students represent 31% of school-related arrests
Black students are suspended and expelled 3x more than white students
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Shifting of responsibilities
Defunding the Police: reallocating or redirecting funding away from police department to other government AND/OR COMMUNITY agencies AND/OR PROGRAMS
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9 out of 10 calls for service are for nonviolent encounters
Changing policies and statutes so that police never respond to certain calls/emergencies
Health care workers
Emergency response teams
Social workers
Restorative justice
Community organizers
Schools and community programs
