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Deviance andSocial Control
“The criminal commits the crime,
society creates the criminal.”
“...crime is normal because a society exempt fromit is utterly impossible.”
Intro to SociologyUniversity of San Francisco
April 1, 2008
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Concepts to cover...
relativity of deviance
normative behavior
Emile Durkheim,
collective conscience, structural strain
anomie and egoism
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Robert Merton and anomie
responses to anomie (conformity,innovation, ritualism, retreatism, rebellion)
Richard Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin
differential opportunities to deviate
Howard Beckerdeviance as learned behavior
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societal reaction/labeling theory
primary and secondary deviance
Erving Goffman, stigma
discreditable vs discredited identity
functions of deviance
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Relativity of Deviance
If norms vary across cultures andsubcultures, and across time and place;
Then what is considered deviant must also
vary
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Normative Behavior
Any behavior that adheres to a society’simplicit or explicit expectations for behavior
Deviance is typically understood as behavior
that “deviates” from normative behavior
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Durkheim and Deviance
Collective conscience and structural strain
Too little integration leads to egoism
Too much integration leads to altruism
Too little regulation leads to anomie
Too much regulation leads to fatalism
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Merton and AnomieAnomie results when society does not providelegitimate means for achieving its goals;
Individuals respond in one of four ways:
accept the goals and the means (conformity)
accept the goals and reject the means (innovation)
reject the goals and accept the means (ritualism)
reject the goals and reject the means (retreatism)
reject both goals and means and advocate for new
ones (rebellion)
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Cloward and Ohlin:
Differential OpportunitiesMerton’s Theory makes sense, except thatthe opportunities to deviate (e.g., innovate),
vary depending on one’s statuses and rolesAccess to desirable resources varies
Access to tools for acquiring resources
varies
Prison socializes criminals (e.g., gives themnew tools for committing crimes)
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Becker: Deviance as
Learned BehaviorDeviance as socialization into an alternativeset of norms
first one must learn the deviant behavior(technique)
second one learns to perceive the effects(for Becker, the “high”)
third one learns to enjoy the effects
Parents are concerned about their children’s
peer groups because that is where kids learn
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Labeling Theory
“deviance” is in the response of the audience
Once labeled deviant (primary deviance)...
a person may act in, or be perceived to beacting in, other deviant ways in anattempt to shed the deviant label(secondary deviance)
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Goffman and Stigma
A deviant label is a stigma
Stigmas create discredited identities; so
people try to hide their stigmas, whenpossible, in order to keep theirdiscreditable identity from becomingdiscredited
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The Functions of Deviance
Deviance reminds people of society’s norms
Deviance is how social change happens (e.g.,women refusing to accept gender norms)
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“The criminal commits the crime,
society creates the criminal.”
Deviance is not a property inherent in certain formsof behavior; it is a property conferred upon these
forms by the audiences which directly or indirectlywitness them. The critical variable in the study of deviance, then, is the social audience rather thanthe individual actor, since it is the audience which
eventually determines whether or not any episode orbehavior or class of episodes is labeled deviant. (KaiT. Erikson, “Notes on the Sociology of Deviance,” inH. Becker (ed.), The Other Side: Perspectives onDeviance, 1964).