SOCIETIES CREATE DEVIANCE….How?

1. SOCIETIES CREATE DEVIANCE….How? • Deviant Act • Society creates deviance in a few ways: • societal arrangements create conditions for deviant acts • Societies create rules and sanctions for rule violation • Self-Concept/labeling • Formed in relation to other people because we identify with institutions in society and significant others • Internalize subtle cues and overt cues • Power to deflect a deviant label is unequally distributed

2. Differential Social Power • Power to apply or deflect a deviant label is not equally available • Saints and roughnecks article • Police & the black male article

3. Homicide victims by race:49% are white49% are African American2% other

5. Perspectives • FUNCTIONALISM • Socialization is the primary mechanism for integrating people into society • Much socialization is successful; sometimes it does not work properly, which leads to deviance • Deviance is result of role and value conflicts, societal dysfunction • We need conformity for society to function • We need social control to function

6. Conflict Perspective • Harm is the injustice done to large groups of marginalized people • Socialization & laws support the interests of the dominant order or class • Socialization can be coercive or subtle (mass media) • Socialization is a way to ensure that the unequal divisions in society remain

7. Symbolic Interactionist • Socialization is how we get our self-concepts • We learn who we are through our interactions with others • We learn to be deviant or learn our deviant identities from others • Much deviant behavior is learned in a social process (learning theory) • Deviant labels effect our self-concepts (labeling theory)

8. LABELING THEORY • Howard Becker and Edwin Lemert (1960s) • Combines Conflict and Symbolic Interaction • How so? • Deviance is not something in the act itself but in the labeling of the act and the actor • Labels involve social power • Deviance is dependent upon audience interpretation • Most deviance undetected (so does that deviance even exist?) • Deviant labels have consequences for individual self-identity • Self-fulfilling prophecy

9. Labeling Theory says: • Everyone deviates • So “why” is not important question • The categories of deviant/non-deviant are socially constructed (i.e. made up by people, not intrinsically real)

10. Labeling theory argues that a negative label will enhance one’s deviance by • Exacting consequences that affect life chances • Changing self-concept in such a way as to make deviant status one’s “master status” • Primary deviance • Secondary deviance • Labeling creates a self-fulfilling prophecy

11. Assumptions of Labeling Theory • Variety of causes or influences lead to initial (primary) deviance • Official label after detection • Labeling changes self-concept/identity • Continued involvement in deviance • Amplification of deviance (secondary deviance)

12. Becker’s Typology

13. Evidence? • What does labeling theory explain? • Those formally processed • What does it not explain? • Lots! • Deviant careers can develop without labeling • embezzlement, secret sexual lives, white collar crime • Applies mostly to lower income crimes • Tertiary deviance= social movement formation, political activism, resistance • Evidence re: juveniles

14. Question… Which do you think is true? If there are two kids who get picked up by police for knocking over a mailbox. Kid A gets released to his parents; Kid B gets processed in juvenile court. 1.Kid A is more likely to become an adult criminal 2. Kid B is more likely to become an adult criminal

15. Learning theory • Differential Association Theory • Deviance is learned • Face to face interaction with others • “excess of definitions favorable to committing crimes” • Opposes biological models • Opposes idea that deviance caused by mental illness