Download
1 / 27
380 likes | 1.05k Views
Sociology of Deviance and crime. deviance.
E N D
deviance • Deviant behavior is any behavior that is contrary to the dominant norms of society. There are many different theories on what causes a person to perform deviant behavior, including biological explanations, psychological explanations, and sociological explanations.
Examples of Deviance • Trespassing moral and religious norms: the seven deadly sins • Crime: robbery, theft, rape, murder, and assault • Formal deviance: breaking the rules of the campus • Informal deviance: picking one’s nose, graffiti, political opposition, • Conditions or diseases: HIV, dwarfism, obesity, mental state, • Negative deviance: prostitution, alcoholism, suicide, drug-addiction. • Positive deviance: art, innovation, abolitionism.
Taboo Taboo is a strong social form of behavior considered deviant by a majority. To speak of it publicly is condemned, and therefore, almost entirely avoided. The term “taboo” comes from the Tongan word “tapu” meaning "under prohibition", "not allowed", or "forbidden". Some forms of taboo are prohibited under law and transgressions may lead to severe penalties. Other forms of taboo result in shame, disrespect and humiliation. There are no taboo considered to be universal. However, some of the examples include cannibalism, murder, rape, incest, orinfanticide.
Biological theories Criminals represented a reversion to a primitive or subhuman type of man characterized by physical features reminiscent of apes, lower primates, and early man and to some extent preserved, he said, in modern "savages". The behavior of these biological "throwbacks" will inevitably be contrary to the rules and expectations of modern civilized society
Cesarelombroso Criminality was inherited, and that someone "born criminal" could be anatomically identified by such items as a sloping forehead, ears of unusual size, asymmetry of the face, prognathism, excessive length of arms, asymmetry of the cranium, and other "physical stigmata".
Critique: pseudo-science Lombroso's research methods were clinical and descriptive, with precise details of skull dimension and other measurements. He did not engage in rigorous statistical comparisons of criminals and non-criminals. Although he gave some recognition in his later years to psychological and sociological factors in the etiology of crime, he remained convinced of, and identified with, criminal anthropometry. Lombroso's theories were disapproved throughout Europe, especially in schools of medicine, but not in the United States, where sociological studies of crime and the criminal predominated. His notions of physical differentiation between criminals and non-criminals were seriously challenged by Charles Goring (The English Convict, 1913), who made elaborate comparisons and found insignificant statistical differences.
Psychological theories • First, individual human beings are solely responsible for their criminal or deviant acts. • Second, an individual’s personality is the major motivational element that derives behavior within individuals. • Third, criminals and deviants are seen as suffering from personality deficiencies. Thus, crimes result from abnormal, dysfunctional, or inappropriate mental processes within the personality of the individual.
sociopathy • Psychopathy (or sociopathy) is defined as either an aspect of personality or as a personality disorder, characterized by enduring dissocial or antisocial behavior, a diminished capacity for empathy or remorse, and poor behavioral controls or fearless dominance. • No psychiatric or psychological organization has sanctioned a diagnosis titled "psychopathy” (rather referred to as dissocial personality disorder, ASPD). However, term is widely used in public media, general public discourse, fictional portrayals. • The concept is being criticized on the basis that research was predominantly carried out within settings of the penal system among prisoners, which have inevitably lead to negative descriptions of the convicts.
Sociological theories • Deviance, in a sociological context, describes actions or behaviors that violate social norms, including formally-enacted rules (e.g., crime), as well as informal violations of social norms (e.g., rejecting folkways and mores). • Deviance is a failure to conform to the norms of society. Social norms differ from culture to culture. For example, a deviant act can be committed in one society that breaks a social norm there, but may be normal for another society. • Deviance can be observed by the negative, or a stigmatizing social reaction of others towards these phenomena. • Sociology should be free from value judgments. Thus, there is no "good" or "bad" social deviation. For example, since the deviation is defined in sociology as a deviation from the socially accepted standards, it can not be qualified as a systematic illness.
“Anomie” concept by emiledurkheim • Durkheim (1858–1917) claimed that deviance was in fact a normal and necessary part of social organization. • Deviance affirms cultural values and norms. Any definition of virtue rests on an opposing idea of vice: There can be no good without evil and no justice without crime. • Deviance defines moral boundaries, people learn right from wrong by defining people as deviant. • A serious form of deviance forces people to come together and react in the same way against it. • Deviance pushes society's moral boundaries which, in turn leads to social change.
Social strains theory • Anomie is the state in which social goals and the legitimate means to achieve them do not correspond. • .The individual will strive to attain the common goals of a specific society, yet would not be able to reach those goals legitimately because of the limitations in the social structure of their society. This leads to strain, stress, or frustration and, as a result, the individual would exhibit deviant behavior ranging from rebellion, delinquency, crime, and ultimately to suicide.
4 types of anomic deviance • The innovator adopts means deemed unacceptable by society some of which may be criminal (for example, theft) to realize success. • The ritualist follows the rules obsessively but loses sight of the overall goals (for example, the inflexible bureaucrat). • The retreatist abandons both goals and the means to achieve them (for example, the alcoholic or drug addict). • The rebel rejects both the traditional goals and means, but envisions new ones as the basis for a new social order, an extreme example would be the terrorist.
Labeling theory • Labeling is a process of social reaction by the "social audience,"(stereotyping) the people in society exposed to, judging and accordingly defining (labeling) someone's behavior as deviant or otherwise. It has been characterized as the "invention, selection, manipulation of beliefs which define conduct in a negative way and the selection of people into these categories [....]"
Labeling theory • Deviance is caused by the deviant's being labeled as morally inferior, • the deviant's internalizing the label • and finally the deviant's acting according to that specific label (in other words, you label the "deviant" and they act accordingly). • As time goes by, the "deviant" takes on traits that constitute deviance by committing such deviations as conform to the label. • Individual and societal preoccupation with the label leads the deviant individual to abidance to the ascribed label.
stigmatization • “Criminal” (“ex-convict”) • “Homosexual” • “Mentally ill” (“psychopath”, “imbecilic”) • “Disabled” (“handicapped”) • “Prostitute” • “Drug-addict” • “HIV-positive”
medicalization The medicalization of deviance, the transformation of moral and legal deviance into a medical condition, is an important shift that has transformed the way society views deviance. The labeling theory helps to explain this shift, as behavior that used to be judged morally are now being transformed into an objective clinical diagnosis. For example, people with drug addictions are considered "sick" instead of "bad".
Primary and secondary deviation • Primary deviation. • Social penalties. • Secondary deviation. • Stronger penalties. • Further deviation with resentment and hostility towards punishers. • Community stigmatizes the deviant as a criminal. Tolerance threshold passed. • Strengthening of deviant conduct because of stigmatizing penalties. • Acceptance as role of deviant or criminal actor.
Conflict theory Conflict theories of deviance and criminality of course focus on issues of power and powerlessness. It’s about who has the power and how they attempt to force their values and rules upon those who don’t have it. The wealthier, more educated, and elite of society typically have the most power. The Power Elite are the political, corporate, and military leaders of a society are uniquely positioned to commit Elite Crimes, or crimes of insider nature that typically are difficult to punish and have broad social consequences upon the masses.
White-collar crimes A clear example of how deviance reflects power imbalances is in the reporting and tracking of crimes. White-collar crimes are typically committed by individuals in higher social classes. Examples of white-collar crimes include: • antitrust violations • computer, credit card, phone, telemarketing, bankruptcy, healthcare, insurance, mail, and government fraud • tax evasion • insider trading • bribery and public corruption • counterfeiting • money laundering • embezzlement • economic espionage • trade secret theft
subcultures • In criminology, subcultural theory emerged from the work of the Chicago School on gangs and developed through the symbolic interactionism school into a set of theories arguing that certain groups or subcultures in society have values and attitudes that are conducive to crime and violence. The primary focus is on juvenile delinquency because theorists believe that if this pattern of offending can be understood and controlled, it will break the transition from teenage offender into habitual criminal.
Subcultural theory This approach places emphasis on the contents of youth culture and on the differences produced by class background. The assumption is that a capitalist society attempts to achieve hegemony by using the cultural values of society for their own benefit. The domination of the adults is enforced through the system of mortgages, credit cards, and family commitments, and they are seduced into accepting the relative security of capitalism. But the youth are relatively free of long term commitment or responsibility for a family and, with many unemployed, the youth are the weakest point in the structure of hegemony.
Discipline and control • Michel Foucault believed that the modern state receives praise for its fairness and dispersion of power. Instead of controlling each deviant individual, it controls the mass. • He also theorized that institutions control people through the use of discipline. For example, the modern prison (more specifically the panopticon) is a template for these institutions because it controls its inmates by the perfect use of discipline. • Foucault theorizes that, in a sense, the postmodern society is characterized by the lack of free will on the part of individuals. Institutions of knowledge, norms, and values, are simply in place to categorize and control humans.
