Deviance

1. Deviance

2. What is it? • Behavior that departs from societal or group norms • Ranges from criminal behavior to wearing heavy make-up • Deviance is a matter of social definition and can vary from group to group and society to society

3. 2 types • Negative deviance • Involves behavior that fails to meet accepted norms • Positive deviance • Involves over conformity to norms leading to imbalance and extremes of perfectionism • anorexia

4. Who is a deviant? • Someone who has violated one or more of society’s most highly valued norms

5. Social Control • All societies have ways to promote order, stability, and predictability in social life • Def: ways to promote conformity to norms • If it were absent, there would be chaos • 2 types: • Internal • external

6. Internal Social Control • Lies within the individual • Developed during the socialization process • When you know its wrong to steal, you have internalized this social norm

7. External Social Control • Socialization does not ensure that all people will conform to social norms • External social control is based on social sanctions • Rewards and punishments • Negative sanctions • Intended to stop socially unacceptable behavior • Criticism, fines and imprisonment • Positive sanctions • Encourage conformity • Allowances, promotions and smiles of approval

8. Functionalism and Deviance • Functionalists believe that some deviance can contribute to the smooth operation of society • Deviance has both positive and negative consequences for society

9. Negative Effects • Erodes trust • A society with widespread suspicion and distrust cannot function smoothly • If not punished or corrected, deviance can also cause nonconforming behavior in others • Stimulates more deviance in others • Expensive both in human resources and monetary resources

10. Positive Effects • Clarifies norms by exercising social control to defend its values • Temporary safety valve • Increases unity within a society or group • Strengthens their commitment to that value • Promotes needed social change

11. Strain Theory • Deviance is more likely to occur when a gap exists between cultural goals and the ability to achieve these goals by legitimate means • Anomie social condition in which norms are weak, conflicting or absent • Conformity- when people accept the goal and the means to achieve it

12. 4 responses to Strain considered deviant • Innovation • Accepts the goal of success but uses illegal means to achieve it • Ritualism • Rejects the goal (success) but continues to use the legitimate means • Retreatism • Deviant response in which both the legitimate means and approved goals are rejected • Rebellion • People reject both success and the approved means for achieving it

13. Control Theory • Conformity to social norms depends on the presence of strong bonds between individuals and society • If the bonds are weak (anomie) deviance occurs • Social bonds control the behavior of people

14. 4 basic elements of social bonds • Attachment • The stronger your attachment to groups or individuals, the more likely you are to conform • Commitment • The greater your commitment to social goals, the more likely you are to conform • Involvement • Participation in approved social activities increase the probability of conformity • Belief • Belief in the norms and values promotes conformity

15. Symbolic Interactionism • Deviance is transmitted through socialization in the same way that non-deviant behavior is learned

16. Differential Association Theory • Emphasizes the role of primary groups in transmitting deviance • i.e., the more people one is exposed to who break the law, the more apt they are to be criminals

17. 3 characteristics • The ratio of deviant to non-deviant individuals • Whether the deviant behavior is practiced by significant others • The age of exposure

18. Labeling Theory • Theory that society creates deviance by identifying particular members as deviant **Deviant behavior is always a matter of social definition • Exists when some members of a group or society label others as deviants ** girls receive more stigma to teen pregnancy than boys ** lower-class youths are “expected” to be criminals while middle class youths are not

19. Degrees of Deviance? • 2 types • Primary deviance • Person engages only in isolated acts of deviance • Secondary deviance • Deviance as a lifestyle and a personal identity **Person’s who life and identity are organized around deviance • This status overshadows all other status’

20. Consequences of Labeling • Can cause pain and suffering • Stigma- undesirable characteristic or label used by others

21. Conflict Theory and Deviance • Deviance in an industrial society is behavior that those in control see as threatening to their interests • Supporters of this theory believe that minorities receive unequal treatment in the American criminal justice system

22. **Basic ways the culture defends itself • Look on page 218

23. Why are minorities & whites treated differently? • Minorities generally do not have the economic resources to buy good legal services • Crimes against whites tend to be punished more severely than crimes against minorities • Victim discounting reduces the seriousness of crimes directed at members of lower social classes • Therefore, if the victim is less valuable, the crime is less serious and the penalty less severe

24. White Collar Crime • Any crime committed by respectable and high status people in the course of their occupations • Economic crimes ** price fixing, insider trading, illegal rebates, embezzlement, bribery of a corporate customer, manufacture of hazardous products, toxic pollution and tax evasion

25. Costs of white collar crime • 18x higher than street crime • That being said, white collar criminals are treated more leniently than other criminals • Convicted white collar criminals are less likely to be imprisoned

26. Crime • Acts in violation of statue law • ** 2,800 acts are classified as federal crimes and many more violate state and local statutes • FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports is a major source of crime stats • This is voluntary **UCS tracks 9 types of crimes: murder, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, arson and hate crimes

27. How reliable are the stats? • Major strength: reporting system of experienced police officers • Major limitations: • See page 226 • Another source: NCVS (National Crime Victimization Survey • 2 advantages: • Helps make up for underreporting of crime • Surveys are more scientifically sound

28. Juvenile Crime • Juvenile delinquent behavior includes deviance that only the young can commit • i.e., failing to attend school, underage drinking and smoking • Reached its lowest level in 1999 • why? • Decline in the demand for crack cocaine • Crack gangs that provided guns to juv. have reached truces • Repeat violent juv. Offenders have been given stiffer sentences • Police are cracking down on illegal guns on the street

29. Criminal Justice System • Made up of the institutions and processes responsible for enforcing criminal statues *includes police, courts and correctional system • Draws on4 approaches to control and punish lawbreakers: • Deterrence • Retribution • Incarceration • Rehabilitation

30. Deterrence • Uses the threat of punishment to discourage criminal actions • Does work if potential lawbreakers know 2 things • They are likely to get caught • Punishment will be severe • This is difficult in the US so punishment does not have the deterrent effect it could have

31. **Death Penalty?? • 66% of all Americans favor the death penalty • ¾ of all white Americans favor the death penalty • 40% of black Americans favor the death penalty • 52% of hispanic Americans favor the death penalty

32. Retribution • Type of punishment intended to make criminals pay compensation for their acts • Eye for an eye

33. Incarceration • Keeping criminals in prisons

34. Rehabilitation • Attempt to re-socialize criminals • 30-60% of those released from prisons are sent back in 2-5 years • Recidivism- repetition of or return to criminal behavior

35. Alternatives to prisons • Combination of prison and probation • Serve part of their sentence in prison and the rest on probation • Community based programs • Reintroduce criminals into society • *get out of prison for part of the day • Diversion strategy • Aimed at preventing or reducing the offender’s involvement in the criminal justice system • Community based treatment program rather than a prison or probationary program

36. **Do they work? • They haven’t been evaluated enough to evaluate their effectiveness