Deviance and Social Control

The Sociology in Deviance

- It is general practice in sociology to regard deviant behavior as an alien element in the
society.
- It is considered, deviant, a floating form of human activity, moving outside the more
orderly things happening in social life.
- And since this type of abnormality or irregularity could only happen if something were
wrong in the organization or society itself, it is therefore described as if it were a leakage
from a machine in poor condition; it is an accidental result of disorder or a symptom of
breakdown.

Deviance
- Sociologists use the term deviance to refer to any violation of norms, whether the act is
as minor as driving over the speed limit, as serious as murder.
- different groups have different norms, what is deviant to some is not deviant to others.
This principle applies not just to cultures but also to groups within the same society
- This principle also applies to a specific form of deviance known as crime, the violation of
rules that have been written into law. In the extreme, an act that is applauded by one
group may be so despised by another group that it is punishable by death.
- Unlike the general public, sociologists use the term deviance nonjudgmentally, to refer to
any act to which people respond negatively. When sociologists use this term, it does not
mean that they agree that an act is bad, just that people judge it negatively. To
sociologists, then, all of us are deviants of one sort or another, for we all violate norms
from time to time

Review: Types of Norms

- Folkways
- Mores
- Taboos
- How Norms Make Social Life Possible? No human group can exist without norms, for
norms make social life possible by making behavior predictable. What would life be like if
you could not predict what others would do?
- Without norms, we would have social chaos. Norms lay out the basic guidelines for how
we should play our roles and interact with others. In short, norms bring about social
 order, a group’s customary social arrangements. Our lives are based on these
arrangements, which is why deviance often is perceived as threatening: Deviance
undermines predictability, the foundation of social life. Consequently, human groups
develop a system of social control—formal and informal means of enforcing norms. At
the center of social control are sanctions.

Durkheim on Deviance
- French sociologist Émile Durkheim viewed deviance as an inevitable part of how society
functions.
- He argued that deviance is a basis for change and innovation, and it is also a way of
defining or clarifying important social norms. Reasons for deviance vary, and different
explanations have been proposed. One reason people engage in deviant behaviour, for
example, may be a state of anomie, which is social instability arising from an absence of
clear social norms and values.
- According to Emile Durkheim, anomie (AN-uh-me) is a social condition in which norms
are weak, conflicting, or absent. Without shared norms, individuals are uncertain about
how they should think and act.
- To understand what these norms are, the rules need to be tested occasionally.
Inappropriate behaviour is likely to be regulated by informal social processes such as
disapproval from friends or family.

Differential Association Theory Sutherland, 1947 (Socialization and Exposure)

- Edwin Sutherland: Considered as one of the most influential criminologists of the 20th
century.
- His view of deviance stems from interacting with primary group members who commit
deviance and have values conducive to deviance.
- Differential Association Theory: This theory predicts that an individual will choose the
criminal path when the balance of definitions for law-breaking exceeds those for
law-abiding: proposing that through interaction with others, individuals learn the values,
attitudes, techniques, and motives for criminal behavior.
- This theory focuses on how individuals learn to become criminals, but it does not
concern itself with why they become criminals.
- Differential association predicts that an individual will choose the criminal path when the
balance of definitions for law-breaking exceeds those for law-abiding. This tendency will
 be reinforced if social association provides active people in the person’s life. The earlier
in life an individual comes under the influence of high status people within a group, the
more likely the individual is to follow in their footsteps. This does not deny that there may
be practical motives for crime. If a person is hungry but has no money, there is a
temptation to steal. But the use of “needs” and “values” is equivocal. To some extent,
both non-criminal and criminal individuals are motivated by the need for money and
social gain.
- One critique leveled against differential association stems from the idea that people can
be independent, rational actors and individually motivated. This notion of one being a
criminal based on his or her environment is problematic—the theory does not take into
account personality traits that might affect a person’s susceptibility to these
environmental influences.

STRUCTURAL STRAIN THEORY (Merton, 1957)

- Social strain theory was developed by famed American sociologist Robert K. Merton.
The theory states that social structures may pressure citizens to commit crimes. Strain
may be structural, which refers to the processes at the societal level that filter down and
affect how the individual perceives his or her needs. Strain may also be individual, which
refers to the frictions and pains experienced by an individual as he or she looks for ways
to satisfy individual needs. These types of strain can insinuate social structures within
society that then pressure citizens to become criminals.

A typology is a classification scheme designed to facilitate understanding. In this case, Merton

was proposing a typology of deviance based upon two criteria: (1) a person’s motivations or his
adherence to cultural goals; (2) a person’s belief in how to attain his goals. According to Merton,
there are five types of deviance based upon these criteria:

● Conformity involves the acceptance of the cultural goals and means of attaining those
goals.
● Innovation involves the acceptance of the goals of a culture but the rejection of the
traditional and/or legitimate means of attaining those goals. For example, a member of
the Mafia values wealth but employs alternative means of attaining his wealth; in this
example, the Mafia member’s means would be deviant.
 ● Ritualism involves the rejection of cultural goals but the routinized acceptance of the
means for achieving the goals.
● Retreatism involves the rejection of both the cultural goals and the traditional means of
achieving those goals.
● Rebellion is a special case wherein the individual rejects both the cultural goals and
traditional means of achieving them but actively attempts to replace both elements of the
society with different goals and means.
- What makes Merton’s typology so fascinating is that people can turn to deviance in the
pursuit of widely accepted social values and goals. For instance, individuals in the U.S.
who sell illegal drugs have rejected the culturally acceptable means of making money,
but still share the widely accepted cultural value in the U.S. of making money. Thus,
deviance can be the result of accepting one norm, but breaking another in order to
pursue the first. In this sense, according to social strain theory, social values actually
produce deviance in two ways. First, an actor can reject social values and therefore
become deviant. Additionally, an actor can accept social values but use deviant means
to realize them.
- Critics point to the fact that there is an ample amount of crime/delinquent behavior that is
malicious, and negative to extreme extent (O’Grady, 2011), which highlights that not all
crimes are explicable using Merton’s theory. Crimes such as vandalism, for example,
can’t be explained by a need for material acquisition.

Labeling Theory – Becker 1963

- Strain theory, control theory, and differential association theory help us understand why
deviance occurs. Labeling theory explains why deviance is relative—that is, sometimes
of two people breaking the norm only one may be labeled a deviant.
- Is deviance defined by the act or by the individual? According to labeling theory, deviant
behaviors are always a matter of social definition. In this view, deviance exists when
some members of a group or society label others as deviants.
- Howard Becker, a pioneer of labeling theory, writes: Social groups create deviance by
making the rules whose infraction constitutes deviance, and by applying these rules to
particular people and labeling them as outsiders. From this point of view, deviance is not
a quality of the act the person commits, but rather a consequence of the application by
others of rules and sanctions to an “offender.” The deviant is one to whom that label has
 successfully been applied; deviant behavior is behavior that people label (Becker,
1991:9).
- Labeling theory allows us to understand the relativity of deviance. It explains, for
example, why unmarried pregnant teenage girls are more negatively sanctioned than the
teenage biological fathers. An unsanctioned pregnancy requires two people, but usually
only one of the pair is labeled deviant. And, of course, it is easier to stigmatize women
because advanced pregnancy is so visible. Teenage pregnancy illustrates the relativity
of deviance in another way.

Primary/Secondary Deviation
- Edwin Lemert’s (1972) distinction between primary and secondary deviance helps clarify
the labeling process. In cases of primary deviance, a person engages only in isolated
acts of deviance. For example, when college students are asked to respond to a
checklist of unlawful activities, most admit to having violated one or more norms. Yet the
vast majority of college students have never been arrested, convicted, or labeled as
criminals. Certainly, those who break the law for the first time do not consider
themselves criminals. If their deviance stops at this primary deviance, deviance involves
occasional breaking of norms that is not a part of a person’s lifestyle or self-concept.
- Deviance is relative. Some members of a society, such as athletes and celebrities, are
often treated more tolerantly.
- Secondary deviance, on the other hand, refers to deviance as a lifestyle and as a
personal identity. A secondary deviant is a person whose life and identity are organized
around deviance. In this case, the deviant status has become the person’s master
status. Individuals identify themselves primarily as deviants and organize their behavior
largely in terms of deviant roles. Other people label them as deviant as well and respond
to them accordingly. When this occurs, these individuals usually begin to spend most of
their time committing acts of deviance. Deviance becomes a way of life, a career (Kelly,
2002).

Retrospective Interpretation
- Retrospective interpretation is another concept key to the study of labeling, according to
Schur (1971). Retrospective interpretations involve the “mechanisms by which reactors
come to view deviators in a new light” (Schur, 1971, p. 52). Mechanisms can range from
something as simple as gossip to something as complex as a criminal trial. Negotiation
 and bargaining are important concepts in that they are the methods by which moral
entrepreneurs and rule-makers assert labels; examples include the plea-bargaining
process in criminal trials and lobbyists who influence legislators. Finally, Schur discussed
role engulfment, or the process by which an individual takes a label and fully internalizes
it, thus becoming the individual the label implies. This concept includes accepting the
deviant identity or disavowing the deviant identity, or the joining of a deviant subculture
by the labeled individual, as in Tannenbaum’s (1938) original formulation of the
“dramatization of evil.” Role engulfment is hence the end result of the labeling process
resulting in behavior based on internalization of the label.
Stigma
- Stigma. To be considered deviant, a person does not even have to do anything.
Sociologist Erving Goffman (1963) used the term stigma to refer to characteristics that
discredit people. These include violations of norms of appearance (a facial birthmark, a
huge nose or ears) and norms of ability (blindness, deafness, mental handicaps). Also
included are involuntary memberships, such as being a victim of AIDS or the brother of a
rapist. The stigma can become a person’s master status, defining him or her as deviant.

References:
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ractionalist_Perspective_on_Deviance/7.6A%3A_Differential_Association_Theory

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