1. Deviance
Chapter 6

2. What is Deviance?
“It is not the act itself, but the reactions to the act, that make something deviant.”
Howard Becker, 1966

3. Deviance Order and stability are the cornerstones of social life.
Deviance – behavior/trait/belief outside the normal range of social expectations; any behavior that departs from societal or group norms; any violation of norms.
Deviants – people who violate rules, whether the infraction is minor or serious.

4. Positive & Negative Deviance
Negative Deviance – involves behavior that underconforms to accepted
norms.
Negative deviants reject the
norms, misinterpret the norms,
or are unaware of the norms.

5. Positive & Negative Deviance
Positive Deviance – encompasses behavior that overconforms to social expectations.
Positive deviants conform to norms in an unbalanced way.
Actresses Mary-Kate Olsen and Ashley Olsen are famous anorexics. How would you explain to your parents that their behavior is “positive”?

6. Distribution of Deviance Relative to Norm of Leanness

7. Defining Deviance Depends on three circumstances:
Deviance is a matter of social definition.
Because norms vary from group to group, society to society, and time to time, the behavior considered to be deviant varies.
What is Deviant to Some is not Deviant to Others
Deviance is ‘relative’.
Can you think of other examples that
demonstrate the relativity of deviance?
Depends on three circumstances:
social status and power of the individuals involved
social context in which the behavior occurs
the historical period in which the behavior takes place
Definitions of deviance change from time to time. Although same-sex marriage is still viewed by many Americans as a form of deviance, prohibitions have loosened to the point that many gays, such as this California couple in 2008, are willing to legally acknowledge their living relationship.

8. Biological Explanations of Deviance
Lombroso - believed criminals were throwbacks to earlier human evolutionary development.
Sheldon - attributed crime to body shape (endomorphs, mesomorphs - most likely to be criminals, and ectomorphs).
Explanations focus on genetic predispositions
Critiques:
They almost totally discount the influence of social, economic, and cultural factors.
Early theories were based on methodologically weak research.
Biological factors are more often invoked to explain the deviance of armed robbers, murders, and heroin addicts than, say, the crimes of corporate executives, government officials, and other high-status persons.

9. Psychological Explanations of Deviance
All psychological explanations of deviance locate the origin of criminality in the individual personality.
They take for granted the existence of a “criminal personality,” a pathological personality with measurable characteristics that distinguish criminals from noncriminals.
Contend that criminals are born, not made.
Critiques:
They often ignore social, economic, and cultural factors shown by sociological research.
Focus on deviance such as murder, rape, and drug addiction with relatively little to say about such deviance as white-collar-crime.
Tend to view deviance as a result of physical or psychiatric defects rather than as actions considered deviant by social and legal definitions.
They cannot explain why deviant behavior is engaged in by individuals not classifiable as pathological personalities.

10. Sociological Explanations of Deviance
Look for Answers Outside Individuals
Socialization
Membership in Subcultures
Social Class
Perspectives…

11. Symbolic Interactionist View of Deviance
Differential Association Theory - states deviant behavior is learned principally in primary groups. The idea of “birds of a feather flock together.”
Developed by Edwin Sutherland
States that we learn deviance from interacting with deviant peers

12. Symbolic Interactionist View of Deviance (cont’d)
Labeling Theory views an act as deviant only if other people respond to it as if it were deviant; the view that the labels people are given affect their own and others’ perceptions of them, thus channeling their behavior either into deviance or conformity.
Developed by Howard Becker
Most people resist being labeled deviant, but some revel in a deviant identity.
Self-fulfilling prophecy
Stigma – termed coined by Ervin Goffman, an undesirable physical/social characteristic or label used by others to deny the deviant full social acceptance; devalues a person or group’s identity, and may exclude those who are devalued from normal social interaction

13. Functionalist View of Deviance
Deviance serves both a function and dysfunction in our society
Negative consequences of deviance:
encourages social disorder
erodes trust
encourages further nonconformity in others
diverts resources from other social needs
Positive consequences of deviance:
helps clarify norms & offers a safety valve
increases social unity & brings about needed
social change

14. Functionalist View of Deviance (cont’d)
Strain Theory – deviance is most likely to occur when people are socialized into desiring certain cultural goals, but denied the means to attain them (legitimate means like education or job).
Cloward & Ohlin (1998) – refined strain theory to emphasize that deviant behavior is not an automatic response but must be learned.
Illegitimate Opportunity Theory – Explains why social classes have distinct styles of crimes.

15. Functionalist View of Deviance (cont’d)
Control Theory - Everyone is propelled towards deviance, but a system of controls work against these motivations to deviate.
Social control – means for promoting conformity to norms
1. Inner Controls - lies within the individual; self-imposed; acquired during socialization
Attachment, Commitment, Involvement, Belief
2. External Controls - exists outside the individual; based on sanctions designed to encourage desired behavior
Negative sanctions – frown, gossip, imprisonment, capital punishment, death penalty
Positive sanctions – smile, award, prize
Shaming – a sanction that is particularly effective when used by members of a primary group or in a small community.
Degradation Ceremony

16. Conflict View of Deviance
Deviance is a result of social conflict.
Emphasizes social inequality and power differentials.
Most powerful members of a society are said to determine group norms and the definition of deviant; In order for the powerful to maintain their power, they marginalize and criminalize the people who threaten their power. Inequality is reproduced in the way deviance is defined.
Law is an instrument of oppression.

17. Conflict View of Deviance (cont’d)
Race, Ethnicity, and Crime
Statistics show that African Americans and Latinos are dealt with more harshly than Whites – from arrest through indictment, conviction, sentencing, and parole.
Even when criminal offense is the same, African Americans and Latinos are more likely than Whites to be convicted and serve more time in prison than Whites.

18. Occupational and Corporate Crime
White-collar crime is any crime committed by respectable and high-status people in the course of their occupation.
Occupational crime – illegal acts be people either in their employment or in their personal financial pursuits.
Corporate crime – crime committed on behalf of organizations.

19. Crime in the United States
Crime is defined as acts in violation of the law; is the violation of a norm that has been codified into law
Data comes from the Uniform Crime Report and National Crime Victimization Survey.

20. Crimes in the U.S.

21. Control and Punishment
A criminal justice system may draw on four approaches to punishment:
Deterrence: prevent crime by threatening harsh penalties; emphasizes intimidation, using threat of punishment to discourage crime
Retribution: retaliate or take revenge for a crime that’s been committed; criminals pay compensation equal to their offenses against society.
Incarceration: remove criminals from society by imprisoning them
Rehabilitation: reform criminals so that they may reenter society; attempts to resocialize criminals.
These are the four main philosophies of punishment. Each offers a different approach to punishment. Rehabilitation, for instance, suggests that we should include education and training in prisons so that prisoners will be able to contribute to society upon their release.
In practice, these philosophies often overlap.
Deterrence: if you are in a hurry to class and you start to exceed the speed limit, do you ever slow down because you think, “I don’t want to get a speeding ticket”? If so, the potential penalty has deterred you from committing the crime.
Retribution: have you ever heard the saying “an eye for an eye”? That’s the premise behind retribution—you’ve committed a crime, therefore, society has the right to retaliate in a certain way.
Incapacitation may depend on the severity of the crime committed. If our society imprisoned every person who ever jaywalked, there would be few people left out in society. Then again, if the penalty for jaywalking was imprisonment, maybe fewer people would do it. That’s part of the logic behind creating sentences for crimes.
Rehabilitation has different degrees of success or failure depending on the crime committed, however, even though rehabilitation is usually less expensive than incarceration, we tend to see more sentences of incarceration than rehabilitation. Why do you think this is? Are there certain crimes that you think should receive more rehabilitation that incarceration? What about drug use or possession?