Deviance, Crime and Social Control

Learning Objectives
Deviance and Control
• Define deviance and explain the nature of deviant behavior
• Differentiate between methods of social control
Theoretical Perspectives on Deviance
• Describe the functionalist view of deviance in society through two sociologist’s theories
• Explain how conflict theory understands deviance and crime in society
• Describe the symbolic interactionist approach to deviance, including labeling and other theories
Crime and the Law
• Identify and differentiate between different types of crimes

Deviance and Control
Deviance (отклонение от принятых норм и правил)
William Graham Sumner: deviance - a violation of established contextual, cultural, or social norms, whether folkways (народные обычаи), or state laws (систематизированный закон) (1906).
From picking one’s nose in public to committing murder
Deviance behavior is… ?
Depends on:
Location + Audience + Individual committing the act (Becker 1963).
Listening to your iPod…
on the way to class: acceptable
during your lecture: rude.
on the witness stand (место для дачи свидетельских показаний в суде) before a judge - may cause you to be held in contempt of court (неуважение к суду), and consequently fined (оштрафовать).
Norms vary (различаются) across culture&time ? notions of deviance change also. E.g.: taking the life of another (отнимать жизнь у другого)
- Peace: reprehensible (предосудительно)
War: ok + may actually be rewarded (вознаграждаться).

Deviance Behavior?
Whether an act is deviant or not depends on society’s response (реакция общества) to that act.

Deviance Behavior: Experiment
+

Social Control
What happens when a person violates (нарушает) a social norm?
- A driver caught speeding (превышение скорости) can receive a speeding ticket (штраф)
- A student who wears a bathrobe (банный халат) to class gets a warning (предупреждение) from a professor
- An adult belching loudly (взрослый человек, к. громко рыгает) is avoided (избегается).
All societies practice social control - the regulation and enforcement (соблюдение) of norms.
The goal of social control is to maintain social order (общественный порядок), an arrangement of practices and behaviors on which society’s members base their daily lives (ежедневная жизнь).

The means (средства) of enforcing rules (усиления правил) – sanctions: positive and negative.
Positive sanctions are rewards given for conforming (соответствие) to norms. A promotion at work is a positive sanction for working hard.
Negative sanctions are punishments for violating norms. Being arrested is a punishment for shoplifting (кража в магазине).
Social Control

Social Control
Sanctions, also: formal or informal:
Informal sanctions emerge in face-to-face social interactions
- wearing flip-flops (шлепки) to an opera may draw disapproving looks (неодобрительные взгляды)
+ helping an old man carry grocery bags (сумки с продуктами) across the street—may receive positive informal reactions, such as a smile or pat on the back (похлопывание по спине).
Formal sanctions - officially recognize and enforce norm violations.
- If a student violates his/her university’s rules, s/he might be expelled.
+ A soldier who saves a life may receive an official commendation (благодарность).

Functionalist perspectives on deviance
Functionalist approach: how the different elements of a society contribute (вносить вклад) to the whole. Deviance - a key (ключевой) component of a functioning society.
Émile Durkheim: The Essential Nature of Deviance
Deviance - a necessary part of a successful society. One way deviance is functional, is that it challenges (ставить под сомнение) people’s present (текущие) views (1893).
When deviance is punished, it reaffirms (вновь подтверждать) current (настоящие) social norms, which also contributes to society (1893).
Seeing a student given detention (оставление после уроков) for skipping class (за пропуск занятия) reminds other students that playing hooky (прогуливание) isn’t allowed and that they, too, could get detention.

Functionalist perspectives on deviance
Robert Merton: Strain Theory
Strain theory - access (доступ к) to socially acceptable goals (общественно желаемым целям) plays a part in determining (играет роль в определении) whether a person conforms (соответствовать, приспосабливаться) or deviates (отклоняться).
From birth, we’re encouraged to achieve the financial success. However, a person may have the socially acceptable goal of financial success but lack a socially acceptable way to reach that goal.
5 ways that people respond to this gap between having a socially accepted goal but no socially accepted way to pursue (достичь) it:
1. Conformity: conform to the socially accepted means and not deviate.
2. Innovation: using of criminal or deviant means.
3. Ritualism: people lower their goals until they can reach them through socially acceptable ways.
4. Retreatism: retreat (отступать) and reject society’s goals and means. Some beggars (попрошайки) have withdrawn (отказываться) from society’s goal of financial success.
5. Rebellion: rebel (протестовать), replacing (заменяя) a society’s goals and means with their own. Terrorists or freedom fighters look to overthrow a society’s goals through socially unacceptable means.

Conflict theory on deviance
Conflict theory: social and economic factors as the causes of crime and deviance. Unlike functionalists, conflict theorists don’t see these factors as positive functions of society, but as evidence of inequality in the system.
Karl Marx: An Unequal System
Marx: two rigid (неподвижно закреплённый) social groups: the proletariat and the bourgeois.
Bourgeois - a small and wealthy segment of society who controls the means of production. Proletariat is composed of the workers who rely on those means of production for employment and survival.
Though Marx spoke little of deviance, his ideas created the foundation (основу) for conflict theorists who study the intersection (точка пересечения) of deviance and crime (отклонение от общ. норм и преступления) with wealth and power (богатство и власть).

Conflict theory on deviance
C. Wright Mills: The Power Elite
In his book The Power Elite (1956), sociologist C. Wright Mills: power elite (правящая элита) - a small group of wealthy and influential people at the top of society who hold the power and resources.
Wealthy executives, politicians, celebrities, and military leaders often have access to national and international power, and in some cases, their decisions affect everyone (оказывают влияние на каждого) in society.
Because of this, the rules of society work in favor (в пользу) of a privileged few (небольшого кол-ва привилегированных лиц) who manipulate them to stay on top (манипулируют правилами, чтобы сохранить свое положение).
Power elites decide what is criminal and what is not, and the effects are often felt most by those who have little power.
Mills’ theories explain why celebrities such as Chris Brown and Paris Hilton can commit crimes with little or no legal retribution.

Symbolic Interactionism on deviance
Symbolic interactionism - can be used to explain how societies and/or social groups come to view behaviors as deviant or conventional.
Labeling Theory
Labeling theory examines the ascribing (приписывание) of a deviant behavior to another person by members of society.
Sociologist Edwin Lemert: 2 types of deviance that affect (к-ые влияют) identity formation (на формирование личности).
Primary deviance - violation of norms that does not result in any long-term effects on the individual’s self-image or interactions with others. Ex.: speeding – deviant, but receiving a speeding ticket generally does not make others view you as a bad person.
Secondary deviance: a person’s behavior begin to change after his or her actions are labeled as deviant by members of society. Ex.: a high school student who often cuts class and gets into fights. The student gets a reputation as a “troublemaker.” As a result, the student starts breaking more rules; he has adopted the “troublemaker” label and embraced this deviant identity.

Edwin Sutherland: Differential Association
In the early 1900s, sociologist Edwin Sutherland sought to understand how deviant behavior developed among people. Since criminology was a young field, he drew on other aspects of sociology including social interactions and group learning (Laub 2006).
Differential association theory - individuals learn deviant behavior from those close to them who provide models of and opportunities for deviance.
Sutherland: deviance is less a personal choice and more a result of differential socialization processes.
Symbolic Interactionism on deviance