Anomie
Emile Durkheim
 Robert Merton’s Modes of Adaptation
Disparity between promises of prosperity
and opportunity to realize success
“A cardinal American virtue, ambition,
promotes a cardinal American vice, Deviant
Behavior.”

Anomie
Conformity
Innovation
Ritualism
Retreatism
Rebellionism
 Cloward and Ohlin’s Differential
Opportunity

Anomie/Strain Theories
Albert Cohen’s Strain Theory
Non-Utilitarianism
Short Run Hedonism
Group Autonomy
Middle Class Measuring Rods
Reaction Formation
Mobilization for Youth Program as application
of theory to practice.

Anomie/Strain Theories
Assessment of Anomie Theory
Merton’s work one of the most cited papers in all
of sociology over a 20 yr. period
Popular bc it holds out the possibility that crime
can be eradicated (because people are basically
good)
Weaknesses: Cohen’s theory…Too atomistic and
“places undue emphasis on the discontinuity of the
deviant acts” Whatever does that mean?

Anomie/Strain Theories
Weaknesses:
1.Merton’s explanation is incomplete: how do goals
and means get defined in the first place?
2.Merton does not tell us why some people who are
frustrated keep from committing crimes.
3. He exaggerated the homogeneity and solidarity of
social class.
4. He does not specify why some people commit one
kind of crime while others choose different types

Anomie

Criminal gangs
Conflict gangs
Retreatist gangs--double failures

Cohen’s Strain Theory
Maliciousness
Negativism
Social Learning Theories
Gabriel Tarde’s Theory of Imitation
Law of Close Contact
Law of Imitation of Superiors by Inferiors
Law of Insertion
 Edwin Sutherland’s Differential Association
Exposure Theory

Social Learning Theories

Differential Association
1. Learn to define certain situations as
criminal
2. Master techniques
3. Master motives, attitudes, and
rationalizations
Social Learning Theories
Factors Influencing Behavior
Frequency
Duration
Priority
Intensity
 Techniques of Neutralization/Drift Theory
David Matza and Gresham Sykes

Social Learning Theories

Drift Theory Elements:
Denial of Responsibility
Denial of Injury
Denial of Victim
Appeal to Higher Loyalties
Condemn the Condemners
Drift Theory
Carl Klockars’s The Professional Fence
 Apologia Pro Vita Sua

Vocabulary of Motives/Techniques of
Neutralization
Denial of Responsibility: Never stole
anything himself..fencing would take place
even if he didn’t do it
The Professional Fence
Denial of Victim: Respectable society buys
from him. Claims he has good relations
with the police and judges…some of them
buy from him.
Denial of Injury: Insurance companies
charge high premiums so who really gets
hurt?
Assessment of Learning
Perspective
Enormous impact on study of crime and
social control.
 Normalizes our images of criminals, they
are fellow human beings

Assessment of Learning
Perspective

Crime/Deviance is neither abnormal
condition nor the product of abstract social
forces…it is concrete and the product of
learning to be in the world in a particular
way, learning with and from others about
how to define, feel and act.
Assessment of Learning
Perspective
Overly deterministic learning—don’t
blindly run into criminal subcultures. They
do it because of the chance for
respect/rewards.
 Matza says that crime can best be
understood as partly chosen, partly
determined…soft determinism

Assessment of Learning
Perspective
Overemphasis on Personal Associations (as
opposed to secondary ones like movies or
news media) in the learning of criminal
behaivor. Copycat killers didn’t learn it
from another killer…saw it on news but still
learned it.
 Some say it does not apply to certain types
of criminal behavior, impulsive violence.

Assessment of Learning
Perspective

Does not account for why a person
associates with certain types of people in
the first place

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The Labeling Perspective

The Labeling Perspective
Three Interrelated Concerns:
1)Social-Historical Development of Labels
2)Application of labels
3)Practical Consequences of Labeling Process

Mead’s Psychology of Punitive Justice
Tannenbaum’s Crime and Community
Lemert’s Social Pathology
Becker’s The Outsiders and The Other Side
Why was this Perspective so popular in the 1960s?


The Labeling Perspective
Labeling Perspective has Different Focus from Other Theories of Deviance

Becker’s Issues with the Process

Becker’s Sequential Model of Deviance
Deviance as a Master Status

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Primary and Secondary Deviance
Labeling Amplifies Deviance

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Retrospective Interpretation
Goffman’s Stigma

So Why Do We Label?

Can You Recover from a Label?

What About Rejecting a Label?

Notion of Power: Links to Conflict Theory

The Labeling Perspective

The Labeling Perspective