Deviance and Social Control
What is Deviance?
• Refers to a violation of norms
• According to Howard S. Becker, it isn’t the act
itself, but how society reacts to it, that makes an
action deviant
• It is a relative concept
– Different groups have different norms
• What is deviant to some, is not to others
• Varies from 1 time period to another
• Crime is a violation of rules that have been
written into law
Deviance
• Sociologists use the term deviance nonjudgmental to
refer to any act to which people respond negatively
– All people are deviant bc everyone violates rules from
time to time
• Erving Goffman used the term stigma to refer to
attributes that discredit one’s claim to a “normal”
identity
– Physical deformities, skin color
– Defines a person’s master status, superseding all other
statuses the person occupies
Social Order
• A groups customary social arrangements
• Norms allow social order bc they lay out the
basic guidelines for how we play our roles and
how we interact with others
Deviance as a threat
• Deviance is often seen as threatening bc it
violates a group’s customary social
arrangements and undermines the predictability
that is the foundation of social life
• Human groups develop a system of social
control, formal and informal means of enforcing
the norms
Society and deviance
• Society’s disapproval of deviance takes the form
of negative sanctions and ranges from frowns
and gossip to imprisonment and capital
punishment
Sociological explanation of deviance
• Explain deviance by looking outside the
individual
• Social influences
▫ Socialization
▫ Subculture group memberships
▫ Social class
 Education
 Occupation
 Income and wealth
Examples of deviance
2 types of Deviance
• Criminal deviance- involve violating a criminal
law
• Noncriminal deviance- homophobia, use of
pornography, mental disorders
Homicide
• More likely to be committed against
acquaintance, friends, or relatives than strangers
▫ Both a source of pleasure and frustration in a
person’s life
• Usually carried out under uncontrollable rage
• Occurs most frequently during weekend
evenings (Saturday night)
• Handguns is the most commonly used weapon
Rape
• Involves the use of force to get a person to do
something sexual against his/her will
• 110,000 rapes are reported per year but the
number is much higher than that
• Majority of these cases involve people in close
relationships
▫ Often times people don’t believe that what they
are doing is forced
Culture of Rape
• 3 prevailing attitudes towards women:
1. Women have been treated as property of men
▫
▫
Some states a man cant be prosecuted for raping
his wife
What about women who are prostitutes?
2. Women have been viewed as objects of
masculinity contests
▫
To be accepted a man is pressured to have sex with
as many women as possible
3. The myth that deep down women want to be
raped
▫
The “no means yes” myth, “she asked for it” etc.
Binge Drinking
• Having at least 5 drinks in a row for men and 4
drinks in a row for women
• At least 50 college students throughout the United
States drink themselves to death every year
▫ 40% of college students intend to binge drink or get
drunk every time they drink
• Binge-drinking students are more likely to miss class,
fall behind in schoolwork, have poor grades, engage
in unprotected sex, get injured, etc.
• More likely to be male, white, involved in athletics or
greek life
Corporate Crime
• Committed by company officials w/o the overt
use of force and their effect on the victims is not
readily traceable to the offender
• Can be perpetrated against employees and
customers
▫ Disregard for safety in the workplace, consumer
fraud, price fixing, unsafe products, violation of
environmental regulations
• More rationally executed, more profitable and
less detectable by police
• 3 characteristics separate corporate crime from
street crime
1. The Criminal’s Noncriminal SelfImage
• See themselves as respectable people
• Rationalize their actions
▫ Example: violators of price fixing: insist they are
helping the nation’s economy by “stabilizing
prices”
• See themselves as the victims- unlucky to get
caught for something that everyone does
▫ “Everyone cheats on their income taxes”
• Denial of criminal intent
▫ “I made a mistake”
2. The Victim’s unwitting
cooperation
• Many victims unwittingly cooperate with the
corporate criminal
▫ Example: a home improvement scam- the victims
don’t bother to check the work history of the
company and don’t read the contracts they sign
3. Society’s Relative Indifference
• Little effort is made to catch corporate criminals
• If caught they seldom go to jail or receive a light
sentence
Mental Problems
• About 22% of US adults suffer from mental
problems serious enough to require help or
hospitalization every year
• Psychosis- loss of touch with reality
• Neurosis- persistent fear, anxiety or worry
• Social class is a key factor in mental illness as
well as gender, ethnicity and culture
▫ Women experience more depression
▫ Men tend to have more antisocial personalities
Suicide Bombings
• Evidence seems to suggest the opposite of the
popular belief that suicide bombers are
psychotic, irrational, poor and uneducated
• Come from relatively well off middle class
families
• Believe they are martyrs for their cause
• Altruistic suicide- people are so strongly tied to
their group that they effectively lose their selves
and stand ready to do their group’s bidding