Sociology 1 . Professor Vu . Winter Jan 19, 2012 . Lecture . Chp 8 .
I. What is Deviance?
a. “It is not the act itself, but the reactions to the act, that make
something deviant.” –Howard Becker
b. A violation of norms, is a deviance, but because norms are relative to
each group or individual, deviance is also relative.
c. Deviance can be a serious or a small infraction.
d. “Deviance” is a nonjudgmental term.
e. Everyone engages in deviant behavior.
II. Deviance Terminology
a. Crime
i. Violation of Norms that are laws.
b. Deviance
i. Is a violation of rules or norms.
c. Stigma
i. Blemishes on “Normal” Identity. Can occupy their master
status.
III. Norms make social life possible
a. Makes behavior predictable.
b. Without norms we would be in a constant state of social chaos.
c. Social Control is a group’s formal and informal means of enforcing
norms. Deviance is seen as a threat because it undermines societies
norms.
IV. Sanctions:
a. Negative Sanctions can range from frowns or in extreme cases of
violations of mores, capital punishment might be the form of
punishment.
i. Shaming: is particularly effective when it is used by members
of a primary group (family, gang, etc.,) or a small community.
ii. Can be performed as a public ritual where the deviant is
publically marked or declared as such.
iii. Honor killings, public lashings, etc.,
b. Positive Sanctions
V. Explanations of Deviance
a. Sociobiology
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Sociology 1 . Professor Vu . Winter Jan 19, 2012 . Lecture . Chp 8 .
i. Looks for answers inside the individual by looking for genetic
predispositions.
1. Intelligence, extra chromosome in men, body type, etc.
b. Psychology
i. Focuses on abnormalities within individuals
ii. Personality disorders.
iii. Deviant personalities.
c. Sociology
i. Look for answers outside of individuals to see how specific
types of factors might “recruit” people to break norms.
1. Socialization
2. Membership in subcultures
3. Social class
VI. Symbolic Interactionist Perspective: Differential Association Theory.
Sutherland.
a. Those who associate with groups that are oriented towards deviance
will learn a greater deal of attitudes and norms that are favorable to
brake laws.
b. Families: ex. Families with members in prison are more likely to set
their children on a path to end up in prison.
c. Friends, Neighbors: ex. Birds of a feather flock together.
d. Subcultures: Mafia vs. Young Americans for Liberty
e. Prison or Freedom? People are not prisoners to their external
influences, they can instead choose to construct who they are.
VII. Symbolic Interactionist Perspective: Control Theory W. Reckless
a. Everyone is propelled towards deviance, but there is a system of
control.
b. Inner Controls: Our ability to withstand temptation.
i. Morality
ii. Conscience
iii. Religious Principles
c. Outer Controls: The groups that influence us to not deviate.
i. Attachments
ii. Commitments
iii. Involvements
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Sociology 1 . Professor Vu . Winter Jan 19, 2012 . Lecture . Chp 8 .
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iv. Beliefs that Actions are Morally Wrong
VIII. Symbolic Interactionist Perspective: Labeling Theory by Sykes and Matza
a. View that labels that people are given, will affect their own and others
perceptions towards them, thereby channeling their behaviors either
towards or against deviance.
b. Labels become part of self-concept.
c. Techniques of neutralization: where the deviant will reject the labels
that society places on them.
i. Denial of Responsibility: I didn’t do it
ii. Denial of Injury: no one got hurt
iii. Denial of a victim: she deserved it.
iv. Condemnation of Condemners: who are you to talk
v. Appeal to higher loyalties: If it wasn’t for ______ I wouldn’t be
here now so I have too _______
d. Embracing Labels
i. Not everyone dislikes labels, some embrace them such as
Outlaw Bikers
e. The Power of labels- William Chambliss
i. Saints (middle-class boys) and roughnecks (lower-class boys)
ii. When the Saints stole a car it was seen as natural part of
adolescence.
iii. When the Roughnecks stole a car it was seen as criminal
behavior.
IX. Functionalist Perspective: Can deviance be functional?
a. Clarifies moral boundaries and affirms norms.
b. Promotes social unity.
c. Promotes social change. If boundary violation gains enough support it
can influence the change of the dominant norm. One such example is
divorce.
d. Strain Theory by Merton
i. Developed strain theory to analyze people are socialized to
desire cultural goals but are denied institutional means of
achieving them.
ii. Cultural Goals
iii. Institutional Means
Sociology 1 . Professor Vu . Winter Jan 19, 2012 . Lecture . Chp 8 .
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iv. Strain Leads to Anomie.
v. Deviant Paths to deal with Anomie
1. Innovators: using illegitimate means to achieve cultural
goals. Accept the cultural goals but reject the
institutionalized means, such as rejecting education as a
means to earn a higher income and choosing crime.
2. Ritualism: giving up on achieving cultural goals and
clinging on to conventional roles of conduct. Where you
reject cultural goals but accept the institutional means,
where you decide that it is not important to make a
good income.
3. Retreatism: rejecting cultural goals and drop out. Reject
both the cultural goals and the institutionalized means
such as nuns in a convent.
4. Rebellion: seeking to replace societies cultural goals.
Where you reject and replace both cultural goals and
the institutionalized means. Occupy Wallstreet rejects
the cultural goals of capitalism and replaces it with a
more egalitarian society and also rejects the
institutionalized means to protest through congress,
voting, etc, and chooses to occupy a location.
e. Illegitimate Opportunity Structures by Cloward and Ohlin
i. Explains why specific social classes have a distinct pattern for
committing specific crimes that is born out of a lack of access
to institutionalized means.
ii. Street Crime: opportunities for lower income areas are direct
exchanges of smaller and more violent forms of wealth
acquisition in order to achieve cultural goals.
iii. White-Collar Crime
1. Corporations as criminals
iv. Gender and crime
X. The Conflict Perspective
a. Class, Crime and the criminal justice system represent the interests of
the wealthy and the powerful so the laws, norms and values that are
Sociology 1 . Professor Vu . Winter Jan 19, 2012 . Lecture . Chp 8 .
in place are those specific laws that will help to sustain their own
place.
b. Power and inequality
c. The law as an instrument of oppression
XI. Reaction to Deviance
a. Street Crime and Prisons.
b. Prisons generate a great deal of profits.
c. The Decline of Crime
i. Severe punishments such as three strike law.
d. Recidivism: Criminals are not reformed they are just made into more
effective and violent criminals within prison.
e. The Death Penalty Bias: black men are more likely to be given the
death penalty than white men.
f. Legal Change
i. Hate Crimes
g. Trouble with statistics
h. Medicalization of Deviance
i. Deviance is seen as a symptom that needs to be treated as a
mental illness.
ii. Homeless mentally III
i.
Need for more human approach.
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