chapter 6 deviance and crime

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What Is Social Deviance?

• Social deviance is any transgression

of socially established norms.

– Formal deviance or crime involves the

violation of laws.

8

Minor transgressions of these norms can be described as informal deviance.

9

Deviance and Social Control

Social cohesion refers to the way people

form social bonds, relate to each other,

and get along on a day-to-day basis.

10


• Social control is the set of mechanisms that

create normative compliance in individuals.

• Normative compliance is the act of abiding by

society’s norms or simply following the rules of

group life. 11


• Punitive justice is focused on making the violator

suffer and thus defining the boundaries of

acceptable behavior.

• Rehabilitative justice examines the specific

circumstances of an individual transgressor and

attempts to find ways to rehabilitate him or her. 12


• Informal social sanctions:

– are unspoken rules and expectations about

people’s behavior.

– help maintain a base level of order and

cohesion in society and form a foundation

for formal social control.

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Once Deviance Now Fashion

Deviance and Social Control(Structural Functionalism)

Émile Durkheim theorized that social cohesion is

established either through:

mechanical solidarity — based on the sameness

of society’s parts or members (fraternity –

sorority)

organic solidarity — based on the

interdependence of specialized parts or members.

(football team)15

Deviance and Social ControlA Functionalist View

Robert Merton’s strain

theory argues that deviance

occurs when a society does

not give all its members equal

ability to achieve socially

acceptable goals.

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17

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuzYGzXJJcw



Strain Theory

Conformists accept the goals of the society and the means of achieving those goals

Innovators accept the goals of the society, but they look for new, or innovative, ways of achieving those goals

Strain Theory

Ritualists aren’t interested in the goals of the society, but they do accept the means of achieving those goals.

Strain Theory

Retreatists don’t accept the goals of the society or the means of achieving those goals.

Strain Theory

Rebels don’t accept the goals of the society or the means of achieving those goals, so they create their own goals using new means.

Strain Theory

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1. It is difficult to empirically test.

2. It works on the assumption that conformity is the norm and assumes a concensual society.

3. It doesn't explain all forms of criminal behavior.

4. It over-predicts criminality. does not explain hate-crime, violence etc

Weaknesses of Strain Theory

Symbolic Interactionist Theories of Deviance

• Symbolic interactionists take a micro

view of society, examining the beliefs and

assumptions people bring to their

everyday interactions to find the causes

or explanations for deviance.

24


• Labeling theory

– People see how they are labeled and

accept the label as being “true.”

– People behave the way that they think

someone with their label should behave.

25


• Primary deviance:

– the first act of rule breaking, which may result in the

rule breaker being labeled “deviant” and thus influence

how people think about and act toward him or her.

• Secondary deviance:

– refers to acts of rule breaking that occur after primary

deviance and as a result of a person’s new, deviant

label. 26


• Stigma– negative social label that changes your

behavior toward a person; also changes that

person’s self-concept and social identity

– has serious consequences in terms of the

opportunities made available – or rather, not

made available – to people in a stigmatized

group27

Interview, Devah Pager

28

Devah Pager discusses her field experiments, racism, and the stigma men with a criminal record face when they're

on the job market.

Crime Reduction


Broken window theory of deviance (Philip Zimbardo):explains

how social context and social cues impact the way individuals act

People who wouldn’t exhibit a certain behavior in one social

context might do so in another context where the behavior

seems more permissible. 29

People inspect an abandoned car in the South Bronx. Zimbardo placed this car in New York City and University in Palo Alto, California. The car near Stanford wentuntouched for days, but the car pictured above was in New Your City wasrelieved of its hubcaps and other parts almost immediately.


• Examples of formal social control include laws

and the authority of police officers.

31

Formal deviance or crime involves the violation of laws.

32

George Zimmerman

Trevor Martin

Crime

• street crime — refers to crime committed in public

and is often associated with violence, gangs, and

poverty

• white-collar crime — committed by a professional

against a corporation, agency, or other business

• corporate crime — type of white-collar crime

committed by the officers or executives of a company

33

Crime

• It can be difficult to measure crime rates over

time for a variety of reasons, including:

1. changes in how crimes are defined.

2. fluctuations in whether people report crimes.

3. in the case of murders, improvements in

medical technology. CSI

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35

Number of prisoners per 100,000 population.

Reported Crimes

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Which is it?

37

Figure 6.5 Size of Death Row Population since 1973You May Ask Yourself, 2nd Edition


Figure 6.6 Number of Executions and Race of PrisonersExecuted, 1976–2009

You May Ask Yourself, 2nd EditionCopyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & Company

Crime Reduction

Deterrence theory is a philosophy of

criminal justice based on the notion that

crime results from a rational calculation of

its costs and benefits.

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Unintended Consequences of Deterrence

42

Crime ReductionRecidivism occurs when a person who has been involved in

the criminal justice system reverts back to criminal behavior.

43

Crime ReductionSince the 1970s, there has been a change from a more

rehabilitative sense of justice to a more punitive one in the United

States.

This is evidenced by historically high rates of incarceration.

44

Societal Effects of Mass Incarceration

45

http://www.youtube.com/embed/lUt_fIB6A_Y

• staggering costs • the disenfranchisement of

millions of former felons• a disproportionately high rate

of imprisonment for black males

• a ripple effect throughout black communities and beyond.



Victor Rios, author of Punished. To see my interviewwith Rios, visit wwnorton.com/studyspace.


Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment.You May Ask Yourself, 2nd Edition


This Iraqi detainee in Abu Ghraib prison was hooked up to wiresafter soldiers made him stand on a box. How can Zimbardo’sexperiments help us understand the torture at Abu Ghraib?


Figure 6.3 Homicide Victimization Rate, 1950–2008You May Ask Yourself, 2nd Edition


A 2003 performance by the Surveillance Camera Players inTimes Square. They are trying to raise awareness of the densityof public and private surveillance cameras.


A surveillance camera map from the iSee project.You May Ask Yourself, 2nd Edition


This map of Brooklyn, New York, shows thedensity of prison admissions in 2003.


chapter 6 deviance and crime

Documents

social deviance

social control social

social control social

informal deviance

secondary deviance

social identity

social cues

crime street crime