Chapter 7

Deviance, Crime and Social Control

Social Control

• Attempts by society to regulate people’s thought and behavior.– Conformity – going along with peers

– Obedience – compliance with higher authorities in a hierarchical structure

Informal and Formal Social Control

• Informal social control: Used casually to enforce norms– Smiles, laughter, raised eyebrows, ridicule

• Formal social control: Carried out by authorized agents– Informal social control can undermine

formal social control, encouraging people to violate social norms

Sanctions

• Penalties and rewards for conduct concerning a social norm

Deviance

• Recognized violation of cultural norms.

Social Foundation of Deviance

• Deviance varies according to cultural norms.

• People become deviant as others define them that way.

• Both norms and the way people define them involve social power.

Durkheim’s 4 Functions

• Deviance affirms cultural values and norms.

• Responding to deviance clarifies moral boundaries.

• Responding to deviance brings people together.

• Deviance encourages social change.

Crime

• violation of society’s formally enacted criminal law

– criminal justice system – a formal response by police, courts, and prison officials to alleged violations of the law

5 criticisms of the criminal justice system

• Tendency of police to arrest suspects from minority groups at substantially higher rates than those from the majority group in situations where discretion is possible.

• The overrepresentation of certain dominant social, ethnic, and racial groups on juries.

• The difficulty the poor encounter in affording bail.

• The poor quality of free legal defense.• The disparity in sentencing for members of

dominant and minority groups.

Merton’s Anomie Theory

• The strain between our culture’s emphasis on wealth and the limited opportunity to get rich gives rise to crime and other forms of deviance.

Merton’s Modes of Individual Adaptation

Labeling Theory

• Deviance and conformity result, not so much from what people do, as from how others respond to those actions.

• Primary deviance – passing episodes of norm violation

• Secondary deviance – repeated violation of norm. Takes on a deviant identity.– Stigma – a powerfully negative social label that

changes a person’s self-concept and social identity, operating as a master status.

Differential Association

• Deviance is learned in groups

• Exposure to attitudes favorable to criminal acts leads to a violation of the rules.

Routine Activities Theory

• In order to have crime you must have motivated offenders and suitable targets.

Social disorganization theory

• Increases in crime and deviance can be attributed to the absence or breakdown of communal relationships and social institutions.

Control Theory

• Social control depends on imagining the consequences of one’s behavior

FBI Index of Crime

• 8 types of crimes that are tabulated each year by the FBI– Murder, rape, assault, robbery, theft, grand

motor theft, arson, and burglary.

Table 4-4: National Crime Rateand Percentage Change

Figure 4–2Victimization Rates, 1973–2007

Types of crime

• Organized crime – a business supplying illegal goods or services.

• Professional crime – pursues crime as a day –to-day occupation

• Corporate crime – the illegal actions of a corporation or those acting on its behalf

• White collar crime – crimes committed by persons of high social position in the course of their occupations.

• Hate crimes – a criminal act against a person or a person’s property motivated by bias.

Types of Crimes

• Transnational crime – crime that occurs across multiple national borders

• Crimes against the person – direct violence or the threat of violence against others.

• Crimes against property – involve theft of property belonging to others.

• Victimless crimes – violations of law in which there are no readily apparent victims.

4 reasons to punish

• Deterrence – attempt to discourage criminality through punishment.

• Societal protection – rendering an offender incapable of further offenses.

4 reasons to punish

• Rehabilitation – reforming the offender to prevent subsequent offenses.

• Retribution – an act of moral vengeance by which society subjects an offender to suffering comparable to that caused by the offense.

Figure 25-3: Executions by State since 1976

Source: Death Penalty Information Center 2011.