PREPARED BY

UMAIR

DevianceDeviance is the recognized violation of cultural norms.

(macionis)Or

it is behavior that a large or powerful segment of the population disapproves of.

"Sociologists use the term deviance to refer to any violation of norms.”

(Henslin)

For example Speak up too much

or too loudly Strange get upStealing Murder etc.

There are two types of deviance

Informal deviance Formal deviance

Informal deviance

It refers to the fact that an individual goes against the general trend of society; however, this behaviour does not constitute an illegal act.e.g Someone Licking the ground Odd hair style to look different from others

Informal deviants are people whose behaviour might raise an eyebrow but will not encourage a person to call the police.

e.g Someone picking your nose

Not all informal deviance is negative

it can be positive as well for example A Rock star who perhaps drifts from the norm but people like his style

Formal deviance It refers to the fact that an individual goes against the established laws of society. So formal Deviant is a criminal It has wide range from minor traffic violation to murder.

Characteristics

1. Cross cultural analysis demonstrates that ideas of right and wrong vary from culture to culture.

e.g marrying young girls under 18 may be common practice in some countries

butin US it would be considered child abuse.

2. Deviance seem to vary according to the status of the person performing the act. e.g The individual who shot several people was condemned

But A soldier performing the same act in another country might win a medal.

3. Deviance also depends on the context of the acte.g If I take a needle and inject you with a lethal poison, it would be considered murder

But If the state does it, it's considered capital punishment.

Social control

These are attempts by society to regulate people’s thoughts and behavior. Social control is of two types 1. Informal 2. Formal

Informal means of social control

• when parents praise or scold their children

• when friends make fun of our choice of music or style of dress

Formal means of social control

• criminal justice system, the organizations (police, courts and prison officials) that respond to alleged violations of the law.

PERSONALITY FACTORS AFFECTING DEVIANT BEHAVIOUR

o Psychologists consider:deviance as abnormality in

individual personality.Personality is shaped by

social experience.

Therefore deviance is the result of unsuccessful socialization

Containment Theory

This classic research was made by Walter Reckless and Simon Dinitiz , illustrate the psychological behaviour.

They studied the behaviour of 12 year old male students asking their teachers to categorize as either likely or unlikely they get into trouble with the law.

Containment Theory (Cont’d)

o Conclusion They concluded that

“good boys” showed a strong conscience , could handle frustration and identified with social norms.

“bad boys” didn’t have these characteristics and were more deviant.

Recent study also agrees with the classical approach of Walter Reckless and Simon Dinitiz.

Psychologist also have shown that personality patterns have some connections to deviance.

These approaches consider deviance as a trait of individual so limited in explaining deviance.

SOCIAL FOUNDATIONS OF DEVIANCEThere are three social foundation of deviance:

I. Deviance varies according to social norms

II. People become deviant as others define them that way

III. How societies set norms and how they define rule breaking both involves social power

Deviance varies according to cultural norms

No thought or action is deviant, it becomes deviant in relation to some particular norms

Norms varies place to place to place and therefore deviance also

Not a single norm and deviance is universal

SOCIAL FOUNDATIONS OF DEVIANCE

Examples• The selling of alcohol is

banned in Pakistan but allowed in US.

• Wearing dastaar is deviance in urban areas but not in rural areas of Pakistan.

• Iran bans wearing makeup by women.

People become deviant as others define them that way

• Everyone violates culture norm at one time or another. A person become deviant when the people of some particular culture perceive and define him deviant.

• For example, when a person talking to himself, some people consider it deviance.

How societies set norms and how they define rule breaking both involves social power

• The law, is the means by which powerful people protect their interests.(Karl Max)

• For example, when a homeless person speaks against government, arrested for disturbing the peace but when an opposition leader during election campaign does the same thing gets police protection.

Crime

CRIME

• Crime amounts to a violation of the criminal law enacted by the local, state or national government.

• Crime is behaviour that breaks the formal written laws of a society. If someone commits a crime he/she can be arrested, charged and prosecuted.

Deviance CrimeDeviance is the recognized violation of cultural norms.

Crime amounts to a violation of the criminal law enacted by the local, state or national government.

Agents of control for deviance are societal pressure and fear of God.

Agents of control for crime are police and judiciary.

Society has no coercive power to deal with deviance.

but governments have the power of punishment to tackle crime.

For example• Walking with the shoes in holy

place like mosque. • standing too close to another

unnecessarily.• Smoking in public place

For example• Murder• forcible rape • robbery

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CRIME AND DEVIANCE

A person can be deviant and criminal at same point in time.

For example: If someone commits a murder. He is violating the cultural norms of society and religion, also he is breaking the criminal law.

ELEMENTS OF CRIME

THE ACT ITSELF

MENS REA (guilty mind )

TYPES OF CRIME

There are two basic types of crime

• Crimes against the person• involve violence or the

threat of violence against another person

• For example: Murder, Rape and Robbery

• Crimes against Property• Property crimes involve

theft of property without physical harm, such as burglary, larceny, auto theft, and arson.

OTHER TYPES

VICTIMLESS CRIMES

• Definition: Victimless crimes are violations of law in which there are no readily apparent victims. Normally the act is against society itself through norms, values, attitudes, and beliefs.

• Examples: When someone smokes a cigarette or uses cocaine he is violating cultural values. He is committing a crime, but there is no direct victim on a specific person, as there is when someone is robbed or murdered.

OTHER TYPES (Cont.)

WHITE-COLLAR CRIME

• Definition:• White-collar crime is a criminal act that arises from opportunities created by a person’s social

position.• These are crimes committed by persons of high social position in the course of their

occupation• These crimes are generally viewed as less serious and less deserving of punishment because

of the class bias of society.• Examples:

• tax fraud• false advertising, etc.

OTHER TYPES (Cont.)

Corporate crime

• Failure of corporations to provide a safe working environment

• the production of unsafe products

• unsafe disposal of toxic waste

OTHER TYPES (Cont.)

Organized Crime

• Organized crime is crime committed by structured groups typically involving the distribution of illegal goods and services.

• Many people think of the Mafia when they think of organized crime, but the term can refer to any group that exercises control over large illegal enterprises

• Example:• such as the drug trade, • illegal gambling, • prostitution, • weapons smuggling• money laundering

Demographic Patterns of Crime

What is critical in explaining high levels of crime are the social factors linked to sex, race, economic deprivation, lifestyle differences, educational level and so forth.

Sex:-

Sex is the single social factor that is most predictive of patterns of criminal behaviour. Males have higher rates of involvement than females in practically all forms of criminality. Men are arrested about three times more than women for property crimes.

Age:-

Crime is a "young person's game." Most people arrested are under thirty years of age, and the highest percentage of the arrests for violent offenses is within the eighteen to twenty-four age brackets. Notice that this same age group is the one most likely to use and abuse drugs. The drop in criminal activity and drug use after age 24 is called "aging out". Consider that people between the ages of 15 and 24 only make up about 14% of the US population but they represented 39.1% of those arrested for violent crimes and 46.8% of those arrested for property crimes.

Socioeconomic Status:-

The relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and criminality has been one of the more controversial issues in modern-day criminology. On the one hand, research statistics indicate that members of lower socioeconomic groups are more likely to commit crimes. Yet we also know that lower socioeconomic groups are more likely to be arrested, suggesting that it may be that arrest is more common among them than the actual commission of crimes.

Race:Detailed analysis through victimization surveys indicate that black-white differences in criminal behaviour are real rather than merely reflecting the criminal justice system biases such as the likelihood of arrest. The social environment of blacks in America is thought to be primarily responsible for these crime rate differences. Blacks may be more closely watched than whites by law enforcement agencies and this leads to higher arrest rates.

Crime in Global Perspective

Typically more New Yorkers are hit by stray bullets than are gunned down deliberately in cities elsewhere in the world. Rough comparisons suggest that the homicide rate in the US stands five times higher than the rate in Europe and the property crime rate is twice as high. Another contributing factor to the relatively high level of violence in the US is widespread private ownership of guns. About 68 per cent of the 15,517 (as of 2000) murder victims annually in the US are killed by guns. In fact, the US is the country with the highest number of killings involving handguns.

Critique of America's Criminal Justice System

According to Jeffrey Reinman, a professor of criminal justice: “The goal of our criminal justice system is not to reduce crime or to achieve justice but to project to the American public a visible image of the threat of crime. To do this, it must maintain the existence of a sizable or growing population of criminals. And to do this, it must fail in the struggle to reduce crime.” (Reinman, 1979:1).

Legalization of Some Crimes

Some have proposed that we should legalize many of the victimless crimes, such as gambling, prostitution, and some drug violations. Legalization involves the recognition that the criminal justice system should deal with controlling behaviour that threatens the public order, not with regulating people's morality.