pscc ch 11-deviance and social control

Deviance, Social Control and Crime

Intro to SociologySteve Zavestoski

University of San FranciscoFall 2011

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

“The criminal commits the crime, society creates the criminal.”

“...crime is normal because a society exempt from it is utterly impossible.”


Concepts to cover...

relativity of deviance

normative behavior

Emile Durkheim,

collective conscience, structural strain

anomie and egoism


Robert Merton and anomie

responses to anomie (conformity, innovation, ritualism, retreatism, rebellion)

Richard Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin

differential opportunities to deviate

Howard Becker

deviance as learned behavior Tuesday, October 18, 2011

societal reaction/labeling theory

primary and secondary deviance

Erving Goffman, stigma

discreditable vs discredited identity

functions of deviance


Relativity of Deviance

If deviance is the violation of norms;

If norms change over time and from one culture to another;

Then what is considered deviant also changes over time and across cultures


Normative Behavior and Deviance

Any behavior that adheres to a society’s implicit or explicit expectations for behavior

Deviance is typically understood as behavior that “deviates” from normative behavior


Medicalization of Deviance

Early, less complex societies sanctioned deviance using repression

physical force to control behavior

imprisonment, death, etc.

More complex societies engage in restitutive sanctioning (i.e., treatment and rehabilitation)

Paralleling the transition is a transition in conceptions of deviance from sin, to moral weakness, to crime, to illness


Why medicalization of deviance?

Because “medicine (has become) the central restitutive agent in our society.” Why/How?

Freudian thoughtparens patriae–state’s right to help those unable to help themselvesSocial institutions responsible for social control failing; medicine fills need


Dominant Perceptions of IllnessBiomedical Model

mind-body dualism–understand and treat body in isolation from other aspects of the person inhabiting it

physical reductionism–disease is localized in the body; excludes social, psychological, and behavioral dimensions of illness

doctrine of specific etiology–disease is caused by a specific, identifiable agent

machine metaphor–body is seen as biomechanical machine, disease is malfunction of mechanism

body as object of regimen and control–individual is responsible for exercising control to maintain or restore health


Biomedical model and deviance

Locates source of deviance within the individual

requires “treatment” of illness by medical professional

objective, scientific view of illness means deviance is not morally judged but seen as rational, scientifically verifiable conditions

Medical designations are social judgments, and the adoption of a medical model of behavior, a political decision


Who gets to decide how deviance is responded to?

The struggle for definition is a political struggle (i.e., a struggle of power)

Claims-makers with vested interests engage in the struggle


On Being Sane in Unsane Places*

Part one of Rosenhan's study:

healthy associates or "pseudopatients" simulated auditory hallucinations to get admitted to psychiatric hospitals. All were admitted and diagnosed with psychiatric disorders.

After admission, the pseudopatients acted normally and told staff that they felt fine. Hospital staff failed to detect a single pseudopatient and reported that the pseudopatients exhibited symptoms of ongoing mental illness.

All were forced to admit to having a mental illness and agree to take antipsychotic drugs as a condition of their release.Their stays ranged from 7 to 52 days, and the average was 19 days. All were discharged with a diagnosis of schizophrenia "in remission"

*Rosenhan DL (January 1973). "On being sane in insane places". Science 179 (4070): 250–8Tuesday, October 18, 2011

http://youtu.be/hqaptRYjhq4




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucination

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucination

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychiatric_hospital

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychiatric_hospital

http://web.archive.org/web/20041117175255/http://web.cocc.edu/lminorevans/on_being_sane_in_insane_places.htm


On Being Sane in Unsane Places*

Part two of Rosenhan's study:

a well-known research and teaching hospital, whose staff had heard of the results of the initial study, challenged Rosenhahn that its expderts could correctly identify pseudopatients

Rosenhan arranged with them that during a three month period, one or more pseudopatients would attempt to gain admission and the staff would rate every incoming patient as to the likelihood they were an impostor.

Out of 193 patients, 41 were considered to be impostors and a further 42 were considered suspect. In reality, Rosenhan had sent no pseudopatients and all patients suspected as impostors by the hospital staff were ordinary patients.

*Rosenhan DL (January 1973). "On being sane in insane places". Science 179 (4070): 250–8Tuesday, October 18, 2011



Social Institutions and Social Control

Psychiatry as a profession has to validate itself, so insists on forms of mental illness being empirical, observable

Bias towards false positives: Sane people misdiagnosed because psychiatrists become invested in the label once applied

Social institutions, in order to retain their legitimacy, must

ensure that its solutions to societal needs are “working,” and

protect vested interests by controlling those who deviate from the institution’s norms


Consequences of medicalization

when deviance is seen as “badness,” individuals are responsible for their deviant behavior

when deviance is seen as “illness,” individuals are less responsible for their deviant behavior

But the biomedical model says that individuals are responsible for control over their own bodies?


Durkheim and Deviance

Collective conscience and structural strain

Too little integration leads to egoism

Too much integration leads to altruism

Too little regulation leads to anomie

Too much regulation leads to fatalism


Merton and Anomie

Anomie results when society does not provide legitimate means for achieving its goals;Individuals respond in one of four ways:

accept the goals and the means (conformity)accept the goals and reject the means (innovation)reject the goals and accept the means (ritualism)reject the goals and reject the means (retreatism)reject both goals and means and advocate for new ones (rebellion)


Cloward and Ohlin: Differential Opportunities

Merton’s Theory makes sense, except that the opportunities to deviate (e.g., innovate), vary depending on one’s statuses and roles

Access to desirable resources variesAccess to tools for acquiring resources variesPrison socializes criminals (e.g., gives them new tools for committing crimes)


Becker: Deviance as Learned Behavior

Deviance as socialization into an alternative set of norms

first one must learn the deviant behavior (technique)second one learns to perceive the effects (for Becker, the “high”)third one learns to enjoy the effects

Parents are concerned about their children’s peer groups because that is where kids learn to be deviant.


Learning to Strip

Which theory of deviance discussed so far best explains the choice of women to work in strip clubs as described in “Learning to Strip?”


Labeling Theory“deviance” is in the response of the audience

Once labeled deviant (primary deviance)...

a person may act in, or be perceived to be acting in, other deviant ways in an attempt to shed the deviant label (secondary deviance)

Rosenhahn’s pseudopatients


Goffman and StigmaA deviant label is a stigma

Stigmas create discredited identities; so

people try to hide their stigmas, when possible, in order to keep their discreditable identity from becoming discredited

How do the white-collar criminals in “Denying the Guilty Mind” evidence this behavior?


Techniques of NeutralizationDenial of responsibility–“It wasn’t my fault”Denial of injury–“No harm, no foul.”Denial of the victim–”He had it coming”Condemnation of the condemners–Who are you to criticize me?”

those who condemn an offense are doing so out of spite, or are shifting the blame off of themselve.

Appeal to higher loyalties–“I was trying to achieve a greater good” (e.g., protecting a friend”


The Functions of Deviance

Deviance reminds people of society’s norms

Deviance is how social change happens (e.g., women refusing to accept gender norms)


“The criminal commits the crime, society creates the

criminal.”Deviance is not a property inherent in certain forms of behavior; it is a property conferred upon these forms by the audiences which directly or indirectly witness them. The critical variable in the study of deviance, then, is the social audience rather than the individual actor, since it is the audience which eventually determines whether or not any episode or behavior or class of episodes is labeled deviant. (Kai T. Erikson, “Notes on the Sociology of Deviance,” in H. Becker (ed.), The Other Side: Perspectives on Deviance, 1964).


Cultural Capital and Deviance

If cultural capital is the “forms of knowledge, skills, education, and advantages that a person has, which give them a higher status in society;”

What is the relationship between cultural capital and deviance?


pscc ch 11-deviance and social control

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