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Deviance andSocial Control

“The criminal commits the crime,

society creates the criminal.”

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

Intro to SociologyUniversity of San Francisco

April 1, 2008

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Concepts to cover...

relativity of deviance

normative behavior

Emile Durkheim,

collective conscience, structural strain

anomie and egoism

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Robert Merton and anomie

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

Richard Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin

differential opportunities to deviate

Howard Beckerdeviance as learned behavior

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societal reaction/labeling theory

primary and secondary deviance

Erving Goffman, stigma

discreditable vs discredited identity

functions of deviance

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Relativity of Deviance

If norms vary across cultures andsubcultures, and across time and place;

Then what is considered deviant must also

vary

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Normative Behavior

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

Deviance is typically understood as behavior

that “deviates” from normative behavior

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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

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Merton and AnomieAnomie results when society does not providelegitimate 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)

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Cloward and Ohlin:

Differential OpportunitiesMerton’s Theory makes sense, except thatthe opportunities to deviate (e.g., innovate),

vary depending on one’s statuses and rolesAccess to desirable resources varies

Access to tools for acquiring resources

varies

Prison socializes criminals (e.g., gives themnew tools for committing crimes)

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Becker: Deviance as

Learned BehaviorDeviance as socialization into an alternativeset 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

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Labeling Theory

“deviance” is in the response of the audience

Once labeled deviant (primary deviance)...

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

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Goffman and Stigma

A deviant label is a stigma

Stigmas create discredited identities; so

people try to hide their stigmas, whenpossible, in order to keep theirdiscreditable identity from becomingdiscredited

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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)

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“The criminal commits the crime,

society creates the criminal.”

Deviance is not a property inherent in certain formsof behavior; it is a property conferred upon these

forms by the audiences which directly or indirectlywitness them. The critical variable in the study of deviance, then, is the social audience rather thanthe individual actor, since it is the audience which

eventually determines whether or not any episode orbehavior or class of episodes is labeled deviant. (KaiT. Erikson, “Notes on the Sociology of Deviance,” inH. Becker (ed.), The Other Side: Perspectives onDeviance, 1964).