Essentials of Sociology, 6th Edition

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Chapter Six Deviance and Social Control
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Chapter Overview

• What is Deviance?
• The Symbolic Interactionist Perspective
• The Functionalist Perspective

• The Conflict Perspective
• Reactions to Deviance

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What is Deviance?

• It is not the act itself, but the reaction to
  the act, that make something deviant.
• Howard Becker, 1966

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What is Deviance?

• Relative Deviance
• What is Deviant to Some is not Deviant to Others
• Deviance is Nonjudgmental Term

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Deviance Terminology

• Deviance
• Violation of Rules or Norms
• Crime
• Violation of Norms as Laws
• Stigma
• Blemishes on Normal Identity

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Norms and Social Life

• Norms Make Social Life Possible by Making
  Behavior Predictable
• Norms Bring Social Order
• Social Control - Formal and Informal Means of
  Enforcing Norms

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Sanctions

• Negative Sanctions
• Positive Sanctions

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Explanations of Deviance

• Sociobiology
• Look for Answers Inside Individuals
• Genetic Predispositions
• Psychologists
• Focus on Conditions Within Individuals
• Personality Disorders
• Sociology
• Look for Answers Outside Individuals
• Social Class

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Symbolic Interactionist Perspective
Differential Association Theory

• Learn to Deviate or Conform Through Group
  Association
• Families
• Friends, Neighbors
• Subculture
• Prison or Freedom?

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Symbolic Interactionist Perspective
Control Theory - Inner Controls

• Morality
• Conscience
• Religious Principles

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Symbolic Interactionist Perspective
Control Theory - Outer Controls

• Attachments
• Commitments
• Involvements
• Beliefs that Actions are Morally Wrong

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Symbolic Interactionist Perspective
Labeling Theory

• Focuses on the Significance of Labels
• Labels Become Part of Self-Concept
• Propel Towards or Away from Deviance

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Symbolic Interactionist Perspective
Rejecting Labels

• Denial of Responsibility
• Denial of Injury
• Denial of a Victim

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Symbolic Interactionist Perspective
Rejecting Labels

• Condemnation of Condemners
• Appeal to Higher Loyalties

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Symbolic Interactionist Perspective
Labeling Theory

• Embracing Labels - Outlaw Bikers
• The Power of Labels - Saints and Roughnecks

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Functionalist Perspective
Can Deviance Be Functional?

• Clarifies Moral Boundaries and Affirms Norms
• Promotes Social Unity
• Promotes Social Change

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Functionalist Perspective
Strain Theory

• Social Values Generate Crime
• Cultural Goals
• Institutional Means
• Strain Leads to Anomie

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Functionalist Perspective
Four Deviant Paths

• Innovators
• Ritualism
• Retreatism
• Rebellion

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Functionalist Perspective
Illegitimate Opportunity Structures

• Unequal Access to Institutional Means to Success
• Street Crime
• White-Collar Crime
• Gender and Crime

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Conflict Perspective
Class, Crime, and the Judicial System

• Power and Inequality
• Capitalist Class
• Working Class
• Marginal Working Class
• The Law as an Instrument of Oppression

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Reaction to Deviance

• Street Crime and Prisons
• The Decline of Crime
• Recidivism
• The Death Penalty Bias

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Reaction to Deviance

• Legal Change
• Medicalization of Deviance
• Neither Mental nor Illness?
• Homeless Mentally Ill
• Need for More Humane Approach