Chapter 2 and 3

social leaning theory

-Edwin Sutherland -suggests that deviant behavior is learned through one's interaction with other -different versions of this theory

Hirschi, Gottfredson, and Tittle: Social Bond, Self-Control, and Control Balance

-Hirschi assumes that all of us are endowed like animals with the ability to commit deiant acts. But most don't take advantage of this ability because of our strong bond to society. Thus our strong bond to society ensures our conformity. He states there are four ways individuals bond themselves to society: 1. attachment to conventional people/ institutions 2. commitment to conformity (individuals invest their time into convention types of action like getting an education, obtaining a good reputation) 3. Involvement in conventional activities (people keep themselves so busy that they don''t have time to commit deviant acts) 4. belief in the moral validity of social rules- individuals have a strong moral belief that they should obey the rules of conventional society -if these four elements are strong the individual is likely to get stuck in conformity, if they are weak the person is likely to slide into deviance -Hirschi and Gottfredson hae also argued that weak self-control can help explain deviance because people with weak self-control tend to be impulsive, reckless, and insensitive -charles Tittle claims that the lack of control balance causes deviance- individuals with a lack of control balance are though to have a control surplus or a control deficit and are likely to engage in any kind of deviance, whuch may include theft, vandalism, sexual harassment

causes of white collar deviance

-Neal Shover and Amy Hochstetler explained this: 1. the characteristics of the individuals predisposed to commit the crime 2. the lure of the criminal opportunity 3. noncredibly oversight -these reasons seem to be related more to being in a relatively high social position as suggested by the power theory in chapter 3

conflict theory: social reality theory

-Richard Quinney blames the unjust law itself on the capitalist system. Claims that criminal law is used by the state and the ruling class to secure the survival of the capitalist system, and as capitalist society is further threatened by its own contradictions, criminal law will be increasingly used to maintain domestic order -social reality of crime suggests that four factors jointly produce the capitalist society's high crime rates but also help to consolidate its established legal order as well as dominant class 1. dominant class defines as criminal those behaviors that threaten its interests 2. dominant class applies those laws to ensure the protection of interests (has police, judges, etc that encorce the laws) 3. members of the subordinate class are compelled by their unfavorable life conditions to engage in those actions that are defined as criminal (poor more likely to resort to a criminal action because their poverty forces them to do so) 4. dominat class uses criminal acts as the basis for constructing the ideology of crime (the belief that the subordinate class contains most of society's dangerous criminal elements and therefore should most often be arrested, imprisoned -these factors produce and maintain a high level of crime in society -Quinney tried to turn his theory into a call for political action- suggested that the powerful criminalize the actions of the poor to exploit, oppress, and subjugate them thereby perpetuating social inequality. Therefore, he calls for the development of a revolutionary consciousness that should eventually lead to the creation of a democratic society that will end the oppression of the powerlessby the powerful

summary of labeling theory

-once labeled as deviant, the individual tends to suffer a negative consequences by continuing to engage in deviant activities as a secondary, confirmed, or career deviant -the indivdiual may also suffer consequences such as being ridiculed, humiliated, degraded, harassed, beaten, imprisoned, or otherwise dehumanized

recent developments

-Steven Messner and Rosenfeld argue that it is the overwheling culture of the american dream that causes deviance by encouraging people to adopt an "anything goes" mentality in the pursuit of success. The Amerucan dram can cause deviance because it reflects strong self-interest with little or no sical interest. Self-interest focuses on personal success or dominance over others while social interests emphasize concern fro the welfare of others. Research suggests that people engage in deviance if they have strong self-interests but lack social interests -Robert Agnew suggested that the removal of a positively valud stimuli (like the loss of a boyfriend/ girlfriend) and the presentation of a negative stimuli (neglect) can cause frustration, fear, and anger which can in turn lead to deviant actions such as theft, aggression, and drug use

Conflict theory: Legal reality theory

-according to William Chambliss there are two kinds of laq 1. law of books: the ideal law 2. law in action, the reality of law -according to the law on the books, legal authorities ought to be fair and just by treating all citizens equally, however, law in action show that legal authorites are unfair and unfust, favoring the rich and powerful over the poor and weak -people tend to blame the descrpancy on the character of law enfirocement, but Chambliss suggests that these people are simply influenced by the historical and organizaitonal background of the law -Modern Angle American law stems from England- considered personal wrongs as transgressions against the state and that only the state should punish offenders. the government thus used force and coercion to handle wrongs and disputes- creating lawmakrers and law enforcers. This system still prevails in US society, but the nature of enforcing them has often changed to reflect the interest of the ruling classes -ex: the vagrancy laws in fuedal England required poor men to work at low awages, made it illegal for them to move from one place to another to aboid low paying jobs, and prohibited them from helping beggars (this helped benefit the rulers). Then the law changed to protect interests of merchants as the vagrancy laws were applied to vagabonds, rogues. today, in the US and England, vagrancy laws are meant to control down and outers, the undesireaable, the criminal, and nuisances; therefore reflecting the desire of the influential middle and upper classes to make teir streets safe and peaceful -criminal law has also tended to serve interests of rich and powerful -law enforcers also tend to become toosl of power and privelge; this is the consequence of organizational imperative

antitrust violations

-antitrust laws prohibit companies from conspiring to reduce or eliminate competition -if there is little or not compitition, prices will go up and consumers will have no choice but to pay them -to violate antitrust laws, companies selling the same products usually get together and fix abornoally high prices -these violations can produce huge profits- although profit is an obvious prod to antitrust violations, at least three subtle forces may be at work 1. history of cooperation among corporations 2. ologopolistic market, dominanted by only a few companies 3. lack of public awareness of antitrust violation -these three elements can be found in the baby food insdustry- high price stems from antitrust violations. These violations involve three formula companies that, with a long standing cozy relatonship have dominated the formula industry -antitrust violations started in 1980

feminist theory

-argue that many extant theories of deviance are about men only -suggests that Merton's anomie-strain theory mainly applies to men and not women- women have lower ates of crime than men -lack of relvancy to women in anomie and other conventional theories stems from a male biased failure to take women into account -therefore, feminist theory has suggested that the most likely charcteristic of a robber, burglar, assaulter is that he is male -theory originally focused on women as victims of rape and sexual harassment and were seen as a patriarchial society's attempts to put women into their place -women less involved criminally than men- tend to commit lesser cimes like property crimes, credit card fraud, wlfare fraud. This is likely because more women fall below the poverty line than males

postmodernist theory

-attacks modern science's emphasis on the search for objective truth. to post-modernists, the socalled objectivity in modern science is subjective because it involves the scientists imposing their priveldged and professional view on the subject under investigation -the subjective view of the subject is thus suppressed, discouted, or ignored -consider the subject's own views as important to understand deviance -also believe in deconstructionism- tearing a text (any event like deviance) apart, revealing its contraditions and assumptions. It seeks to challenge and destroy the conventional way of looking at things like deviance. But because of the emphasis on the importance of sbjectivity, the post modernist's concept of deconstructonism is similar to the phenomenologist's idea of phenomenological bracketing which requres eliminating preconceptions in order to mazimize sensitivity to the subject's experiences -at the heart of the theory was linguistic domination which assumes that a linguistic conflict exists in any social interaction with the language of the strong dominating that of the weak

deviance against employees

-corporations have been expected to ensure that their employees remain free from known hazards in the work environment--> OSHA law -Ermann and Richard Lundman suggested three reasons for corporations' tendencies to be negligent about their employees' health and safety 1. profit mazimazation 2. corporate structure- one of the major characteristics of corporations is that execuatives are rewarded for seeking short-term success. thus, when determining whether to ignore or eliminate health hazards, corporate execs tend to focus on how great a profit they will derive from a certain decision in a few months or years rather than the long term. So they are less likely to be concerned with problems that might have long term consequences on employee health 3. government's reluctance to take action against offending corportations. OSHA often avoids usuing threats or penalties to deter offenses; instead negotiation and persuasion are routinely employed to obtain compliance. The government has also cut back on OSHA enforcement and some states prohibit injured employees from suing their employers unless they are able to prove that the injury was intentional

anomie-straing theory

-created by Robert Merton -attributed deviance to anomie, the breakdown of social norms that results from society's urging people to be ambitious byt failing to provide them with legitimate opportunities to succeed -Albert Cohen etended this theory to explain the emrgence of delinquent boys and common social factors contributing to their paths of delinquency -Richard Clowar and Lloyd Ohlin further expanded on the theory by adding the concept of differential illegitamate oppurtunity -

Phenomenological theory

-delves into people's subjectivity, including their perceptions, attitudes, feelings, and opinions about deviance -assumes that all kinds of people, whether deviants or labelers, are highly subjective in constructing or interpreting deviance

deviant opportunity: Benefit of High Position and Power

-deviance more likely to occur if opportunities exist for carying it out- higher the individua;s' positution in a company, the more likely the deviantly motivated individual is to carry out a profitable act because they have more access to teh company's resources -so managers/ higher levels can be more likely than lower level personell to steal from the company -combination of high position, status, and prestige can provide the greatest opportunity for deviant activties, which turns deviant motivation into a deviant action -powerful corporatons more likley to commit a corporate crime

control theory

-differs from other theories because they approach the problem of deviant behavior by asking what causes conformity. In doing so they think that they will know the causes of deviant behavior, which is the absence of conformity -accept the Fruedian idea that deviance can naturally burst forth from inborn animal impulses because they assume that people are naturally inclined to commit deviant acts and will do so unless they are properly controlled -so in the eys of control theorists, confirmity is caused by social control over the individualm and therefore the absence of social control causes deviance -three important theories about the specific nature of social control: 1. Hirschi, Gottfredson, and Tittle: Social Bond, Self-Control, and Control Balance

evaluating critical and conflict theory

-early conflict thoerists seemed to assume that in a utopian society deviant labeling would stop and acts like killing and hurting others would stop -the devance that would occur was thought to be trivial -critical theoriests argue that if social equality were achieved, serious forms of human nastiness would decrease rather than completly disapprear -these thoeres contribute to our understanding of how social inequality influences the making and enforcing of norms, rules or laws and the treatment of deviance in society.

deviant motivation: fear of loss and greed for gain

-fear and greed may be important factors for white collared crimes. These are the most important factors driving the sock market. Fear of loss causes investors to sell stocks which brings down their prices- if the fear is great --> stock market crash. Greed for gain causes people to buy lots of stocks, raising their prices -fear of loss like the fear of losing one's house or fear of company going bankrupt associated with white collar deviance -type of deviance that produces a relatively low profit or high risk of arrest like embezzlement and credit fraud (usually involves low level white-collar workers and small companies) -greed to gain- to prove someone as successful -culture competition which celebrates greed as the enginge of capitalism that drives people to get rich. -the greater the fear of loss of the greed for gain, the stronger the motivation for engaging in white collar deviance

medical misconduct

-fee splitting- involves a doctor receiving kickbacks from another for referring patients. The doctor who receives it is usually a general practioner referring his patients to a specialist. Fee splitting can be dangerous because doctors might send patients to the person who gives the largest split fee than the one who conducts the best surgery -unnescessary surgery: 25% of operations not actually needed. Surgeons who are highly paid by insurance companies on a fee for service basis perform more operations than surgeons who are pad less by health maintenance organizations 3. fraudulently claiming payment for services- billing insurance companies and the state and federal mediad and medicare programs for services never rendered, double billing them for services rendered, or billing them for expensive physcian services when, in fact, the services ave been performed by nurses

dangerous foods

-food industry has sold adulterated or contaminated foods -meat packing companies did that in the 1900s when people got E.Coli -food industry uses chemical additives which have been suspected to cause cancer and other diseases

embezzlement

-form of employee theft, but it is said to refer to the stealing of money, while employee theft refers to the stealing of merchandize -less costly than employee theft -range from low level employees (bank tellers who occasionally steal a few hundred dollars to solve some financial problems) to top executives (steal much more) -most embezzlers are in management posititions -typically white males in their thirties, who are well-paid and with one or two children and living in a respectable neighborhood -usually hardworking, honest people -go through the following social-psychological phases 1. Encounter what they perceive to be an unshareable financial problem (too embaressed to share the problem with other people- typically have lost money from gambling or some other ignoble act) 2. become aware of the opportunity for secretly solving the financail problem 3. rationalize away the criminal nature of embezzlement, defineing the act as merely getting a temporary loan rather than as committing a theft. They expect to return the money later--> this rationalization lets them carry out their actions

weak social control: Lax Law enforcement

-law enforcers don't exercise as much control over white collar deviance as over street crime -punishment for white collared crime is less than street crime, so it is more prevalent among rich and powerful -the government can even encourage the rich to partake in this activity with its deregulation policies like with the baking frauds in the 1980s.Deregulation also suggests that the government whould not rigously question their professional judgements -some studies claim that the overhwliming majority of white collared criminals are middle class people like bank tellers with overdue bills. but these studies are biased and typically only depict the people who are caught and convicted of their crimes- most white collar criminals are not caught -law enforcers are not entirely to clame for the weaker control experienced by powerful deviants. Since they are so powerful- they can weasal their way out of things. ex: big drug company can pay unethical medical researchers to provide fraudulent information that the drugs are safe

Deviance in the professions

-many forms of professional deviance 1. medial misconduct 2. lawyerly lawlessness 3. accounting abuse

official ways of neutralizing deviance

-gov't officials try and cover their deviant acts -officials rarely admit they did something wrong, instead they try and neutralize it and make it appear they did nothing wrong -techniques of neutralization 1. Denying the obvious: deny that wrongdoing has occured, no matter how strong the reality. 2. Ignore the deviance: if an illegal act is a private one committed by individual officials, they ignore it by disconnecting their phones, going into hiding or on a trip away from the press, or simply saying "no comment". If the government is supposed to take action against its officials for some lawbreaking, it resorts to evasive respinses by insisting that the facts do not conclusively and absolutely warrant governmental intervention (ex: legality of vietnam war?) 2. accusing the accuser: the individual official may threaten or file a libel suit against the journalist who publicized the offense. Although its almost impossible to prove libel, the official hopes that the suit will divert public attention way from the official's own wrongdoing 3. promising to take avtions: when high gov't officials are under pressure to do something about an incidient they will publically promise to take action to deal with it. Yet, this action is not actually carried out 4. justifying the deviance: similar to the rationalization- they implicitly admitted their wrongdoing with their promise to deal with it, the gulty officials rationalize that it was necessary for them to commit the deviant act

consequences for the labeler

-he/she informs us what evil looks life and helps define how the "in-group" differs from the "out-group" -without this ongoing drama at the edges of the group space, the community wouldhave no identity -thus deviance provides a service in teaching us what evil is, setting out a consequence if we do evil, and encourage us to aboi punishment and do good

official violence

-history of governmental violence against groups in the US -today most violence involves police brutality against citizens, especially African and Hispanic Americans in large cities -when the complaints of police brutality are brought against some officers they are merely dismissed, and those that are admitted are called a few "bad apples" -Us also commits democide- killing of people by their government. The US government does this much less than communist and authoritarian govenrments (most notorious have been Society Inion, China, Khmer Roughe)

symbolic interactionism

-idea that deviance is a collective action, involving more than one person -symbolic- the interaction between the supposed deviant and the conformists is governed by the meanings that they impute to each other's actions and reactions

Victim's unwitting cooperation

-in contrast to crimes like murder, robbery, rape, white collar deviance requires an unwitting cooperation from victims- this coperation is unwitting because the victim is careless or ignorant -it is hard for them to realize they are being victimized even if they want to find out the true nature of their victimization

accounting abuse

-in preparing tax returns for companies, accountants may assist their clients in falsifyng their income or deductions to pay less taxes -not a profitable area for accounting abuses because tax preparation provides only a small portion of the accounting profession's revenues -most of the companies' annual revenues comes from examining corporations' financial statements -job of auditing helps ensure the health and stability of the nation's economy. If the accountant says the company is strong when its not, the bank and investors will likely lose money. But the bank can collude with companies in defrauding their shareholders and investors, with assistance from the lender's own accountants, in coverin gup the seedy deals

cloward and ohlin: differential illegitamate oppurtunity

-introduce the concept of differential illegitimate oppurtunity -they also emphasize that lower classes have less opportunity than other classes at chieving success in a conforming manner. But the suggest that Merton is wrong that these lower classes would automatically turn to deviance when they do not have oppurunity. Merton fails t recognize that lower class members are also confronted with illegitamate oppurtunity/ have change for achieving success in a deviant, illegitmate way -They emphasize that while all lower class people suffer from the same lack of legitamate oppurtunities, they don't have the same amount of illegitimate oppurtunities -thus when some lower class person sare pressured toward committing a deviant act there is no guarentee that they will do it -they extend MErton anomie-strain theory by introducing illegitimate oppurtunity as a third variable through which the goal-means gap leads to three difference kinds of deviant acities

evaluating social learning

-it can be difficult to determine precisely what differneital associaiton is in real life situations -Glader's differntial identification theory has received some empirical data support, but there is no conclusive evidence tht ID with delinquent friends is the cause of delinquency or occurs before a person becomes delinquent -Burgess-Akers differential reinforcement theory can't explain why a person initially commits a deviant act. but the theory is useful for explaining repeated deviance, namely, why some people continue to get involved in deviance after committing a deviant act for the first time. The reason is that they have been rewarded more than punished for the deviance

organizational imperative

-it is in the nature of any organization to compel its members to perform tasks that will maximize reward and minimize trouble for the organization. The reward to be sought by the law-enforcing agency is public support- the trouble to be avoided is the withdrawl of such support -it is rewarding for the law-enforcing official to arrest, prosecture powerless people, but it would cause trouble for them to do so to middle and upper class -thus in view of an organizational imperative, law enforcing officials are very likely to make the law serve the interests of the rich and pwoerful

evaluating lbeling theory

-labeling theory is bery popular among sociologists -but some criticize that it fails to answer what causes deviance (but this criticism is kind of stupid because the theory isn't supposed to/ meant to explain the causes of deviance) -research has failed to provide support that deviant label leads individual further into deviant involvement. While some studies show that labeling encourages further deviance, others don't -can't logically deal with hidden deviance and powerful deviants. By statins it is typically the powerful people who impose the deviant label on the less powerful, these theorists suggest that the powerful can't be devants because they can only be labelers. But they are sometimes deviants- sometimes the powerful go to prostitutes

evaluating the control theory

-many studies have supported Hirschi's social bond and self-control theory. (look at pg 29)

ethnography

-method phenomenologists use to analyze how their subjects feel and think about their deviance, themselves, and others -style of research that seeks to undrestand the meanings the people under investigation ascribe to their experiences -ex: in an in depth interview with Agnes who had male genitals and female secondary sex characteristics, Harold Garfinkel found that Agnes saw himself or herself not as a freak, but as a normal person. She told him she was a normal woman who simply had a physical defect comparable to any other deformity, such as a harelip, etc -Jack Katz found that criminals like murderers also see themselves as normal and see their deviance in some positive way/ often see themselves as morally superior to their victims regarding their victims as fools or suckers who deserved to be robbed (in the perspective of the robbers) -current ethnographic research has delved into the subjective world of various kinds of deviants that have come out with the same findings as Garfinkel and Katz.

fnancial fauds

-most common involves the failure to pay income taxes -over half of all tax payers evade taxes to some extnt -middle and upper class people like lawyers are typically the culprits -B/c tax evasion is very common and because of the complexity of income tax laws can be unclear on what counts as income decuctions, exemptions, credits. Peoople who are wealthy are typically able to higher tax accountants or lawyers who are able to manipulate different debits, credits, etc better than average, middle class fox -less common than tax evasion is violation of securities law. Since most violators are professional stock traders, the cost per violation is much higher. A [ppular form of violation by stockbrokers is degrauding customers through sales of worthless securities -ex: a male stockbrocker gets friends on Wall Street to put phony news releases and market analyses that make the stock look like a sure winner. What is also prevalent are security sweepstakes schemes, phony Internet sotcks, identify theft -insider trading- an insider of a company like an owner buys or sells stock on confidential information not available to the general public like advance knowledge about a new product or unanticipated company profits or losses

deviance against customers

-most common ones involve dangerous foods, unsafe products, frauds, deceptive advertising, and antitrust violations

deviance against the enviroment

-most corporations dump their wastes onto the land and into the air and water, primarily because they find it too costly to develop ecologically safer alternatives or antipollution devices- they are also unwilling to clean us the mess or to assume liability for th ehealth of citizens affected by it -effects everyone to some extent- poor minority neighborhoods suffer the most because landfills, garbage incinerators, toxic dump sites, tend to be located near the homes of the poor and minorities -federal government has tried to combat the environmental pollution throughout the decade -comprehensive Environemental Response Compensation and Liability Act was passed (called Superfund program), intended to clean up the worst uncontrolled hazardous waste sites in the nation- Superfund program got off to shky start because the EPA was soft on environmental offenses. Many corporations that polluted the environment were left alone, and the few guilty ones were given oppurtunity to negotiate cleanup settlements with the EPA -toward the late 1980s, the EPA aggressively began to enforce the superfund law against guilty corporations- these corporations are under pressure from the EPA to pay for the cleanup

social profile of corporate crookes

-most notorious illegal business activities of corporate executives were -Kenneth Law and his executives at Enron pluged the company inot Bankruptcy by pockeing millions of dollars from defrauding investors, employees and pensioners -top execs of the accounting firm Ather anderson cooked the books of their client Enron and then shredded the incriminated evidence -Scott Sulivan at WorldCom masterminded a 7.2 billion securitites fraud -founder of Adelphia, a cable TC company were convinced of defrauding investers out of more than $250 million and giving themselves $2.3 billion -founder of ImClone, a biopharmaceutical company, was found guilty of a securities fraud, obstruction of justice -shady CEOs took home 1.4 billionin three years when their companies plummetted and emplyees lost their jobs -these corrupt execs were the product of business deregulation that has run amok for more than two decades 1. moving corporate headquarters without people to Bermuda, and other places to evade US taxes 2. overpaying executives and granting them huge stock options and interest free loans even when they do their jobs poorly, causing their company to loose money 3. increase exec pay for cutting costs by firing mass amounts of workers 4. stacking the board of directers with insiders and friends who will shower labish compensation on execs and turn a blind eye to their wrongdoing 5. giving campaign contributions to canditdates from both major parties to ensure governemtn subsidies, tax breaks, and other favors

deviance agaist the government

-most of this deviance incolves tax evasion, but tax evasion by corporations is not always illegal -because of their pervasive and powerful political influence, large corporations can legally evade taxes through tax breaks provived by legislation and through tax loopholes made possible by the complexity of tax laws -but taking advantage of loopholes may go too far and become illegal -ex: law that exempts taxes from profit made from US companies abroad. To take advantage of this, many giant companies set up subsidaries in foreign countries that have very low corporate tax rates and then making it appear that most profits are earned abroad -company pays a 4% tax in Ireland, thereby evading the 48% tax in the US -in committing deviance against the government, corporations do not evade payment of taxes alone; they give huge sums of campaign donations to both political parties to influence legilation toward favoring their business interests -some US companies may even bribe foreign govenrments to partake in illegal activitis -ex: Baxter International Inc, the world's largest supply company, pleaded guilty to a felony charge of violating US law that prohibits cooperating with the Arab boycott of Israel

labeling theorists are most interested in analyzing the process...

-of becoming a secondary deviant- that is, in how a person goes from primary to secondary deviation -they refer to this as a sequential model of deviance -model suggests that when people are forced by society to see themseves as deviants, they become secondary deviants repeatedly engaging in deviation as a way of life

evaluating phenomelogical theory

-offers a convincing argument about the inadequacy of positivism; positivists cannot get at the essence of deviant reality, but phenomenologists' assumption that they themselves can is less convincing -phenomenologists create a version of human reality- the version may be unique but its not necessariy superior to the positivists or others in their ideological inclinations, observational methods, and sensititivty to human experience -but it does let us look at the subject with more understanding sinceits subjective

Election improprieties

-our democracy requires that we have the right to choose our leaders 1. Denial of voting right: the electoral college- consisting of political leaders- elects the president. So the voters are bypassed to let political leaders decide who should be president 2. political dirty tricks: employed to ensure victory in an election- include spreading rumors about the opponent's strang character, sex life, or association with drug lords, etc. 3. compaign finance abuses: candidates for office often recieve huge campaign contributions and the doners expect politicians to return favor if elected. So the rich can gain access to the White house and congress in ways that ordinary citizens cannot--> buying and selling of political influence

who labels who?

-people who represent forces of law and order as well as convention morality typically apply the deviant label to those who have allegedly violated that law and morality -examples of laberlers are police, judges, prison guards, psychiatrists -gerenally the rich, white or powerful are more likely to label others as deviant -people are powerful enought to legitamtely label others as deviant -powerful label the weak

occupational deviance

-perpetrated by individual white collar employees for their own gain -usucally less costly to the victims -more common than crimes committed by lower classes 1. employee theft 2. embezzlement 3. financial frauds

critique of postivitists- Phenomenological theory

-phenomenologists consider the deviant's subjectibe experience at the heart of deviant reality -regard positivitsts' supposedly objective notion of deviant behavior as unreal because it reflects their own preconception of the deviant as an object rather than the reality of the deviant as a thinking and feeling human -the positivits thus don't study a phenomenon as it really is, but study their own conception of the phenomenon- they are thus really subjective -phenomnologists suggest that the real phenomenon is different than the postivist conception they think the real phenomoneon is the immediate experience of the person under study

subjectivism as a key to devian reality

-phenomologists consider the definition of defiance as problematic because people don't typically agree on one definition. Since people view these things as different, there concept of deviance can't get at the true essence of deviance -the meanings that positivists ascribe to deviance are abstract in nature (independent of concrete situations in which the deviant person is involved), by contrast, the meanings that the deviant person imputes to his or her own behavior are situated in something that is, tied to the concrete situations in which the subject is involved -but the meanings the deviant person imputes to his or her own behavior are situated in something, that is, tied to the concrete situations in which the subject is involved -abstract meanings are the positivitst's so-called objective, scientific interpretaition of the deviant subject's behavior, while situated meanings are the subject's subjective interpretation of the subject's own behavior

power theory

-power inequality affects the quality of deviant activities likely to be engaged in by people -thus the powerful are more liely to engage in profitable deviant acts like corporate crime, while the powerless are more likely to commit less profitable deeds like armed robbery -thus, power determines the type of defiance people are likely to carry out -power can be an iportant cause of deviance- the liklihood of powerful people perpetrating profitable deviance is greater than the liklihood of powerless persons committing less profitable deviance. Three reasons why powerful are more likely to commit profitable deviance than the powerless 1. powerful have a stronger deviant motivation- most of this comes from relative depreviation- feeling unable to achieve relatively high aspirations. More likely to raise their aspirations so high they can't be realized 2. enjoy greater deviant opportunity- have access to more and better opportunites that might make it easy to defraud customers (bankers) 3. powerful are subjected to weaker social control (powerful have more influence in the making and enforcement of laws. The laws against largely higher-status criminals are, therefore, relatvely lenient and seldon enforced, but the laws against lower status criminals are harsher and more often enforced -therefore, due to social inequality, the powerful are likely to have a stronger deviant motivation, enjoy greater deviant oppurtunity, and encourter weaker social control- therefore, they are more likely to get involved in profitable deviance

global perspective on official corruption

-prevalent throughout the world -typically poorer countries are more corrupt/ corruption become normalized -corruption hurts the poor because it causes money for public services to be decreased -corruption discourages foreign investment in the corrupt country which retards economic grouwth, amking it hard for the companies to climb out of poverty. Corrupton has helped a few countries like South Korea, Taiwn, Thailand, Japan because they received kickbacks and bribes from large business companies. But these developing countries are too poor to have the same large businesses and resource rich governments that East Asian countries have -research in various countries has indicated at least three causes of corruption 1. poverty (don't have enourgh money to pay public officials adequeately on a regular basis) 2. large population (makes survelliance super hard)- probably why the largest countries like China an Indonesia are some of the most corrupt 3. lack of democracy

unsafe products

-profit motive underlies the manufacturing and selling of unsafe products by car, drug, tobacco, and other industries -ex: tobacco companies know cigarettes cause cancer, but they kept selling cigaretts -fraudulent safety testing of drug comapnies -present false data to the FDA and hold iformation from the FDA on a drug's harmful side effects, so many dangerous drugs get the FDA approval, and the consumers are essentially used as guinea pigs -ex: Dow Ccorning's silicone breast implants- implants leaked, ruptured, caused autoimmune disorders- the company knew but continued doing business

alfred Schutz

-refers to the abstract, objective meanings as constructs of the first degree -phenomenologists insist that the positivists' supposedly objective idea about deviance is actually their own idea, far removed from, and at best a pale representation of, the deviant experience they study -only the deviant person's subjective interpretation of the person's own experience is real -thus the phenomenologist emphasize that to understand deviance, we should rely heavily on people's subjective interpretations of their own deviant expereuences

Merton: The goal-means gap

-said there was a defect with Frued's psychoanalytic theory because it assumes that society discourages the individual from engaging in deviant activiies- he called this assumption a "fallacious premise" and he believed that society actuallu encourages individuals to engage in deviant activities. So e developed his anomie theory -may have been influenced by Emile Durkheim's theory, but when Durkehim used anomie- he referred to the absence of social norms- when Merton uses it in his theory he suggests that deviance occurs if society encourages it by pressuring individuals to commit it -in Merton's view, the US emphasizes the idea of sccess- in school, sports, news, events- so much so that people of all classes are expected to be ambitious, to entertain high aspirations; everyone is expected to have the desire to be a winner, to be somebody. People from all social classes and backgrounds are said that they have an equal chance of obtaining success. But this is not true- people of lower social classes have less of an oppurtunity to realize their success aspirations. So lower class people are put in a position where they are expected to be successful but don't have the resources to do so. Thereore, they may resort to illegiatmate means to achieving their success aspirations such as stealing, robbing, and other forms of deviant activities

deceptive advertising

-similar to fraud -these claims are false but legal -false advertising is also used on food products- makes them look healthier or less fattening than they actually are

conflict theory

-social conflict as to do with the incompatible interests, needs, and desires of diverse groups such as business companies, labor hunions, political groups, whites vs blacks, etc -cultural conflict- discrpancy in normas and values that derive from deviaitons of right and wrong. Either social of cultureal conflict has been said to bring about criminal behavior among AA's, poor, oppressed people. Therefore, they see conflict as a normal part of our society -but conflict theorests failed to develop systematically the notion of conflict as the source of criminal definition rather than behavior. They were tied to the posititivist concern for the causal explanation of criminal behavior -since the mid 1970s, some of the new conflic theorests have begn to deal with teh causation of deviance in a different way -criminology- developed to incorporate a wide range of theories that may share many basic views, including those of conflict theorists, but differ in some important ways

society's relative indifference

-society's indifference to their offense is a blessing to white collar deviants -typically little effort to catch these deviants, and when they are caught they seldom go to jail -since the 1980s there was been more focus on white collar deviance. Many large corporations have been tried for illegal activities, but most respondents consider white collar offenses are serious- if not more so- than street crimes -but not a single white collar offender has been sentenced to dealth or clamed for causing the deaths of workers -95,000 white collared worked charged with S&L frauds, but more than 75% were dropped from prosecution -government can't just wage a war against white collared crime because the individuals responsible for the crime are so powerful and influential. Also judges tend to be more lenient with white collared workers typically because they haven't typically had previous run-ins with the law and because its hard to prove crominal intent, and the jury might have a hard time finding them guilty because the problem at hand might be too complex for them to figure

Braithwaite: Reintegrative Shaming

-studied how society controls us through shaming -shaming involves social disapporval designed to invole remose in the wrongdoer two types of shaming 1. disintegrative shaming: the wrongdoer is punished in such a way as to be stigmatized, rejected or ostracized 2. reintegrative shaming- it involves making wrongdoers feel guilty while showing them understanding, foregiveness, or respect. Its the kind that partents show their misbehaving children -Braithwaite sggests that reintegrative shaming is more common in communitarian socies like Japan whereas distingerative shaming is more prevalent in less communitarian societies like the US -Braithwaite concludes by arguing that the US can reduce its crime rates if it emphasized reintegrative shaming rather than stigmatization in dealing with criminals -focuses on informal social control- carried out by relatives, friends, etc

burgess nd Akers

-suggest tht differential reinforcement is the learning process that people with differential associton must go through to become deviant -derive their idea from the social learning theory in psychology which says that we are motivated to continue behaviong in a certain way if we have been rewarded for doing so, or to discontinue the behavior if we have been punished for it -therefore, you are likely to coninue studying hard if you have been rewarded by good grades in the past. When applied to deviant behavior, reinforcement theory says that people will continue to engage in deviant activities if they have been rewarded for doing so -law of differential reinforcement which states that if you are given several options you will most likely choose the option that has been most staisfying to you in the past. So when applied to deviant behavior, the law would exlain that individuals will choose deviance if they find deviance more satisfying than conventionality

Merton's theory cont'd

-suggested that American culture continues to be characterized by a heavy emphasis on wealth as a basic symbol of success without a corresponding emphasis upon the legitamate avenues to get to this goal. Therefore the US society produces lots of strain that pressures people to commit deviance -yet given this pressure toward deviance, not all of us would respond to it in the same way -many lower class people may respond by accepting the success goal while rejecting the use of legitamate means for realizing this goal. This type of deviant behavior is called innovation -other responses are 1. conformity- most popular form of response> You accept the cultural goal of success and the use of working to the goal 2. innovation- what the lower class use. They reject the use of legal means in favor of illegal ones in their attempts to achieve the high success goal that they have leaned to accept 3. ritualism- lower middle class people. They lower their high success goals so they can more easily realize their aspirations. They tend to ritualistcally avide by the institutional norm of toiling as loyal workers. Tend to be proud of their honest, hard work 4. retreatism- withdrawl from society into the shell of one's self- the person doesn't care about successm nor does he or she care to work 5. rebellion- involves rejecting the prevailing social expectation that we work ard in the race to reach the goal of success. the rebel may try to oberthrow the existing system and put in place a new one with teh new goals to reach these goals

Glaser: differential identification

-suggests that the experience of ssociations with deviants is harmless unless the individual identifies with them -suggests that deviance is likely to occur if differential identification intervenes between differential association and deviant behavior

employee theft

-super common -most theives are middle class, respectable citizens who pay taxes, are typical people -why do they steal? 1. employee theft has much to do with large and impersonal corporations. Sinc ethey feel no loyalty to these corporations, regardint ehm as abstract entities rather than real people, stealing from them s like stealing from nobody 2. society with a traditions of union-management conflict such as US tends to have high incidience of employee theft because workers feel exploited by and revengeful toward the company 3. workers may steal if they find their job too boring- stealing becomes interesting and a challenge

corporate deviance

-takes place in corporations, carried out by executives for their companies' benefits and their own- four main types 1. deviance against employees 2. deviance against customers 3. deviance against the government 4. deviance against the environment

the deterrence doctrine

-the deterrence doctrine focuses on formal social control (eecuted by judges, politice, etc) -suggests that humans are rational, gven to calculationg the benefit and cost of committing a crime. If they find the cost greater than the benefit, they will refrain from committing the crime. The cost of crime, according to the deterrence doctrine is legal punishment such as arrest, prosection, imprisonment. Thus the doctrine assumes that punishment deters crime -three ways punishment can be carried out to affect the likelihood of committing crime 1. punoshments can be more or less severe- more severe the punishment the less likely the crime 2. punishment can be made more or less certain- the more certain a crime will result in punishment, the less likely people will commit the crime 3. punishment can be made mroe or less swift. the more swiftly the punishment is carried out the less likely the crime will occur -these punishments are though to achieve general deterrence (the punishment of a criminal deters the general public from committing crimes); in specific deterrence (the punishment of a criminal deters the criminal alone from committing more crimes)

consequences for the labeled

-they are more likely to see themselves as deviant after being labeled as such, therefore, they are more likely to continue the deviant behavior -this process of becomming deviant was outlined by Frank Tannenbaum who found that police and teachers may dramatize the evil of children's activities such as breaking windows, annoying people, climbing over roogs, stealing apples, etc and by dramatically deeming these actions as evil, the child might be more likely to become a criminal later -Tannenbaum said there were two types of deviant acts: 1. first act- the child considers innocent but which is defined as deviant by adults 2. final behaviors- both the adults and child define as delinquent. -Eden Lemert later suggested that the first was primary deviation and the second was secondary deviation -Lemert understands deviances as a temporal issue, with the difference between primary and secondary deviances is tht secondary deviance is continually repeated deviance

sutherland- differential association

-this theory suggests that if an individuals associates with people who hold deviant ideas more than with people who embrace conventional ideas, the indvidual is likely to become deviant -however, just people someone holds deviant ideas doesn't make someone deviant and vice cersa. What counts is the idea of committing deviance -theory does not refer to only one type of association- the theory does not suggest that individuals with lots of deviant ideas will become deviant -diferential association- refers to the fact that deviants' association with deviant individuals and ideas differs from their association with conventional ones

governmental deviance

-typically involves the abuse of power by government officials or politicans running for elected office -types of governmental deviance: 1. political corruption 2. election improprieties 3. official violence

marxist theory- conflict theory

-unlike other conflict theorests that have ignored the causes of deviance, this one focuses on it -these theorists believe that the cause of deviance can be traced to the exploitative nature of capitalism -to increase profit capitalists must find ways to enhance productvity at low labor costs, including introducting automaton and other labor-saving devices, forcing workers to work faster and work overtime, relocating industries to cheap labor locations, such as nonunionized places in the Southern US or in labor rich developing countries and importing workers from poor nations -these unemployed laborers become marginal surplus population-relatively useless ot the economy- their inability to maintain decent living conditions pressures them to commit crime -capitalism not only produces property crimes, but also causes personal crimes and other forms of deviance (a;sphol, mental illness) -economic marginality is thought to lead to a lack of self-esttem and a sense of powerlessness, which creates intense pressures on individuals. Many people will thus turn to violence to vent their frustrations and strike out against symbols of authority, and others turn this frustration inwards and experience severe emotional difficulties -therefore, capitalism pressures people to commit crimes and become deviants by making them poor. But capitalism may also produce crimes by exercisinb coercive control over lower classes -this control involves threatening to fire workers--> alienation of workers-> criminal behavior -this may also affect higher classes because by making possible the constant accumlation of profit, capitalism inevitably creates powerful empires of monopoly and oligopoly in the economy

Political corruptuon

-usuallu associated with graft or bribery- the abuse of power for personal gain- may take the form of an outright bribe, in which case the public official accepts the money offered by a briber who expects a favor in return -often takes place in poor countries because it has become a pat of the culture -common in the US include kickbacks, management of public funds for personal gain, and the illegal use of mail priviledges 1. kickbakcs: officials in charge of purchasing goods and srevices from taxpayer money may allow businesses to send the government huge bills for that was was never done to receive kitchbacks (happens a lot with contractors) 2. abusive management of public funds- source for political corrupton City or state treasureds can misuse the millions of dollars for personal gain. Ex: they might chose to deposit lots of money in a bank in which they are shreholders or a bank that will give their family members or business associates loans at a low interest rate 3. abusing the Frank: abuse of the frank- ability to send mail free of charge. This is the most common form of official corruption

labeling theory

-version of symboliz interactionism -according to the theory we shouldn't focus on the deviant person alone like postivists do, but rather on the interaction between the supposed deviant and other, conventional people -see deviance not as a statis entity whose causes can be discovered, but as a dynamic process of symbolic interaction between both deviants and nondeviants -labeling theorests do not focus on what causes deviant behavior but who applies the deviant label to whom and what consequences does the label have for the person labeled and for the person who applies the label

cohen: Status frustration

-version of the anomie-strain theory -he also suggests that the US society encourages all classes to achieve status while making it more difficult for the lower class to really achieve it. Thus the lower class are compelled to achieve status in their own deviant way. Cohen's theory is similar to Merton's but he replaces the work "success" wit status -ex: in school lower class boys want to obtain status but it is hard for them to do so because schools are run by middle class boys, middle class teachers, etc, so they often end up losing -being a loser/ being the victim of this frustration, status frustration, may cause lower class bys to go to their lower class neighborhoods and set up their own competitive system, which cohen calls a delinquent subculture -in the subculture, people can compete fairly among themselves for high status in accordance with their own criteria for achievement (these critieria tend to be directly opposite to the "respectable" middle class, conventional criteria"- tend to judge as right whatever values and behaviors are considered wrong by society). -so this adds to Merton's theory by adding the concept of status rustration. Merton suggests that the goal-means gap by itself creates a lot of strain that pressures lower class people into deviance, but Cohen's theory suggests that the goal-means gap can only lead lower class boys toward deviant activities only if the boys encourter status frustraton. . So status frustration produces the delinquent subculture

what is white collar deviance

-white collar crime was introduced by Edwin Sutherland -defined it as an offense committed by the upper, white collar class, which is composed of respectable or at least respected, business and professional men -occupationally related- carried out during the course of the offender's occupation and the occupation involved is white collar as opposed to blue collar -economic deviant is a realtively respectable high status person (people ranging from business managers, to wage earning class, which wears good clothes) -more likely than blue collar issues to commit the offense with skill- so they are less likely to be caught, prosectuted -Sutherland suggested that corporations could also participate in deviant activities- the idea of corporate deviance was crucual for understanding the sociological nature of white-collar deviance in general -white collar deviance is a better term- can refer to criminal and noncriminal forms of economic deviance carried out by high status people as part of their occupation for personal gain

The Deviant's Respectable Self-Image

-white collar deviants typically see themselves as respectable individuals rather than as common crimina;s -express their self image through rationalizations: Coporate execs convicted of price fixing or ex argue that their price fixing schemes are not criminal ad that they merly have served a worthwhile purpose for the nation's ecnomy by stabilizing prices -tx evaders tend to see themselves as victims rather than offenders -all deny criminal intent- they admit that they have committed an act that landed them in prison, but they regard their actions as mistakes only, not mistakes driven by guilty, criminal motives

Lawyerly lwlessness

-widespread, marked by overcharging clients -since lawyers provide intangilble services like giving advice, making phone calls, filling out forms, preparing a document, attorneys can charge several hours of work when their work only took a few minutes -even when clients see lawyers there are oppurtunities for fraud because a lawyer can dely the resolution of the case to have more court appearances, they are tempted to engage in this if the client is rich

three types of illegitimate oppurtunity

1. crinimal subculture- offers illegitimate oppurtunities for achieivng success goals. If lower class young people are integrated into this subculture then they are able to achieve success by stealing, robbing, etc 2. conflict subculture: young people have the ability to obtain a reputation in a violent gang, but that is only availible to the people who are good at fighting/ willing to risk death 3. retreatist subculture- people who willingly enjoy using drugs. These are often people who have failed to achieve success in on eof the subcultures above

causes of governmental deviance

1. superabundance of amguous laws: ;acl pf c;ear cit laws for controlling official action. There are loopholes in laws through which the intent of laws can be evaded, so governent officals are basically free to operate on their own self-interest to interpret the law--> this interpretaion opens up a deal of opportunity for officials to engage in deviant activities, when they desire 2. governmental complexity and power: given the intricate, complex nature of the government as a huge organization, it is inevitable that its members can't have complete information and responsibility regardng what and how they should do their jobs -this explanation suggests that officials are not to blame for committing deviance because given the lack of information and responsiblity they don't knowingly get involved in deviance, -so this explains the unintentional deviance among government officials, as for their intentional deviance, which involves an abuse of power, it might better be explained by the power theory which suggests that the three reasons government officials abuse their power: stronger deviant motivation, greater deviant oppurtunity, and weaker social control -due to their high position in society, gov't officials tend to be too amitious and more likely to experience relative deprivation, which would motivate them to employ deviant means to achieve their high goals

what makes white collar deviance unique

1. white collar deviance is the rational execution of the offense to maximize profit, along iwht the use of power, influence, or respectiblity to minimize detection 2. deviant's respectable self-image 2. victim's unwitting cooperations 3. society's indifference toward the offense

frauds

found in industries like banking, insurance, real estate -ex: S&L officials commited frauds: 1. illegal nonbanking activities (engaged in unsafe practices like concentrating investment in one high risk area) 2. collective embezzlement- using owndership of an S&L to steal depositors' money, 3. covering up- falsifying records to make the institutions look normal and fincnaially healthy -fraud is a huge problem in the insuracnce industry, there are no federal agencies policing insurances, so people dealing with these issues are understaffed

a focus on the causes of deviant behavior characteritizes...

positivist theories of deviance

anomie-strain theory

two problems 1. no reliable evidence to support the claim that people of lower classes are more likely than those of other classes to engage in deviant activities. While official statistics support the theory, the statistics might be flawed because they only measure a smal portion of the deviance, the mainly large types. the theory could stand strong if it was modified that lower class people are more likely to commit what society considers serious threats of deviance 2. no evidnce to support the assumption that lower class people have the same success aspirations as upper and middle class people. Instead, evidence shows that lower class people hold a significantly lower level of success aspirations. While society may encourage them to embrace high success goals they do not necessarily embrace these goals -but it is important because it has suggested that the societym not the individual, causes deviant behavior. The theory also seems to have a valid premise that the discrpancy between aspirations and the oppurtunity to realize these aspirations produces pressures toward deviation