chapter 7

example of positive vs. negative deviance

**Think about the norms related to personal appearance in American society. The mass media are constantly telling young women that they can never be too thin. Negative deviants will miss the mark on the obese side. Positive deviants may push themselves to the point of anorexia. Most young people's behavior will fall somewhere between these two extremes.

ritualism

, the individual rejects the goal (success) but continues to use the legitimate means. Here people go through the motions without believing in the process. An example is the teacher who works every day without any concern for students or the quality of his or her teaching.

incarceration

- The basic idea behind incarceration—keeping criminals in prisons—is that criminals who are not on the street cannot commit crimes. - Recently, the United States has taken a tougher stance in favor of incarceration with such bills as the Three Strikes Law. The Three-strikes law significantly increases the prison sentences of persons convicted of a felony who have been previously convicted of two or more violent crimes or serious felonies, and limits the ability of these offenders to receive a punishment other than a life sentence.- As a result, the number of local, state, and federal prisoners increased from fewer than 1.6 million in 1995 to 2.2 million in 2010

A combination of prison and probation

. A mixed or split sentence, known as shock probation, is designed to shock offenders into recognizing the realities of prison life. Prisoners serve part of their sentences in an institution and the rest on probation.

Hirschi,

According to control theory, conformity to social norms depends on the presence of strong bonds between individuals and society. Social bonds control behavior. If those bonds are weak—if anomie is present—deviance occurs. If they are strong, people conform because they do not want to lose face with others. According to _____________ social bonds have four basic components

deviant behaviors are always a matter of social definition. In this view, deviance exists when some members of a group or society label others as deviants. Howard Becker, a pioneer of labeling theory, explains:"Social groups create deviance by making the rules whose infraction constitutes deviance, and by applying these rules to particular people and labeling them as outsiders. From this point of view, deviance is not a quality of the act the person commits, but rather a consequence of the application by others of rules and sanctions to an 'offender.' The deviant is one to whom that label has successfully been applied; deviant behavior is behavior that people so label."

According to labeling theory,

stability,

All societies have ways to promote order, ________________ and predictability in social life. We feel confident that drivers will stop for red lights, waiters will not pour soup in our laps, and store clerks will give us the correct change.

therapy:

Another approach is to offer therapy programs, such as drug rehabilitation, to offenders, either during, or as an alternative to, incarceration.

Society can sometimes benefit from deviance in spite of its negative effects. - Émile Durkheim observed that deviance clarifies norms by causing society to exercise social control to defend its values; society defines, adjusts, and reaffirms norms. - When parents are taken to court or lose their children because of neglect, for example, society shows other parents and children how it expects parents to act.

Beneficial Effects of Deviance-

Community-based programs.

By getting convicts out of prison for at least part of the day, community-based programs help break the inmate code. At the same time, prisoners have a chance to become part of society—participating in the community but under professional guidance and supervision.

subjective, or a matter of social definition, it can vary from group to group and from society to society. What is considered deviant in one time and place might be considered normal in another.

Deviance is

Merton,

Deviance, said _______________ is most likely to occur when there is a gap between culturally desirable goals, such as money and prestige, and a legitimate way of obtaining them. - Every society establishes some goals and socially approved ways of reaching them. - In the United States, an important goal is success and the material possessions that go with it. Education and hard work are two of the approved means for becoming successful. - When people accept the goal and the means to achieve it, Merton calls this conformity.

Diversion strategy.

Diversion strategy. Diversion involves a referral to a community-based treatment program rather than a prison or a probationary program. Because offenders are handled outside the formal system of criminal law, authorities believe the offenders will not acquire stigmatizing labels and other liabilities.

education:

Educational opportunities are available to many of the individuals incarcerated in the United States. Some studies suggest that these programs may help keep educationally disadvantaged convicts from committing future crimes.

Leslie Lampert

For a week, researcher ____________________________ wore a "fat suit," adding 150 pounds to her normal body weight, to experience firsthand what it feels like to be an overweight woman in American society. She concluded that American "society not only hates fat people, it feels entitled to participate in a prejudice that at many levels parallels racism and religious bigotry."- Being "obese" is considered deviant to some.

$10 billion a year to check fraud. - Securities and commodities fraud totals $40 billion a year. - Annual losses from health care fraud are thought to be $100 billion.

For example, U.S. businesses lose

internalization of social norms. In other words- we control ourselves and keep ourselves from defying social norms.

For example, most people most of the time do not steal. They act this way not just because they fear arrest or lack the opportunity to steal but because they consider theft to be wrong. The norm against stealing has become a part of them. This is known as the

According to Durkheim, anomie is a social condition in which norms are weak, conflicting, or absent. Without shared norms, individuals are uncertain about how they should think and act. Societies become disorganized. - In 1968, sociologist Robert Merton adapted Durkheim's concept of anomie to deviant behavior and called his hypothesis the strain theory.

How do people respond to strain?-

Differential association theory emphasizes the role of primary groups in transmitting deviance. Just as people learn preferences in religion and politics from those they associate with closely, they can learn deviance by association. Three characteristics affect differential association:The ratio of deviant to non-deviant individuals. A person who knows mostly deviants is more likely to learn deviant behavior. The significance of the person acting deviantly. A person is more likely to copy deviant behavior from someone significant to him or her.The age of exposure. Younger children learn deviant behavior more quickly than older children.

How is deviance learned?

Most Americans think of crime—acts in violation of statute law—as including a narrow range of behavior. - More than 4,000 acts are classified as federal crimes. Many more acts violate state and local statutes.- According to a national survey sponsored by the U.S. Department of Justice, approximately 18.7 million Americans aged 12 or over experienced one or more crimes in 2010. The majority of crimes included in the 2010 survey were property crimes, although more than 3 million people reported being the victims of violent crime. - African Americans were slightly more likely than whites to experience violent crime, and households with lower incomes were more likely to experience property crime.

How is the crime rate measured?-

Community Service:

Instead of, or as part of, a jail sentence, judges sometimes order offenders to perform a certain number of hours of service beneficial to the community.

Deviance erodes trust. Example: If parents are not consistent in their discipline, trust is undermined. A society with widespread distrust cannot function smoothly. If not punished or corrected, deviance can cause nonconforming behavior in others- If parents neglect their children, more teenagers may turn to delinquency. Finally, deviant behavior is costly. It diverts human and monetary resources. Police may have to spend their time dealing with angry adolescents rather than performing more serious duties.

Negative Effects of Deviance-

involvement.

Participation in approved social activities increases the probability of conformity. Besides positively focusing your time and energy, participation puts you in contact with people whose opinions you value.

White-collar crime is not victimless crime. Taxpayers pay the price for white-collar crime, as does anyone who pays an insurance premium inflated by fraud. - Some crimes, however, are considered victimless. That is, they are illegal but do not infringe upon the rights of or victimize other people. For instance, taking illegal drugs and gambling are considered victimless crimes. - Nonetheless, white-collar crime, which does have victims, is often punished less severely than victimless crime.

Punishment for Victimless Crime-

Despite the fact that white-collar crime costs businesses and consumers such huge sums every year, the people who commit these crimes often are treated more leniently than other criminals. - In federal court, where most white-collar cases are tried, probation is granted to 40 percent of antitrust law violators, 61 percent of fraud defendants, and 70 percent of embezzlers. - If white-collar criminals are imprisoned, they receive shorter average sentences than other criminals and are more likely to be placed in prisons with extra amenities, such as tennis courts or private rooms. - There are some recent exceptions, however. In 2005, for example, former WorldCom chief executive Bernard Ebbers was sentenced to 25 years in prison and forced to give up most of the money he made from the $11 billion fraud he orchestrated.

Punishment for White-Collar Criminals-

Deterrence-

The deterrence approach uses the threat of punishment to discourage criminal action.

Commitment.

The greater your commitment to social goals, the more likely you are to conform. People who strongly accept the American goal of success are more likely to conform to the social norms for achieving that success.

Attachment.

The stronger your attachment to groups or individuals, the more likely you are to conform. In other words, the likelihood of conformity varies with the strength of ties with parents, friends, and institutions.

The major source of American crime statistics is the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Reports (UCR). - These official statistics are gathered from police departments across the country. Reports are submitted voluntarily by law-enforcement agencies. - They track nine types of crimes (called crime index offenses): murder, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny-theft (theft of personal property), motor vehicle theft, arson, and hate crimes.- A major strength of UCR statistics lies in the fact that experienced police officers, whose occpuation or job, requires them to be familiar with the law, decide if an incident should be reported as a crime. - Some crimes (amateur thefts, minor assaults) are not as likely to be reported to the police as murder and auto thefts, though. - Intoxicated persons are subject to arrest in public places but are fairly safe in private settings, for instance. - It is estimated that about two-thirds of U.S. crimes are not reported at all.

UCR: Uniform Crime Reports -

The Criminal Justice System is made up of the institutions and processes responsible for enforcing criminal statutes. - It includes the police, courts, and correctional system. - A criminal justice system may draw on four approaches to control and punish lawbreakers—deterrence, retribution, incarceration, and rehabilitation.

What are the different approaches to controlling crime?-

As you probably remember from earlier chapters, the functionalist perspective emphasizes social stability and the way the different parts of society contribute to the whole. It may surprise you to know that functionalists believe that some deviance may benefit society. Deviance, therefore, has both positive and negative consequences.

What are the negative and beneficial effects of deviance?

Juvenile crime refers to legal violations among those under 18 years of age. - Juvenile offenders are the third-largest category of criminals in the United States. - Teenage criminal activity includes theft, murder, rape, robbery, assault, and the sale of illegal substances.- Juvenile delinquent behavior includes deviance that only the young can commit, such as failing to attend school, fighting in school, and underage drinking and smoking.

What is the trend in juvenile crime?-

price fixing, insider trading, fraud, embezzlement, manufacture of hazardous products, and tax evasion.

White-collar crime is any crime committed by respectable and high-status people in the course of their occupations. Officially, the term is used for economic crimes such as

social control

Without ________________________—ways to promote conformity to norms—social life would be unpredictable, even chaotic. Through social control, life has stability, which makes us more comfortable. There are two broad types of social control: internal and external.

incarceration

a method of protecting society from criminals by keeping them in prisons

deviant

a person who breaks significant societal or group norms

recidivism

a repetition of or return to criminal behavior

anomie

a social condition in which norms are weak, conflicting, or absent

crime

an act committed in violation of the law

stigma

an undesirable label that is used to deny a deviant social acceptance

deviance

behavior that departs from societal or group norms

positive deviance

behavior that over conforms to social expectations

in power in a society. - For instance, in a high school, administrators, who generally have more power than other individuals in the school, develop the rules, which are imposed through the use of formal sanctions.

both internal and external social control, of course, are shaped heavily by those

retreatism,

both the legitimate means and the approved goals are rejected. Skid-row alcoholics, drug addicts, and the homeless are _________ they have dropped out. They are not successful by either legitimate or illegitimate means, and they do not seek success. Of course, all addicts are not _______________ The addict who participates actively in society and one who successfully attains goals such as money and prestige may not be considered deviant.

identify. In a diverse society like that of the United States, it is often difficult to agree on what is deviant behavior.

deviance is not always easy to

criminal behavior, such as theft and murder, to antisocial behavior, such as cheating and lying.

devience can range from

innovation, ritualism, retreatism, rebellion

devient responses to strain include

deterrence

discouraging criminal acts by threatening punishment

several are being considered, and some are currently in use. a combination of prison and probation community-based programs diversion strategy

if prisons do not rehabilitate, what are some alternatives? Several are being considered, and some are currently in use.

increase. Individuals who lack attachment, commitment, involvement, and belief have little incentive to follow the rules of society.

in short, when social bonds are weak, the chances for deviance

Belief.

in society's norms and values promotes conformity. A belief in the appropriateness of social rules strengthens people's resolve not to deviate.

differential association theory

individuals learn deviance in proportion to the number of deviant acts and norms in which they are exposed

secondary deviance

individuals life and identity are organized around breaking society norms

negative deviance

involves behavior that fails to meet accepted norms. People expressing negative deviance either reject the norms, misinterpret the norms, or are unaware of the norms. This is the kind of behavior popularly associated with the idea of deviance. (They reject the norm)

negative deviance

involves behavior that under conforms to accepted norms

positive deviance

involves over-conformity to norms, which leads to imbalance and extremes of perfectionism. Positive deviants idealize group norms. In its own way, positive deviance can be as disruptive and hard to manage as negative deviance. ("Over-do" the norm)

primary deviance

involving occasional breaking of norms that is not a part of a persons lifestyle or self- concept

Restitution:

is a payment made by an offender to the victim.

Retribution

is a type of punishment intended to make criminals pay compensation for their acts. - It comes from the ancient principle of punishing a criminal to the same extent that his or her victim suffered injury. - That principle is often expressed as "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." he law allows designated officials to demand retribution from criminals. It does not allow, however, individuals to take personal vengeance. - On the contrary, if a mother takes the law into her own hands by shooting her son's killer, she is guilty of a crime and must also answer to society for her action.

Rehabilitation

is an approach to crime control that attempts to resocialize criminals. - Most prisons have programs aimed at giving prisoners both social and work skills that will help them adjust to normal society after their release.- Unfortunately, more than half of those released from penal institutions are sent back to prison in three to five years. Their return to criminal behavior is called recidivism.

external social control

is based on social sanctions—rewards or punishments designed to encourage desired behavior.

white collar crime

job-related crimes committed by high-status people

internal social control

lies within the individual. It is developed during the socialization process. You are practicing internal social control when you do something because you know it is the right thing to do or when you don't dosomething because you know it would be wrong.

Sanctions in other words- the outside world (our society) keeps us in check and attempts to discourage the violation of norms through punishment and reward those who abide by norms.

may be formal or informal. Ridicule, gossip, and smiles are examples of informal sanctions. Imprisonment, low grades, and official awards are formal sanctions

restitution community service education therapy

other methods of dealing with antisocial behavior

rebellion,

people also reject both the goal and the approved means for achieving it, but they substitute a new set of goals and means. Some militia group members in the United States illustrate this response. They may live in near isolation as they pursue the goal of changing society through deviant means: creating their own currency, deliberately violating gun laws, and acting violently.

Rehabilitation

process of changing or reforming a criminal through socialization

victim discounting

process of reducing the seriousness of the crimes that injure people of lower status

retribution

punishment intended to make criminals pay compensation for their acts

restitution

punishment intended to make criminals pay monetary compensation to make up for the financial damage caused by their acts

social sanctions

rewards or punishments that encourage conformity to social norms

influence the norms for social interaction, which are maintained through the use of informal sanctions.

similarly, the students who are seen as "popular," or having more power, often disproportionately

labeling theory

society creates deviance by identifying particular members as deviant

violations

sociologists generally reserve the term deviance for _________________ of significant social norms. Significant norms are those that are highly important either to most members of a society or to the members with the most power.

positive sanctions,

such as awards, increases in allowances, promotions, and smiles of approval, are used to encourage conformity.

negative sanctions,

such as criticism, fines, and imprisonment, are intended to stop socially unacceptable behavior by punishing violations of norms.

criminal justice system

system comprising institutions and processes responsible for enforcing criminal statutes

functionalist perspective

the _______________________ emphasizes social stability and the way the different parts of society contribute to the whole. It may surprise you to know that ____________________believe that some deviance may benefit society. Deviance, therefore, has both positive and negative consequences.

innovation

the individual accepts the goal (in this case, success) but uses illegal means to achieve it (for example, robbery or drug dealing). Innovation is the most widespread and obvious type of deviant response to strain.

control theory

theory that compliance with social norms requires strong bonds between individuals and society

strain theory

theory that deviances is more likely to occur when a gap exists between cultural goals and the ability to achieve them

murder, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny-theft (theft of personal property), motor vehicle theft, arson, and hate crimes.

they track nine types of crimes (called crime index offenses):

social control

ways to encourage conformity to society's norms

attachment commitment involvement belief

what are the basic elements of social bonds