Introduction to Sociology C273 (Unit 3, Modules 8-11)

triad

in sociology, a group comprising of three people

dyad

in sociology, a group comprising of two people

group classification

2 people (dyad*)The relationship is intense but fragile; both people are required to exert relatively equal effort. If one person disengages, the relationship can suffer or disintegrate.3 people (triad*)The three-person group is more stable than a dyad because each person is not solely responsible for maintaining the dynamic all the time.Imbalances in the relationship can mean that the third person functions as a mediator or could be thought of as an intruder.4 peopleThe number of relationships eclipses the number of group members. From here, the number of relationships in the group will always outnumber the group members.

symbolic interactionalism

Social norms are upheld when people subtly or overtly respond to deviant behavior in their everyday interactions.

the growth of formal organizations

The people within formal organizations are more focused on the task at hand than on the relationships that exist between the members of the organization. They govern much of what people do in modern societies. Formal organizations evolved slowly out of traditional societies. Traditional societies were primarily centered on farming—producing food and materials for everyday survival. In these societies, one's "coworkers" were members of the primary group, family members and neighbors. Labor was divided by gender and age. The mentality that drove this type of society placed value on the established order and was slow to change. Clearly, modern society has changed; in fact, there has been a steady and observable shift toward the use of formal organizations, to the point that they are now inseparable from our concept of a functioning society. Today people interact with many strangers and acquaintances on a daily basis to achieve their goals. In one day, you may send an email to a person that you've never met within your company. You say hello to the woman at the tollbooth as you pass through—not because you know her, but because it is the polite thing to do as you hand her your change. You may talk with customer service in order to resolve an issue with something you bought. In modern society, people rarely work exclusively with their family members or close neighbors. Max Weber called this shift the "rationalization of society," in which interactions are dictated by the need to accomplish objectives efficiently rather than by established traditions (1922). Rationalized societies give rise to formal organizations because these groups place a much higher value on achieving goals than they do on the relationships among the people that comprise them. When and why did this shift occur? Karl Marx and Max Weber sought to investigate this, and both proposed different theories that center around religion, capitalism, and efficiency. At present, both theories are widely accepted.

implications of outgroups

We often view members of out-groups as the "other." The sense of otherness can be felt when our nations are at war, when we visit new places, or when we encounter new people. You may even consider the people that are working toward a different career to be others, even though you attend the same school. Whenever we feel a sense of others being different from us, we are encountering an out-group. "Otherness" or "togetherness", however, can often be defined by the scope of the environment in which the groups exist, and the boundaries can shift depending on the context. Often, the boundary shift occurs as a result of a triggering event. If a school is playing a rival team, the cliques in the school may suddenly disappear as everyone bands together against the rival. While there are characteristics of each group, the most important effects come from how in-groups and out-groups reinforce one another. The in-group and out-group dynamic is very powerful.

deviance

actions behaviors, traits, or characteristics that violate socially accepted standards or norms

formal organization

groups comprised of secondary members that organize for an explicit purpose

categories

in sociology, people who share a trait or characteristic, such as American or Irish decent

social dilemma

occurs when an individual or group must weigh personal benefits against the well-being of society

voluntary organizations

organizations that an individual joins willingly because its purpose lines with his or her interests, beliefs, or values

aggregates

people that come close together in proximity in a short period of time, without regularity, and without knowing one another

secondary group

people with whom an individual shares a functional relations; the length of interaction is shorter and oriented around a common task

normative social influence

the dynamic of conformity that is influenced by the desire to be accepted and liked by a group

role expectations

the expectations about the behaviors, actions, and qualities of someone occupying a certain status

groupthink

the practice of thinking or making decisions as a group in a way that discourages creativity or individual responsibility

role

the set of attitudes and behaviors appropriate for a certain status

Durkheim discovered that deviance serves three essential functions in society.

1. Deviance clarifies moral boundaries and affirms norms. 2. Reacting to deviance unites a group. 3. Deviance inspires social change.

Max Weber (1913) characterized bureaucracies as having certain characteristics that distinguish them from other formal organizations.

1. Written rules and laws: The charter, the mission statement, the dress code policy, the standards of practice, the official job descriptions, and the sexual harassment policy are all examples of written rules and laws. Placing these regulations in black and white formalizes them and removes ambiguity. 2. Division of labor: Individuals within a bureaucracy have specialized tasks. In small-scale bureaucracies, an individual might "wear many hats," but a salesperson typically does not also do the engineering. Departments, and the people within them, are generally focused on their specialty. 3. Written communication: Many companies have a catchphrase: "if you didn't write it down, it didn't happen." Written communication is required in large formal organizations such as bureaucracies because work requires coordination among a large number of people across time. Writing allows people to communicate what they've done and what still needs to be done, to others who aren't present. 4. Hierarchical organization: In addition to dividing the labor, there is a division of responsibility and accountability. At each level, the individuals are accountable to the level above and responsible for the level below. 5. Interchangeability: Inherent in the design of a bureaucracy is the interchangeability of its members. In this way, any (qualified) person could perform the duties specific to a role in the organization. This keeps the organization running in the event that an individual can no longer perform his or her role.

social explanation

Sociologists explain deviant behavior in three main theoretical traditions: functionalist perspective, conflict perspective, and symbolic interactionism, all of which will be explored later. The important thing to remember about sociological explanations of deviance is that they focus on factors outside of the individual, rather than solely examining the characteristics of a person that might cause him or her to commit deviant behavior. Sociology explores what functions "right" and "wrong" serve, why society classifies some behaviors and not others as deviant, and who controls the definition of deviance.

how in groups aid in socialization

1. provide signals about appropriate behavior: Explicit Some of the signals that groups transmit are explicit. In this case, someone from the group directly tells another member how to conduct him or herself. For example, perhaps a young child in a grocery store eats a candy bar without her father noticing. The child, named Jana, picks it up off the shelf, unwraps it, and starts eating it right there in the store. Her father, upon noticing, immediately starts to scold her. "Jana, you can't take food without paying for it. We have to pay. Taking things that don't belong to us is stealing." Jana now has a cursory understanding of theft. She is both told and shown a concrete law of her society by a member of her family. Implicit As Jana gets older, she may receive subtle signals from other groups that will shape her behavior. On the first day of middle school, Jana notices that all the other students wear an over-the-shoulder satchel—the newest style. She runs home and begs her father to buy her the same satchel. Without ever saying a word, Jana's peers have communicated to her that satchels are normal apparel. Jana's willingness to confirm is twofold; she wants to fit in, and she doesn't want to be singled out as not fitting in 2. teach a variety of ways to interact with other people: Typically, a person belongs to more than one group. In fact, most people usually belong to several. In each group, the dynamics, relationships, and roles will vary significantly. There's a good chance that you do not interact with your parents the same way that you interact with your friends. By high school, Jana occupies the following roles: a daughter and sister a student a friend (the funny friend) a member of the French Society Captain of the Math Team a Woodlawn Tiger a Minnesotan a Midwesterner The role that Jana fulfills helps define (either formally or informally) her relationship to and interactions with the other members of the group. While she occupies some roles daily, by high school, she has been placed in contexts that have triggered her group to expand to include her state and her region of the United States. The roles of Minnesotan or American are ones she probably occupies only every once in a while. This is an important point about in-groups and out-groups—the boundaries of in-groups and out-groups can change depending on the context. 3. help shape a person's sense of self: When people interact with a group, they do not merely adapt their behavior or fulfill roles; the person is making judgments about himself or herself based on these interactions. For example, Jana does not only learn the definition of theft from her father. When he scolds her for "stealing," she internalizes his expectation that she be a law-abiding citizen. Jana could integrate this expectation (and her ability to fulfill the expectation) into her identity. Ultimately she will come to identify as a law-abiding citizen. Similarly, she may evaluate how her peers treat her. They laugh at her jokes, so she comes to understand that she is the funny one in the group—and she may believe that she is a funny person. She may carry this piece of her identity with her through college and her early 20s when she will try to make it in stand-up comedy.

greater perception of sameness in the outgroup

A fourth effect of defining an out-group is that we perceive members of that group to be more alike than are members of our in-group. While we might recognize that our own high school is divided into cliques of students who are artsy, athletic, academic, fashionable, nerdy, popular, etc., we perceive the students at Woodlawn as all the same. This misperception causes stereotyping, when we assume all members of an out-group have a particular characteristic.

deviance inspires social change

According to Durkheim (1982), today's deviance can become tomorrow's morality. Deviant people push the boundaries of society and challenge the status quo. Durkheim argued that if the collective conscience were too strong, social norms could never change. Deviance is punished in a society, but over time it can become recognized as a category of behavior. Body piercings, for example, have migrated from outrageous to acceptable body markings over time. Divorce too has moved from a stigmatized category to acceptable.

deviance and crime 2

Although crime and deviance are related, it is important not to confuse the two. Crime* is a behavior or action that violates a society's legal code and provokes a response from the criminal justice system, while deviance violates social norms. The legal code and moral code of a society do not always align. Many towns have low speeding limits, and speeding is a violation of the law, but you would probably not think of a speeding motorist as a deviant. You might even approve of your friend's speeding if you are a passenger in his car eager to get to your destination. A family who paints their suburban home neon orange and pink might not be breaking the law, but, depending on the neighborhood, they might be viewed as deviant, eliciting gossip and negative comments from others. Sociologists are interested in the times when crime and deviance intersect as well as when they do not, and what that can tell us about society.

out groups

Almost as important as in-groups are out-groups*, those groups to which an individual does not belong. For individuals, out-groups perform a few functions: They show the boundaries of in-groups. While in some cases this might be obvious because membership is well-documented, such as the case of an athletic club, other times the boundaries between groups are blurred, such as the case of cliques in high school. They help an individual define what they are and are not. Either formally or informally, there can be criteria for belonging to a group. Being unable to join a group, or choosing not to, helps an individual hone in on the identity that makes him or her suitable for some groups and not for others.

in groups

Belonging, or not belonging, to a group plays a large role in shaping a person's behavior. People tend to conform to the groups they belong to (or want to belong to) and distinguish themselves from the ones they don't. People use groups of friends, peers, or even celebrities as points of reference and comparison. From each group, people receive signals about appropriate or expected behavior. Sociology identifies three categories of groups based on these tenets of socialization: in-groups, out-groups, and reference groups. In-groups* are the groups to which a person belongs. Humans have a strong desire to belong, and so from a young age, we are very willing to adapt our behavior and ideals to fit in.

primary and secondary groups

All relationships are not created equal; the relationship that you have with your sister is probably very different from the one that you have with the coffee-shop waitress. Sociologists distinguish between the functions of these relationships and categorize them into primary groups and secondary groups. These are not groups per se, but categories for the types of relationships that a person may have in his or her life. A person's primary group* includes close, personal relationships maintained with people he or she cares about, such as friends and family. Interaction with these people is formative; they provide socialization, help shape ideals and schemas, transmit culture, and provide a sense of belonging. In contrast, a person's secondary group* comprises the people with whom they have a functional relationship, that is, they are pulled together for some common purpose. For example, they might belong to the same sports league, work in the same department, or attend the same class. The relationship is oriented around the common thread that brought them together; there is a functional reason for their interaction. This is not to say that classmates, coworkers, and teammates can't become friends! In fact, secondary group members commonly shift to become primary group members. The time spent together lends itself well to building relationships that may extend beyond, and exist after, the original context. Consider the man that sits down next you at the movie theater. You are both brought together in time and space for a common purpose. Does this mean that he is part of your secondary group? No, because the members in your secondary group interact with you fairly regularly. Instead, this man is part of an aggregate*, people that come together in proximity for a short period of time, without regularity, and without knowing one another. Other examples of aggregates are the people around you in a department store as you shop, the people next to you on the bus, or the people that are enjoying the same park on a sunny afternoon. Another way that sociologists categorize the relationships that people share is with a category*. People in a category share similar traits. For example, this might be all the people in your age group or all the people that share your political affiliation. The members of a category often do not know each other, interact, or feel a particular connection with each other. However, if the category is identity-defining, there is a good chance that the category members will make an effort to meet. In Ireland every year, for example, redheads convene at the Irish Redhead Convention.

group phenomena

As mentioned, certain behaviors crop up in groups that do not occur when people are acting independently

conformity refers to

Conformity* is a process in which people suppress their individual needs in favor of those of a group (Asch, 1955). People conform through a desire to follow the norms and beliefs of others. This is an effect that can be viewed in an individual when he or she is placed within a group. This same type of suppression occurs when a person obeys social norms. Social norms* are the behaviors and attitudes that are expected from members of a particular group. Have you ever heard someone else express an opinion you thought was offensive? Did you speak up or let it go? Most people let it go because they desire to remain part of the "group." There are two basic types of conformity, motivated by different desires. The first is motivated by our desire to be accepted and liked by a group. This dynamic is called normative social influence*. We may not agree with the decision the group has made or the attitude others express, but we let ourselves go along with the group. The second type of conformity is motivated by the desire to be right or correct. If a person is uncertain about an answer or judgment, he or she will assume that the group judgment or answer is accurate. This dynamic is called informational social influence*. Other factors that influence conformity are group characteristics and individual status within the group. Cultures and conformity As you might expect, patterns of conformity differ from culture to culture. In cultures that are more individualistic, where independence and self-expression are more emphasized, conformity tends to be viewed negatively. However, in cultures that are more collectivist, where publicly challenging or disagreeing with a group standard is considered rude or insensitive, conformity is not as negatively regarded (Bond & Smith, 1996). Asch Conformity Experiment Solomon Asch was interested in answering the question of how far people would go to change their opinion to conform to a group norm. To explore this question, he devised an experiment where a subject was asked to match the line on the left to the line it most resembled out of the three lines on the right.

Debbie Baiano Berman

Debbie Baiano Berman received both her Masters and Doctorate degrees in Sociology from Northeastern University in Boston. She also holds a Bachelor's degree in Sociology and English from SUNY Postdam. She focuses on culture, violence, deviance, and gender, with an interest in social theory. Deborah is a seasoned educator, with over twenty years of experience teaching a wide range of topics at various universities. Recently, she accepted an appointment as an Assistant Professor at Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire.

conflict perspective

Deviance is linked to social inequality.

what is deviance

Deviance* describes an action, behavior, trait, or another characteristic that violates social norms*. These norms can be formal rules, such as laws, or informal rules, such as socially-accepted standards. In order to identify an act as deviant, we must first recognize the values of the group against which the behavior is being judged. According to Howard Becker, the definition of deviance largely depends on the reactions of others to the action (Becker, 1963). If a person commits an act that goes against social norms, but it does not elicit a negative reaction from others, then it cannot really be considered deviant. If you wear a bathing suit to your workplace and no one comments or treats you differently, you have not committed a deviant act. If, on the other hand, people avoid you and your boss asks you to dress more appropriately, your action has been considered deviant. Since social norms differ from culture to culture, a deviant act committed in one society may be normal in another. Deviance is also relative to time and place, depending on the social context. For example, in 1835, a 27-year-old man marrying a 13-year-old girl was evidently considered acceptable since that's when Edgar Allan Poe (27) married his first cousin Virginia Eliza Clemm (13); at other times (such as our own), that act would be considered deviant. Moreover, the kind of deviance a society recognizes and punishes often depends on the social norms it is most interested in clarifying. A culture interested in protecting children will have strict views on acceptable ages for marrying. When people are considered deviant by society, there is often a stigma*, or strongly discrediting label, attached to their social identity. Erving Goffman theorized the concept of stigma in the 1960s, arguing that the label served as a way to separate and devalue an individual as a member of society. Having a stigma often leads to social isolation. Sociologists are especially interested in how someone might adopt this identity or internalize it, therefore perpetuating his or her deviance. It is important to remember that sociologists use the term "deviant" neutrally—they are not claiming an action is right or wrong; they are simply noting that others have responded negatively to the action. Sociologists are concerned with the outside factors that cause deviance and how deviance functions in society. Their explanations differ from those of other disciplines, such as biology and psychology.

coercive organizations

an organization that an individual is forced to join; work to resocialize their members to conform to strict rules for behavior and attitude

utilitarian organizations

an organization that maintains membership through a payment

types of formal organization

Formal organizations can be divided into three categories: voluntary, utilitarian, and coercive. Voluntary OrganizationsUtilitarian OrganizationsCoercive Organizations

group formation

People begin to think of themselves as members of a group with very little prompting. In Tajfel's (1970) study, the researchers were able to create groups with an in-group/out-group dynamic from boys that had strong relationships outside of the experiment; in fact, they were from the same classes. The boys began to identify as a group and to discriminate against the out-group based on a meaningless preference for one painting over another. There seems little incentive for them to favor this new, artificial "in-group" over an "out-group" made up of well-known classmates. Most people would probably predict that the boys would have felt loyalty to their classmates and chosen strategies that maximized the amount of money the researchers would payout to all of them. Instead, they favored their group and discriminated against the other.

utilitarian organizations

an organization that maintains membership through payment

experiment in intergroup discrimmination

Henri Tajfel's work in social psychology was strongly influenced by his experiences as a young man in the World War II. A Polish Jew, Tajfel lost all of his immediate family and many friends to the Holocaust. His subsequent experiments on group formation, prejudice, and discrimination have had a profound impact on sociologists' understanding of these group dynamics. Many social scientists (quite reasonably) believed that discrimination and prejudice arose from long histories of conflict: that racial discrimination in the United States, for example, came solely from the history of slavery; or that the Irish conflict in the twentieth century was the result of colonialism and religious conflict. Tajfel thought differently because of his experiences in Germany, where there had been no historical basis for the genocide Jews experienced. In the 1970s, Tajfel conducted two experiments to test the formation and operation of groups. He studied the responses of 64 boys who were 14 and 15 years old, all from the same school. In one experiment, researchers first showed the boys unsigned paintings by Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky and told them to indicate which they liked better. Then the boys were told they had been divided based on their preference for one artist over another, though in fact, the assignment to a group was random. They were then given sets of choices of differing amounts of money to be paid by the researchers to their classmates. The boys were asked to choose the rewards for Two members of the other group (out-group) Two other members of their own group (in-group) A member of their own group and a member of the other group (in-group/out-group) When rewarding members of the same group (either the in-group or the out-group), the boys made choices that emphasized fairness over profit: that is, they chose equal amounts for the members, even if both got less overall. For the third set of choices, the boys chose sets of rewards that were equal or that favored the in-group, even if that meant less money overall. Also, the boys preferred to discriminate against the out-group member over maximizing the in-group member's profit. For example, instead of choosing $0.15 for the in-group member and the corresponding $0.25 for the out-group member, the boy would choose $0.07 for the in-group member and corresponding $0.01 for the out-group member to ensure that the in-group member got more money than the out-group member. The results showed that the boys would work against the interest of their own group to "win" against the out-group. The research also shows how quickly we fall into in-group/out-group dynamics and how powerful the desire to benefit our own group is.

groupthink refers to

Irving Janis, a social psychologist, coined the term groupthink* to describe the extreme conformity that frequently occurs in the decision-making processes of very close groups (1972). It is a flawed, collective thought process that occurs as a direct result of individual conformity. In essence, although offering different points of view is key to coming to an informed decision, in groupthink, the group places greater importance on solidarity than on objectively evaluating the alternatives related to a decision. Groups tend to disparage opposing views, which makes it difficult for an individual to voice dissent. Without dissent, the group may believe that each person believes the decision is correct. In this way, groupthink becomes self-reinforcing. "If everyone agrees, how could it be a bad idea?" In such a manner, the group believes that it is incapable of making mistakes when, in fact, it is more likely to suffer a lapse in judgment. Remedies for groupthink include open discussion of differing views, objections, and doubts, as well as having outside experts challenge the group's views. Symptoms of Groupthink Silence means yes: often members of a group are unwilling to speak up when they have an objection to the actions or attitudes of the group, especially when it is perceived that these actions or attitudes are widely held by the group. Therefore, objections are not heard, and the group assumes that all members believe that said silence indicates agreement. Pressure: Members pressure one another not to challenge the dominant opinion. Resistance is rationalized: Instead of fairly evaluating dissent, members discredit warning signs and thinking that stands in opposition to the group's attitude. Source: Adapted from Janis & Mann (1977)

coercive

Membership in a coercive organization* is involuntary. A coercive organization works to resocialize the individual to conform to acceptable standards and behaviors. Mental hospitals and prisons are examples. While enlistment in the military is voluntary, subsequent participation is involuntary, qualifying it as a coercive organization. Further, the military adheres to strict codes of behavior, dress, and attitude, all of which are designed to make individuals conform (Etzioni, 1975). McLean Hospital McLean Hospital is a psychiatric facility in Belmont, Massachusetts that is at the forefront of neuroscience research. The facility offers treatment for alcohol and drug abuse, depression, anxiety, psychotic disorders, geriatric, and women's mental health, among other conditions. Patients that are admitted typically display dysfunctional behaviors and attitudes that are detrimental to themselves and their loved ones. Patients that are admitted, (either involuntarily, or voluntarily after giving consent to be kept there until rehabilitated), undergo certain types of psychiatric re-socialization. They must adhere to a schedule determined in part by the hospital, receive treatment, and (in some cases) medication, and work hard to be able to rejoin society. The rules put forth by McLean hospital are mandatory.

in group favoritism

One important aspect of division into groups is in-group favoritism*, in which people view members of their group more favorably than members of out-groups. Even more than just judging an in-group member favorably, people often give special advantages to in-group members in the form of money and resources (Sumner, 1906). Actually, the presence of groups can change how we think about people. Robert Merton (1968) showed that the same characteristic can be viewed positively if possessed by a member of one's own in-group, but negatively if possessed by an individual in an out-group. For example, you may view someone as stoic and thoughtful if they are part of your in-group, but timid and insecure if they are part of your out-group.

group dynamic

One of the most fascinating phenomena in sociology is group dynamics. Groups are more than a collective of individuals; groups can have characteristics—such as beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors—that emerge only after the group has formed, and which are not always displayed or shared by the majority of individuals in the group. Further, certain factors, such as size, leadership, and circumstance, can have a predictable effect on the dynamics of a group.

roles and status

One important function of groups is to confer status on individuals. In ordinary language, "status" means a high position in society, but sociologists use the term much more inclusively, to refer to any defined category of individual such as "nurse," "father," "voter," "dancer," etc. Status* is a position within a social structure. Clearly, just as people belong to many different groups, so too do they occupy a wide range of statuses. Often, in practice, sociologists are concerned with the prestige element of status, the extent to which the position someone is assigned confers power and authority. We assume, for example, that a "father," has more power than a "child," or that a "citizen" has more rights than a "non-citizen." Associated with status is role*, the actions and behaviors expected from a person who occupies the status. These terms are easily confused: a status is more like a static position, such as an identity category. You are a soccer player or an executive or a big sister, whereas a role is the active performance of a status. Someone can be a biological father of a child without taking on the role of a father, living with and caring for the child. Of course, you can also act like a "big sister" towards someone without being one. Be aware, however, that although status is more static, it too can change; someone can get fired and no longer occupy the status of "chief accountant," or someone can get married and then become a "husband." The social function of roles and statuses is to create predictability. In America, we expect "a player" to do what "the coach" tells her to do. This makes the relationship easier. The two people occupying those statuses do not need to waste valuable time negotiating who will make important decisions. To understand how much we unconsciously rely on statuses, consider meeting an adult and a child and being unsure whether the adult is the child's mother or grandmother. Most people would feel slightly uncomfortable without a definitive relationship category (and too embarrassed to ask!). Or consider asking someone you think is an employee where a product is in a store only to discover he doesn't work there—this, too, is mildly embarrassing for many. Because you mistook his status as "employee," you expected him to play a certain role (helping you out) that was inappropriate to his actual role (another customer). We routinely rely on statuses and roles to make sense of the world around us. Of course, all of us occupy multiple statuses at the same time. We refer to all of these as a status set*. A person can be a son, student, brother, soccer player, and friend. As this boy grows up, his status set will change. He may later be a partner, doctor, researcher, and piano player. Sometimes one status is much more consequential than others. A stay-at-home mother may come to feel that her status as "mother" has come to dominate her life—both how she thinks about herself and how other people see her. She may regret leaving behind the statuses (and associated roles) of "lawyer," "friend," "co-worker," and "volunteer." This dominant status is called a master status*. Similarly, someone who is disabled may experience the world through that master status, which dominates how he is seen and treated. Master statuses can be positive as well: a movie star is likely never to be just a "volunteer" or "neighbor" to those around her. Role expectations* are the behaviors and qualities expected from someone who occupies a certain status. If we see a child misbehaving in public without being corrected, we might feel critical towards her "father." If we later discover the adult with the child is the child's neighbor, we might excuse him (and even feel sympathy for him) because we don't expect neighbors to discipline children. Or perhaps we will feel just as critical. Role expectations depend on cultural norms. In some cultures, all adults are supposed to take responsibility for correcting children. People in these cultures would expect the neighbor in his status as "an adult" to correct the child's misbehavior. Because people occupy multiple statuses, they can experience role conflict*, conflicting expectations from two or more social roles. For example, if you do an internship at your mother's office, and suddenly a family friend is your supervisor, you might experience role conflict. You might not know how to greet her at the office—by her first name, as you have all your life, or with a title and last name, as the other interns do. You might worry both about being too deferential and about being too informal. The problem, as sociologists see it, is that you are trying to occupy two statuses that have conflicting role expectations. You are both the supervisor's friend and her intern, and each of those statuses requires behaviors and attitudes that conflict. In the example above, the conflict in role conflict came from occupying multiple statuses. Another kind of conflict occurs when there are conflicting expectations within the same status. This is called role strain*. Many of us have felt role strain in our status as a "friend." If one of our "friends" complains about his partner, and we feel he (and not his partner) is in the wrong, do we tell him how we really feel, or do we support him? The problem is that a "friend" is supposed to do both: a friend supports his friends, and a friend is someone who will step up and do the difficult job of telling his friend the truth. In this common case, the role expectations create role strain.

social organizations and deviance

Poet John Donne once wrote, "No man is an island." Given human beings' constant need to socially engage with others, nowhere is this sentiment more apparent than when one studies the sociological concept of groups. Groups, even in their most basic forms, are one of the building blocks of any society. A group is a number of people sharing a social relationship. Many people claim not to be members of any particular group. In almost every experience, this is simply not true. We are nearly all members of groups, regardless of how great or how seemingly insignificant the group may be. Take the example of a family. Most of us are members of some kind of family. A family will always consist of more than one individual. Additionally, a family also satisfies the required additional criteria of a sociological group. The members of a family will most certainly interact in some way, be it verbal communication, telecommunication, or even through body language. Family members also share a sense of belonging, have something in common, and possess norms that govern behavior. We learn how to behave from the groups around us, like families. Families teach us what counts as "normal" behavior, and it's often surprising to children (and adults!) to visit other families and discover the very different ways family members talk to one another, behave at the dinner table, or assume who will do what work within the household. Each group creates and reinforces its own norms. We can see the influence of groups another way as well. We think of ourselves as a single individual, but that self-image does not correspond to our actual behavior throughout the day as we move from group to group. For example, a teenager's parents are unlikely to have the same norms of behavior as her peers. She might talk and act one way with her parents; later the same day, she might talk and act in a very different way with her peers, and then a third way with her teachers. In each situation, the same individual responds to (and influences) the group's norms. Just as the daughter might be shocked to learn how a different family has very different norms, the parents might be shocked to learn what their daughter does with her friends. But there is a seeming problem with this theory. If members of a society learn social norms from social groups like family, why do people still break social norms? If schools teach respect for authority, why do students get expelled for disruptive or confrontational behavior? Sociology has a rich history of theory and research on crime and deviance*, actions, behaviors, and traits that violate social norms. Functionalists believe that deviance helps clarify the social boundaries, to teach the rest of us how not to behave. Conflict theorists focus on how crime and punishment are used as a tool by dominant social groups to reinforce their power. Symbolic interactionists are interested in how deviant behavior becomes a social identity, marking a person more generally. Norms and deviance are two sides of the same coin. How we ought to behave is as much defined by what we should not do as by what we should.

lesson intro

Throughout this course, you have been learning about social norms, how people learn to behave in culturally appropriate ways and from whom. On the surface, crime and deviance might seem to be outside social norms—the result of insufficient socialization or socialization that just didn't work. But crime and deviance are integrally connected to social norms and form important social functions. This lesson will present how different schools of sociology understand the social purpose and effects of deviance and crime.

reacting to deviance unites a group

Since people often respond to deviance with shared outrage, they reaffirm the moral ties that bind them together as a society. Consider the example of the "MeToo" movement below. On October 15, 2017, Alyssa Milano tweeted, "Suggested by a friend: 'If all the women who have been sexually harassed or assaulted wrote 'me too' as a status, we might give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem." Milano's tweet, galvanizing a movement that activist Tarana Burke created ten years earlier, at once worked to de-stigmatize the status of sexual assault survivor and stigmatize the social identity of sexual harasser. According to the New York Times, the #MeToo movement brought down 201 powerful men, including Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, Al Franken, Charlie Rose, and Matt Lauer, among other politicians, CEOs, media personalities, and actors (Carlsen et al., 2018). The point, however, is not that a few individual men lost their positions of power, but rather that people all over America came together to publicly call out sexual harassment as deviant behavior. Although the #MeToo movement also stirred controversy and backlash, it was largely successful in defining workplace sexual harassment as unacceptable behavior by embodying that behavior in high-profile deviant men who were expelled from their jobs. The act of identifying this deviance brought a community of women and their supporters together.

functionalist perspective

Society needs deviance because it creates social cohesion.

greater solidarity within the in group

Studies have shown that the presence and intensity of conflict with an out-group leads to greater in-group solidarity. That is, the more we fight against a common "enemy," the less we fight with each other.

utilitarian

Utilitarian organizations* are those that maintain membership through payment. Typically this is an individual's source of income. Utilitarian organizations are involuntary by proxy; it is not legally required that one join, but they are necessary means of sustaining oneself (Etzioni, 1975). Google Tech giant Google has been #1 on Fortune Magazine's Top 100 Best Places to Work since 2012. In addition to competitive salaries and benefits, the company offers such perks as cafeterias, gyms and exercise classes, special commuter buses, twelve weeks of paid leave for new parents, tuition reimbursement, unlimited sick time, and of course, the opportunity to work in a cutting-edge industry. The extra perks that Google offers are not necessary, but they certainly help attract talented employees and reduce turnover. More and more utilitarian organizations in the tech and advertising spaces are focusing on bulking up the beneficial aspects of the work environment alongside salary as part of their retention strategy. They recognize that salary is not the only consideration for employees.

groups and organizations

We humans naturally categorize ourselves into groups. It is in our nature to align with people who share characteristics, proximity, or culture. From birth, our in-groups (such as our friends, family, and communities) help mold our attitudes. They teach us appropriate behavior, and help us understand where we fit within society. We draw lines in the sand between ourselves and out-groups: groups to which we do not belong. We think of these people as "others" or different from us. Much research has shown that we treat "others" very differently than we treat members of our in-groups. We give in-group members preferential treatment, and often we wage wars against the "others." However, the boundary that determines whether a person is in your in-group or out-group can change depending on context. We use them to ask questions like, "Am I thin enough? Accomplished enough? Am I enough of a rebel? How well do I measure up?" Sociologists distinguish between the people we know well and the people we only interact with to get things done. Our close relationships are part of our primary groups, and our acquaintances comprise our secondary groups. Around the turn of the century, people started leveraging their secondary relationships to accomplish tasks. We began creating formal organizations - groups of people that come together to achieve a common goal. Formal organizations can be totally voluntary (like a sports club), mandatory (like prison), or utilitarian, (meaning that you don't have to join, but in order to survive you should, like joining a company to earn a wage and pay your bills). When formal organizations become very highly organized, we call them bureaucracies. Bureaucracies divide up tasks and responsibility. There is hierarchy, with each level being responsible for the levels below it. In a bureaucracy, each person is completely replaceable. Some bureaucracies function perfectly normally. Others trip over their own rules and regulations. They create and follow rules, and then forget why they created those rules. They have trouble getting things done. This is called bureaucratic dysfunction. All in all, the many ways that we organize can be helpful in creating a functional, efficient, and inclusive society. We just need to understand how and why we organize into groups so that we can avoid the potentially negative consequences, such as prejudice and bureaucratic red tape!

crime

a behavior or action that violates a society's legal code

social norms

a culturally mandated set of values, beliefs, and behaviors that reflects and enforces culture; are created and mandated by groups

informational social influence

a dynamic of conformity that describes the tendency to assume that the group judgement or answer is accurate

Bureaucracy

a formal organization that has defined terms of membership, written governance and written communication, as well as division of labor, responsibility, and accountability

primary groups

a group of people with whom an individual maintains close personal relationships, such as friends and family

in-groups

a group to which a person feels they belong

out-groups

a group to which an individual feels he or she does not belong and does not identify with

expressive leader

a leader focused on the group's morale and dynamic; typically this person acts as a mediator and motivator

stigmas

a negative label attached to a person, behavior, or circumstance to distinguish that person or thing from the rest of society

factions

a smaller group of people within a larger group

role conflict

the experience of occupying two or more statuses with conflicting roles

the saints of roughneck's: a labeling theory study

A classic example of labeling theory in action is William Chambliss' study, "The Saints and the Roughnecks" (1973). By studying two different gangs at a high school in Seattle, Chambliss found that peers, teachers, and parents perceived the saints and the roughnecks as two very different groups, even though they engaged in similar amounts and types of delinquent activity. The Saints and the Roughnecks The "saints" were mostly from White, upper-middle-class families, while the "roughnecks" came from lower-income backgrounds. Both groups cut class, drank, and committed petty theft. During Chambliss' observations, none of the saints were ever arrested, while the roughnecks were constantly in trouble with the police. Other people did not recognize that the saints were not the upstanding students they believed them to be. He found that people's reactions to the students' behaviors also shaped the students' lives after high school. The roughnecks became locked into deviant behavior that continued into adulthood, leading to prison or low-paying jobs, while the saints continued onto careers of prestige (Henslin, 2007). Chambliss concluded, "Selective perception and labeling—finding, processing, and punishing some kinds of criminality and not others—means that visible, poor, non-mobile, outspoken, and undiplomatic "tough" kids will be noticed, whether their actions are seriously delinquent or not." Although the saints deviated from the behavior expected of them, it went unnoticed because of their position of power in the community.

medicalization of deviance

A good example of labeling theory* and society's shifting conception of deviance over time is the medicalization* of deviance. A prime example is alcoholism. In the past, alcoholics were generally considered deviant, because people believed drinking too much alcohol was morally wrong. However, as medicine has started to classify alcoholism as a disease, Americans are more likely to characterize an alcoholic as "sick" rather than as morally blameworthy. In this case, the burden for treatment for deviance has shifted from the individual to medical professionals. Another example of a behavior that was previously deviant is compulsive gambling. Like alcoholism, gambling addiction has been medicalized. The Mayo Clinic (a nonprofit organization dedicated to healthcare) lists the "symptoms" of gambling addiction and advises people who suspect they have a gambling addiction to talk to their primary healthcare provider. According to the Mayo clinic website, those who can stop gambling temporarily are "in remission" (2016). Medical language of symptoms, addiction, and remission point to the medicalization of what used to be deviant (morally problematic) behavior.

what is differential association theory

Another classic school of thought within symbolic interactionism, Edwin Sutherland's differential association* theory interprets deviance as behavior a person learns through interaction with others and society. This theory emphasizes the significant role that peers and community play in encouraging deviant behavior. According to Sutherland (1940), just as people are socialized to conform (obey laws and social norms) by those who are closest to them—their friends and family—people become criminals when they are more strongly socialized to break the law than to obey it. A person growing up in a high-crime area might have friends and family who are criminals and might see first-hand the benefits of a life of crime. This theory focuses on how people learn deviant behavior from their environment.

what is property crime

As mentioned earlier in the module, property crime* is the theft of something that belongs to someone else. The chart below shows rates of property crime in the United States between 1960 and 2012. As with the violent crime data, these numbers only include property crimes that are reported to the police. Some property crimes, such as the theft of a cell phone, involve a small enough amount of money that the victim might deem reporting the crime to be more trouble than it's worth.

crime continued

Crime is adjudicated by a system of interlocking institutions called "the criminal justice system." These institutions and procedures revolve around identifying whether a crime has taken place, finding the culprit, and administering justice. Each part of the system is of interest to sociologists. Sociologists categorize crimes based on how they are committed and how others view the offenses, rather than simply using standards such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation's crime index. You can learn more about the different types of crime below.

Deviance clarifies moral boundaries and affirms norms

Deviance is necessary to highlight shared social values because the definition of "good" depends on the opposing definition of "evil." For example, when a teacher punishes a student for cheating, the rest of the class is aware that cheating gets you in trouble. The punishment reinforces for everyone else the social norm of working hard to achieve good grades. By identifying a person or behavior as deviant, people draw a line between what is right and what is wrong. In the first example, the norm of hard work was reinforced. Now imagine a slightly different scenario in which a teacher punishes a student who has copied his research paper directly from a textbook. For some of the other students, this identification of deviance might actually clarify that copying a textbook is not considered an appropriate way to do research. This clarifying function of deviance operates more often around ambiguous social norms. When people gossip about a coworker who talks too much or when children tease a boy who giggles "like a girl," they are clarifying for the group what is appropriate behavior.

intro

Deviance is primarily a social category; it refers to behavior people consider out of bounds. Crime, on the other hand, is a formal legal category of behavior, one that is publicly adjudicated in our society. Sociologists study the "criminal justice system," the intertwining laws and institutions that together create the system through which people move as victims or perpetrators (or both) of crimes. There are 2.2 million people in our prisons and jails, and many more who work in the institutions involved in the process of prosecuting, processing, and releasing prisoners (The Sentencing Project, 2019). Sociologists study all components of this system. Criminals share certain social characteristics. They are likely to be from lower socio-economic classes and have fewer legitimate economic opportunities. They exhibit low self-control, and they are more likely to belong to groups that accept or valorize criminal behavior. Different schools of sociology attribute different functions to the criminal justice system. Functionalists see a legitimate function in identifying socially disruptive members of society and isolating them where they can do no harm. Conflict theorists see a much darker institution which is used to police social groups. Because it is a critical social institution, the criminal justice system provides sociologists with a rich field to study.

differential association

Edwin Sutherland's theory that states people learn criminal behavior from others in their communities; that is criminal behavior is taught

stop and fisk

For years the New York polices' use of "stop and frisk" has been controversial for how it disproportionately affects minority populations. Stop and frisk is when police stop a person and then choose whether to search (frisk) for a weapon, which they are allowed to do if they have a reasonable suspicion that a crime has been or is about to be committed. In 2001, the New York Legislature voted to have the police establish a database to record the names of everyone who was stopped and frisked. By 2010 the database had become controversial because of the vast number of innocent people who had been stopped, searched, and had their names recorded. A bill (that passed) to have the database erased, stated that "of the hundreds of thousands of law-abiding New Yorkers stopped every year, the vast majority are black and Latino. In 2009, for example, the NYPD stopped 574,304 individuals. Of those who were the subject of a police stop that year, nearly ninety percent were people of color, and nine of every ten persons stopped were released without any further legal action taken against them" (New York State Assembly, 2010). The policy of maintaining a database ended, but stop and frisk continued. According to data analyzed by the New York Civil Liberties Union (2012), Black and Latinx youth were disproportionately stopped relative to White youth, disproportionately searched, and were less likely to be carrying a weapon. In 2012, the report says Of Blacks and Latinx stopped, 57.6 percent were frisked, compared to 43.9 percent of Whites. Of those frisked, 1.8 percent of those Blacks and Latinx searched had a weapon compared to 3.9 percent of Whites. (Taken from Stop-and-Frisk, 2012 p. 8) Stop and frisk does not effectively target criminals. Police are stopping far more people than they could "reasonably" believe have or are about to commit a crime. Conflict theorists would argue that the act of stopping, searching, (and recording) the names of innocent people is a form of control where less powerful groups, such as racial minorities, the homeless, non-citizens, and members of the LGBTQIA community, are subject to intimidation tactics which are not used against more powerful groups ("Stop and Frisk: the Human Impact," 2009). The Center for Constitutional Rights (2009) argues that the residents of some neighborhoods experience "a police presence so pervasive and hostile that they felt as if they were living in a state of siege."

Conflict perspective

Function: Prisons compensate for the failure of other institutions, such as the educational system. Deterrence: Prisons help prevent crime by providing a negative sanction*. Rehabilitation: Prisons help prisoners find positive and legal ways to interact with society so that once they leave they will be productive members of society.

strengths and weaknesses of the functionalists approach to deviance

Functionalist theory focuses on social structure, not individual behavior, which makes it highly sociological. Proponents of functionalism acknowledge that people make their own choices, but these choices come from socially structured options. Critics of this theory argue that it does little explain why some behaviors are considered normative, and others are considered deviant. Functionalists see deviance as necessary for society to function, but they often overlook the negative consequences of the deviant label for individuals.

factors that affect dynamics

German sociologist Georg Simmel investigated small group dynamics. The addition of a single person, Simmel noted, dramatically affects a group's dynamic. Further, he described patterns of behavior that emerge in various group sizes (Simmel, 1950). The larger the group, the more relationships that are possible among members. Past a certain point, it is not possible for an individual to maintain an intimate enough relationship with all other members; instead, the group splits into smaller factions*, groups in which intimate relationships are possible. Interestingly, the larger the group, the less able it is to survive solely on the relationships of its members. Instead, larger groups are likely to establish rules and objectives and to convene for a common purpose. If you have ever led a group, or been led as part of a group, you know that leadership greatly affects a group's dynamic. A leader's focus, as well as the style of leadership, can drive the team's motivation and inform inner relationships. A leader who is focused on completing the task at hand is called an instrumental leader*, and he or she often prioritizes the goals before group members' emotions. In contrast, an expressive leader* is one that puts the relationships, morale, and emotions of his or her team members first. In 1939 and the years following, Kurt Lewin and a team of researchers identified three leadership styles: Authoritarian or autocratic leadership: the leader tells others what to do. He or she makes the majority of the decisions and dominates the communication. Authoritarian leadership is best in a situation in which the leader has most or all of the expertise. It is a good leadership style when time is short. Democratic leadership: the leader opens up communication between him or herself and the group, actively soliciting opinions from the group, but retaining final control over decision making. Democratic leadership generally solicits greater investment from employees who feel themselves to be part of the power structure. This leadership style is best when subordinates have some expertise that the leader does not. Laissez-faire leadership: the leader shifts much of the decision making power to the group, although he or she still bears responsibility for the decision. Laissez-faire leadership works best when the employees have most of the expertise.

social groups

Groups are a fundamental structure of society and, as such, serve many purposes. They help to socialize us by transmitting culture. From our groups, we learn language, receive a model for normal behavior, and are governed by laws. Groups can provide a sense of belonging and security. They can also provide a good benchmark for measuring our own progress through life. Groups can work together to achieve common goals. We can use the groups to which we do not belong to more closely define the boundaries of our own groups. Many of the factors that define one group can determine the boundaries of another group. For example, a person's social network is typically guided, to an extent, by their age, class, and geography. However, a person may not be locked into a group. In many countries, a person born into poverty may be able to gain an education, wealth, and ultimately change his or her social class. In many societies, the following factors (to name only a few) lead to the formation of groups and define their boundaries: Geography: neighborhood, city, school district, county, country, sports team Traits: redheads, French speakers, Asian Americans Beliefs: religion, political affiliation, stance on an issue (vaccination, for example) Skills or Abilities: Varsity Team, Architectural Society Class: income and wealth, education, access to resources Family Age or Generation Social Network: friends and acquaintances; people with whom you spend time, interact, and share common interests

Sociologists identify four main factors that increase the likelihood of committing a crime, regardless of whether the perpetrator is a man or a women:

Having inadequate parental discipline and support Having friends who engaged in, or value, criminal activity Having low self-control Having little access to (legitimate) economic opportunity

reference groups

High school reunions are more than just an opportunity to catch up with long lost friends. Many alumni attend out of sheer curiosity as to how their classmates have fared and how they measure up in comparison. How many are married? Who has traveled the world? Who has a high-powered job? How do I compare? High school reunions are an opportunity to interact with a reference group. A reference group* is any group to which a person compares him or herself. Often these groups are family, friends, and peers; however, it could also be comprised of complete strangers, such as celebrities. If the individual identifies with the group in some way and compares him or herself to it, it can be considered a reference group. Reference groups often play a role in shaping our tastes, preferences, aspirations. This experience can have positive effects; for example, a kid might put in extra time on the basketball court practicing his layups so that he can measure up to the rest of his basketball team. However, (quite predictably) reference groups can have a negative influence. Any group can be a reference group if the individual identifies with them. If a person's reference group has sub-standard ideals or displays dangerous behavior, the person is susceptible to adopting such behavior.

crime and women

However, female criminals are quite different from male criminals in the following respects: Women commit fewer crimes than men in all categories of crime. In 2013, 26.5 percent of reported crimes (including violent and property crimes) that resulted in an arrest were committed by women, and 73.5 percent were committed by men (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2013). The gap between male and female rates of perpetration grows as the crime becomes more serious: women commit far fewer violent crimes. Women committing violent offenses are less likely than men who are violent to self-identify as career criminals, people who make their living from crime. Female criminals are far more likely than men to live with dependent children. Over half the women currently in prison have children who are under the age of 18 (Glaze & Maruschak, 2010). Female perpetrators are more likely than men to have been victims of abuse or neglect as children. Women are more likely than men to be sex workers (Steffensmeier & Allan, 1996). Sociologists have long sought to explain these differences—and there are probably a number of reasons operating together. One theory that sociologists have put forward is that women lack the opportunity men have to commit crimes. Because women are often home caring for children and because they tend to occupy lower positions in jobs when they are employed, they are simply not presented with the same opportunity to commit crimes. A (male) manager can embezzle money whereas a (female) bank teller, who is supervised, cannot. A second important theory is that crime is shaped by gender roles. Since society expects women to be more passive, women are more likely to play that role and leave violence to men.

reducing the prison population

In March 2015, President Obama granted the early release of 22 people serving time in prison for drug offenses, citing that if they had been sentenced under today's laws, their time served would be considerably shorter (Eggleston, 2015). Overall, Obama commuted the sentences of 1715 prisoners, most of whom were incarcerated for drug offenses. Criminal justice reform is not a new debate in the United States, but recent bipartisan bills in Congress have included provisions to reduce mandatory sentences for nonviolent drug crimes and strengthen rehabilitation programs for nonviolent offenders (Eckholm, 2015). Though leaders with a variety of political leanings agree that mass incarceration is an important issue to address, it remains unclear the best way to reduce the number of people who are behind bars. Reduction in sentences is one possible way to reduce prison populations since longer sentences often do little to deter someone from committing a crime (Mauer & Cole, 2015). Eliminating strict parole conditions for nonviolent or low-risk offenders or offering more comprehensive rehabilitation efforts for released prisoners are other options (Mauer & Cole, 2015). On the other hand, although the government spends $80 million per year on maintaining prisons and housing inmates, it is hard to estimate whether keeping some criminals locked up is more expensive than setting them free would be. It is also difficult to predict who will be a repeat offender, as evidenced by a prisoner-release program in Philadelphia in the 1990s (Gibeaut, 2011). In the 18 months following the release, police rearrested for 9,732 new crimes thousands of the released prisoners who had not been considered a threat (Riley, 2015). You can see for yourself the different effects that policy reform would have on the prison population in 15 states, which makes up about 40 percent of the total prisoners in the United States (Eckholm, 2015). Test out the interactive "prison population forecaster" for yourself here in order to better understand why reducing the prison population requires massive reforms (King, Peterson, Elderbroom, & Pelletier, 2015).

crime and gender

In some ways, men and women don't differ when it comes to crime. The crimes that men and women commit are distributed across the spectrum in roughly the same way: for example, in 1960, one percent of men arrested for crimes had committed a robbery, and 0.5 percent of women arrested for crimes had committed robbery. In the same year, four percent of arrested men had committed burglary, and three percent of arrested women had committed burglary (Steffensmeier & Allan, 1996). Male and female criminals also share similar backgrounds: they are more likely to have low socioeconomic status and to have dropped out of high school.

Weber

Interestingly enough, Weber pegged religion as the key factor fueling a shift toward rationality. Calvinist Christians were abandoning the idea that a person's goodness is rewarded in heaven. They began to embrace the notion that God rewards goodness and hard work with measurable success that can be observed in one's lifetime.Coincidentally, industriousness was also a virtue of Calvinist societies, leading to an accumulation of wealth that the Calvinists attributed to God's approval. They then reinvested their excess money, which brought returns. Weber believed that Calvinists became capitalists inadvertently. At this point, Weber's theory rejoins Marx's; capitalism values efficiency. Established, traditional order was abandoned as formal organizations sprang up (Weber, 1930).

Karl Marx

Karl Marx noticed that around the end of the nineteenth century, people were experimenting with capitalism. After the invention of the steam engine, as machines powered by steam began to do tasks previously done by hand, the output of goods increased dramatically, and society began to undergo significant changes. For example, whereas once cloth was produced on hand looms by families at home, now cloth was produced in large quantities by workers in factories owned by capitalists. This efficiency yielded profit, which was reinvested to produce more wealth. The realization that leveraging secondary relationships could create efficient, task-oriented groups, (and more profit), led to a shift in mindset. People were more willing to adopt the new system, giving rise to more formal organizations, such as cloth factories, and gradually the overall rationalization of society. Marx admired the explosion in productivity that capitalism created, but he was harshly critical of the way it reshaped society. Instead of a person cooking, cleaning, caring for children, and weaving throughout the day as a member of a family, a worker labored for long hours at a single task, in effect becoming like a machine herself to make money for someone else. The fact that a worker's labor belongs to the company and not herself, Marx called the alienation of labor.

white-collar crime

Members of the upper class certainly also engage in criminal behavior, but conflict theorists argue they can better hide their crimes because they have access to resources. In addition, people pay less attention to the criminal activities of the elite. Elite deviance, the wrongdoing of wealthy individuals and organizations, includes white-collar crimes*, a term coined by Edwin Sutherland, a prominent sociologist, to characterize the kinds of crimes committed by people of high social status that are nonviolent, such as tax evasion, corporate scandals, and fraudulent accounting practices (Sutherland, 1940). Corporate crime*, or executives violating laws in order to benefit their corporation, is one of the most visible forms of white-collar crime. Very rarely is corporate crime reported or taken seriously, and most perpetrators of corporate crime do not go to jail. Most people are fearful of the possibility of violent crime, but they do not consider the implications of corporate crimes. The cost of white-collar crime is several billion dollars a year, at least ten times the cost of street crime (Ramirez, 2010).

what is organized crime

Organized crime* is an enterprise run by individuals who engage in illegal activity, usually for money or profit. Usually organized crime involves the sale of illegal goods and services—sometimes known as the "black market"—to buyers who are willing. Organized crime is, therefore, closely associated with victimless crimes since organizations often supply illicit drugs or prostitutes. Criminal organizations can also be politically motivated, such as terrorist groups. Though you might immediately think of the Italian Mafia when you hear the words "organized crime," in reality, successful crime organizations originate all over the world and consist of people in almost every ethnic and racial category (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2015). The popularity of the internet has made it possible for enterprises to target victims from the other side of the globe-we have all gotten one of those emails from a Nigerian prince asking us to wire money, right? In May of 2015, 14 officials connected with FIFA, the worldwide governing association of soccer, were indicted for charges including conspiracy, racketeering, and money laundering. An FBI investigation found that the criminal activity had been occurring for the past decade. You can read more about the case in this article from The New York Times. Seven officials were ultimately arrested, and as FBI Director James Comey explained: "The defendants fostered a culture of corruption and greed that created an uneven playing field for the biggest sport in the world" By its very nature, organized crime is not easily measured. Activities by a crime ring could include monopolizing a certain market in an area (for example, trash collectors), buying corrupt officials, extorting others for their own gain, or participating in sex trafficking. The FBI estimates that global organized crime reaps illegal benefits of one trillion dollars per year.

imprisonment

Our understanding of what causes crime influences how important we think it is to punish criminal activity. If we think of crime as the inevitable result of poverty and social inequality, incarceration as punishment seems less likely to address the larger problem, and a focus on prevention, such as educational opportunity programs, seems more effective. This was the dominant view before the 1960s and 1970s, when crime rates dramatically increased, and crime became the foremost concern for many Americans. There was a general perception that law and order had broken down during the backlash of the Vietnam conflict, and U.S. penal policy became harsher through methods such as mandatory minimum sentences and drops in the use of probation (Clear & Frost, 2014).

symbolic interaction perspective

Prisons are inevitable in a society with social inequality. They are part of a system that masks the effects of poverty and inequality as personal, individual failings. Prisons are places to house the unemployed.

social dilemma refers to

Social Dilemma Social dilemma* occurs when an individual must weigh a personal benefit against the benefit to all. In many cases, it is in the best interest of an individual or group to be selfish; however, if all parties act selfishly, all will endure negative consequences. An example of social dilemma can be observed in Christopher Nolan's film Batman: The Dark Knight. At the climax of the film, two ferries are attempting to escape Gotham City. One ferry is full of citizens, while the other ferry is full of convicted inmates from Arkham Asylum. Unbeknownst to the passengers on each ferry or to Batman, the Joker has rigged each ferry with explosives and given each boat the other's detonator. He informs each ferry that one must detonate the other's boat before midnight, or he will detonate both. The Joker assumes that the inhabitants of each ferry will act selfishly to save themselves. From a purely rational perspective, it is within each group's best interest to simply detonate the other ferry, (and to do so quickly). However, much to the Joker's dismay, both ferries refuse. This type of social cooperation, or lack of social cooperation, can be observed frequently. Currently, there is a global debate surrounding carbon emissions; it is expensive for countries to adopt and adhere to global emissions standards. The few that perpetuate pollutive industrial practices benefit financially from ignoring the global outcry to curb carbon emissions. However, it is beneficial to the entirety of the human race to adopt industry standards that do not pollute the environment. On the flip side, sometimes the generosity of many allows us to use this principle to our advantage. For example, crowd-sourcing music is a revolutionary practice that has been pioneered by artists such as Amanda Palmer. Palmer makes her music available for free, and only requests that listeners pay for it. As a result, those individuals that value the music will pay for it, shouldering the financial burden of those who are unable or choose not to pay. This model has been wildly successful, as many people value Palmer's music. From the perspective of social good, this helps give all people access to the music. Click on Palmer's picture to listen to her TED talk about asking for help.

what is social bonding theory

Social bonding theory is a type of theory about social control derived from the work of Walter Reckless. Everyone is tempted to commit deviant behavior, and what keeps us in line is our attachment to others and society. Travis Hirschi developed social bonding theory*, which holds that social control depends on people anticipating the consequence of deviant behavior. He believed that four components lead to lower rates of deviance: Attachment. People who have strong social connections have more people who will sanction them for deviant behavior. If they are strongly attached, they will conform to keep the good opinion of those around them. Commitment. Commitment refers to attachment to conventional society. People who have more to lose will be less likely to participate in deviant activity. Involvement. People who are busy engaging in law-abiding and conforming activities have less time for deviant behavior. Belief. The stronger one's awareness of, understanding of, and agreement with the rules and norms of society, the less likely one is to engage in deviant activity.

social control

Social control* is how social norms are enforced. Agents of social control, such as a police officer or a school principal, regulate responses to deviance and crime. Social control of deviance can be exerted by formal means, such as a police officer arresting someone, or more informal ones, such as parents grounding a child for dying her hair green. Even more subtle behaviors can serve as informal kinds of social control, such as staring at someone who is talking too loudly in a public place. All of these actions—arresting someone, grounding a child, and staring—are ways to reinforce the acceptable standards of behavior in a society.

social loafing refers to

Social loafing* describes the lessened quantity or quality of an individual's work when they are operating as part of a group compared to their performance when they are not part of a group. The greater the number of people working on a task, the greater the tendency for social loafing. This behavior occurs when the group's work is evaluated holistically, meaning that the individual's contribution cannot be directly linked to him or her, and when no direct praise or criticism can be offered (Latane, Williams, & Harkins, 1979). Essentially, working within the group divorces the individual from the responsibility of his or her work. This may not be a conscious choice that the individual is making. Rather, they incorrectly make the assumption that with so many people working on the project, someone else will pick up the slack. While this behavior can be observed in cultures across the globe, Western, individualistic cultures are more prone to the behavior (Earley, 1989). Factors that reduce social loafing The group is made up of people that know each other. Members of the group consider the task meaningful. The individuals making up the group respect and value the opinions of the other members of the group. Source: Adapted from Karau & Williams (1993).

power differences in deviance

Some people working from the conflict perspective are less concerned with economic class, and instead, focus on jockeying for power among different social groups within a larger society. Imagine, for example, the social groups in a typical high school: athletes, nerds, and the many other groups formed by membership in different activities, such as drama or the orchestra. Members of these different groups attempt to define what is deviant in a way that will benefit their group: the athletes belittling the work of the academically-inclined students and vice-versa. According to the conflict perspective, the groups with the most social power will have the ability to establish what counts as deviant behavior within their school. For conflict theorists, power is still at stake, but power does not always align with money or economic clout.

strengths and weaknesses of symbolic interactionalism

Symbolic interactionism makes an important argument that the judgments people make about behavior perceived as deviant have powerful effects. Labeling theory, however, does not explain why deviant behavior occurs in the first place. Also, the symbolic interactionist approach to deviance tends to give less attention to, and at times even ignore, larger macro-level factors that play an important role in micro-level processes.

what is hate crime

The Federal Bureau of Investigation defines a hate crime* as a reported crime "motivated by biases based on race, gender, gender identity, religion, disability, sexual orientation, and ethnicity" (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2013a). Since 1992, the Department of Justice has been required to collect and report on the incidences of hate crimes in the United States annually. In 2013, 5,928 criminal incidents were reported to authorities that were motivated by some kind of bias of the offender towards the victim Hate crimes are generally directed towards members of socially disadvantaged groups. Of the hate crimes motivated by racial bias in 2013 in the United States, for example, 66.4 percent were motivated by anti-African American bias, whereas only 21.4 percent were motivated by anti-White bias. Of the hate crimes motivated by bias against sexual orientation, 83.1 percent were motivated by anti-LGBT (LGBTQIA) bias (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2013b). African Americans and LGBTQIA are disadvantaged social categories within our society. As social movements continue to raise awareness of prejudice against socially-stigmatized categories, the list of categories of bias grows. According to the Human Rights Campaign, 45 states have laws addressing hate crimes, but only 35 states include classes in these laws that address sexual orientation or gender identity (2015). In 2009, Congress passed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. This bill and subsequent law expanded the definition of hate crime to include crimes committed because of the victim's sexual orientation and gender identity

incarceration rates

The United States leads the world in incarceration, at close to 2.2 million people in federal and local prisons or jails, which amounts to 25 percent of the prisoners in the world. Many prisons are crowded and over capacity (International Centre for Prison Studies, 2013). The chart below shows the increase in the number of prisoners in federal and state prisons over a 25-year period. The incarceration of women is growing faster than that of men. The population of female inmates is 10 times as large as it was in 1980, and it has grown twice as quickly as the population of men in federal prison (The Sentencing Project, 2013).

strengths and weaknesses of the conflict perspective

The biggest strength of the conflict perspective is its understanding of power relationships in reference to deviance. It explains how injustice in society produces crime, and the different ways the criminal justice system treats disadvantaged and underprivileged groups. In contrast, the conflict perspective does little to explain deviance outside of criminal behavior or social inequality, such as a teenager smoking cigarettes. A conflict theorist might argue that consumer marketing drives this middle-class adolescent deviance, with companies focusing their advertising on key consumer groups, but a 15-year-old probably has many reasons for choosing to smoke other than just economic forces!

the conflict perspective on deviance and crime

The conflict perspective emphasizes the unequal distribution of power and wealth. Based on the work of Karl Marx and Max Weber, this perspective holds that the elite in a society are the ones who define "deviant" behavior. Laws are based on the values of those social groups who have the most influence. Consider, for example, the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 which enacted a mandatory minimum sentence of five years for possession of a certain amount of cocaine. The amount that would trigger the mandatory sentence, however, varied depending on the form. Five grams of the crack form of cocaine was enough to trigger the mandatory sentence, while it took 500 grams of the powder form of cocaine to result in the same mandatory five-year sentence. Why the 1:100 disparity for possession of exactly the same drug? Working in the conflict perspective, Craig Reinarman and Harry Levine (1997) pointed out that crack was the form more readily available in poorer African-American and Latinx neighborhoods while the powder form of cocaine was more prevalent in wealthier White neighborhoods. Conflict theorists argue that even the law—often thought to be neutral—works primarily in the interest of the groups with the most power (Simon, 2007). Because they are focused on social inequality, conflict theorists have strongly influenced the sociological understanding of two types of crimes in particular: property crime and white-collar crime.

functionalists approach to deviance

The functionalist theory of deviance stems from the work of Émile Durkheim (1858-1917), who asserted that deviance is a necessary part of social organization, which counterintuitively contributes to the stability of society as a whole. Society has to police its boundaries, demonstrating what is right and wrong by accepting people or pushing them out. People who participate in identifying and punishing deviant behavior feel stronger social bonds with one another, and therefore a sense of well-being. Functionalists, following Durkheim, are more interested in how deviance functions for society as a whole, that is for the many people who are not labeled deviant (Durkheim, 1982).

what is labeling theory

The main contribution of symbolic interactionism is labeling theory*, which posits that the most significant factor in understanding the creation of deviance is how an individual internalizes the responses of others to his or her actions. When a rule is enforced, the person who is supposed to have broken it may be seen as a special kind of person, one who cannot be trusted to live by the rules agreed on by the group. He is regarded as an outsider. Remember that deviance is a violation of a social norm, which is defined by the group to which you belong. If you steal a calculator from someone and a classmate catches you but acts as though it's just a harmless prank, then he has not marked the act or you as deviant. Deviance is in the eye of the beholder. Labeling theory, however, takes labeling one step further, by considering the implications for your own self-understanding. If your classmate treats stealing a calculator as a prank, you are unlikely to think of yourself as a "thief"; you are more likely to think of the stealing as a one-time event in response to particular circumstances. On the other hand, if the deviant label is applied, labeling theory argues it is often difficult to get rid of. A person who has been labeled a "thief" has to consider his or her identity in this new light. Labeling theory posits that deviance not only refers to something a person does, but also to what that person becomes. Once a deviant is labeled as such, they will internalize this label and often act accordingly. Label theorists argue that the high rates of recidivism, the return to criminal activity of people who have been previously convicted, show that the deviant label has been internalized (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2014). This internalization gives the former criminal a strong reason for repeating his or her criminal behavior. The tendency to repeat deviant or criminal acts after the initial labeling is called secondary deviance. The same process also occurs with non-criminal labels. If someone labels another as "goth," he or she is more likely to adopt a goth-like appearance or behavior. Of course, not everyone who commits an act that has been labeled as deviant accepts the label. Becker (1963) argued that the "outsider" might view the people labeling her as wrong, or even as themselves deviant. The central point of labeling theory is that the very act of applying the label creates a class of behavior which the person labeled must define himself or herself in relation to.

social media and reference group

The rise in popularity of social media over the past decade has had yielded some interesting data regarding reference groups, self-image, and the projected images of others. A study out of the University of Missouri showed that university students scrolling through their Facebook feeds were more likely to feel symptoms of depression if their friends' posts elicited jealousy. However, the same study showed that if jealousy was not present, Facebook use was not linked to depression (Tandoc, Ferrucci, & Duffy, 2015). For the students reading Facebook, their friends were a reference group against which they measured their own achievements and success. This is particularly salient given that many of us do not project an accurate self-image, on social media or otherwise. Researchers out of Stanford University demonstrated that many college freshmen regularly downplayed the projection of negative emotions and life events when they were posting on Facebook. Despite this, most assume that their peers' (mostly positive) projections were accurate (Jordan, Monin, Dweck, Lovett, John, & Gross, 2011). In essence, measuring oneself against reference groups has a detrimental effect on self-esteem if there is no understanding that others' projected images can be distorted.

property crime

These crimes involve depriving someone of something that belongs to him or her. Burglary, robbery, grand theft auto, and arson all fall under this category. Conflict theorists believe that property crime is caused by poverty and social inequality. Some studies do confirm that when the unemployment rate goes up, so does property crime, suggesting that people are stealing out of economic need (Lester, 1995). Other studies support the conflict perspective by showing that more generous welfare programs decrease the rate of property crime (Andersen, 2012). Conflict theorists would argue that the unequal distribution of resources causes this type of crime. Numerous studies have demonstrated that income inequality itself raises the rates of deviance and crime among people who have access to fewer resources (Ellis, Beaver, & Wright, 2009). Conflict theorists point to this fact as evidence of crime as the result of conflict among classes.

in group and out group reinforcement

These in-group/out-group effects operate at all levels. People can divide themselves into groups on the basis of race, gender, community, and a whole host of other characteristics. One of the most prominent groups is a nation or culture, and the in-group/out-group dynamic can explain prejudice* and discrimination* against people of other races or nations. William Sumner (1906) coined the term ethnocentrism*, which is the act of judging another group's heritage or culture by the standards and values inherent in one's own culture, which is done with the implication that one's own culture is superior. For example, some cultures arrange marriages as a means of strengthening social and economic unions between families. From an ethnocentric Western perspective, an arranged marriage may seem like a cruel punishment for the children, rather than as an arrangement serving a functional, societal purpose. Avoiding negative forms of in-group favoritism such as racism or ethnocentrism requires that an individual be aware of this psychological tendency. When approaching unfamiliar cultures, he or she must try to understand the customs and practices first from the perspective of the culture, and reserve judgment until a full understanding has been reached. Often this leads to a better understanding of the biases inherent in one's own culture. For example, a person evaluating arranged marriages may come to understand that Western cultures place a high value on romantic love, but not as much value on the economic partnership between married couples.

what is white collar crime

Though white-collar crime* is a form of property crime, most sociologists recognize this type of crime as a separate entity, because of the specific nature of the crimes and the perpetrators of the crimes it describes. As mentioned earlier, Edwin Sutherland created the term to refer to crimes committed by people of high social stature within their occupations, such as bankers or investors. According to a recent study, prosecutions of white-collar crime are at a 20 year low—this does not necessarily mean there has been a decrease in these types of crime, but it does indicate that there are fewer staffers and a smaller budget in the white-collar crime division of the Justice Department (National Law Review, 2015). Without the necessary resources, the government cannot take the steps that are required to investigate and prosecute these types of crimes.

Merton's structural strain theory

To the functionalist perspective, Robert Merton contributed a theory called structural strain theory*. Structural strain theory describes what occurs when people cannot reach socially accepted goals through legitimate means. According to Merton (1968), structural strain leads to deviance and crime. Merton (1968) argued that pressure builds as people desire socially sanctioned goals that they simply can't achieve. He came to social strain theory by noticing that in America, there is a strong emphasis on economic success, but also a powerful, unacknowledged inequality of opportunity based on class. In the United States, a collective goal is economic success—the American dream—and the legitimate means to achieve economic success is through education and jobs. However, when there aren't enough jobs available, or when education fails students, whole communities are subject to social strain. Some people within these communities turn to deviant means, such as selling drugs, in order to make money to achieve the American dream. Merton argued that with too much disjunction between goals and available means, a society could end up with too much deviance. Merton believed that pursuing socially-sanctioned goals through illegitimate means was only one possible response to social strain. He identified four other kinds of responses that occur when society does not adequately align goals with socially approved means. He developed the five-part typology of deviance (Merton, 1968). First, the absence of deviance: conformity* is the reaction of adopting the broader cultural goals of success and accessing the legitimate means to achieve the goal or goals. A second response in which someone fails to achieve goals, or gives up on them, but still holds onto the socially-acceptable means, is called ritualism*. In this case, a person might give up on financial success, but still attempt to abide by the conventional means of success, having a legitimate job, in order to feel accepted in society. A third response to the gap between means and goals is retreatism*, or "dropping out," where a person rejects both the cultural goals and the conventional means of achieving them. Drug addicts and alcoholics can fit here, along with 'drop-outs,' people who simply reject the conventional trappings of success and the means of achieving it. Innovation* occurs when people accept society's goals but adopt alternative (disapproved) means of achieving them. For instance, someone might try to make money by selling drugs or by stealing. Finally, rebellion* is the decision to reject not only the conventional means but also the conventional goals. Such a person might join a counterculture, such as a gang, whose members value power rather than money, and who achieve power through criminal means. In its attention to larger social dynamics, Merton's typology extends the functionalist perspective. Merton was interested in what social conditions lead to greater rates of deviance and the varying responses to those conditions. Conformity, ritualism, retreatism, innovation, and rebellion give us a fuller picture of a range of responses to the social forces people are subject to (1968).

symbolic interactionalists perspective on deviance

Unlike the functionalist and conflict approaches, which focus on society at the macro level, the symbolic interactionist perspective studies the relationships between people at the micro-level as "interactions." Discussed below are two of the insights symbolic interactionism has contributed to the sociological study of deviance.

what is victimless crime

Victimless crime*, is, as the name suggests, a crime where there is no obvious "victim." This type of crime includes: Prostitution Gambling Illegal drug use Public drunkenness Vagrancy Crimes in this category are generally acts that many in society see as immoral. This category is a complex one, raising a number of issues. Those who support decriminalizing these actions argue that the state should respect citizens' liberty—victimless crimes are generally acts among consenting adults. They favor other methods, such as education and outreach, over use of the law to discourage this behavior. Advocates of decriminalization also believe that state resources could be better used to prevent violent crimes (Puls, 1975). Another criticism from the conflict perspective is that the criminalization of these acts disproportionately penalizes the lower strata of society; it is the prostitute, rather than the man soliciting sex, who is most likely to be charged with a crime. People who are rich are less likely to be drunk in public or to commit the "crime" of not having a home (public vagrancy). Opponents of decriminalization, on the other hand, believe these deviant behaviors damage society at large, and the crimes are often not "victimless" at all. If a young man has to steal in order to support his drug abuse habit, then he is harming himself, as well as whomever he stole from. Another argument against decriminalization of victimless crimes is that by not legislating these actions, the state would be giving approval to members of society to conduct themselves in harmful ways, such as demeaning women through prostitution (Flavin, 1998). Finally, the largest group in the prison population is drug offenders, so those who are concerned about the number of incarcerated people in the United States, often focus on reforms to this particular victimless crime.

what is violent crime

Violent crimes* involve direct violence or the threat of violence against another person. These offenses are usually what most people think of when they think of crime, since murder, assault, rape, and robbery all fall under this category. It is important to note that these numbers probably only represent about half of the violent crimes committed each year since many go unreported. The U.S. Census Bureau conducts research each year through the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). A sample of households are interviewed twice in a year to compile data about the frequency of crime and characteristics of perpetrators and victims, and these numbers show that incidents of reported crime are much lower than the actual number of crimes that occur each year (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2013). In 2012, the NCVS found that only approximately 44 percent of violent victimizations were actually reported to the police, and those who did not report the crime cited a variety of reasons, such as fear of reprisal or the belief that the police could not do anything to help (U.S. Department of Justice, 2013). The 1990s experienced a sharp drop in violent crime, after a surge in the 1980s. Sociologists are not completely in agreement about why this is. The booming economy of the 1990s might account for a decrease in criminal activity because more employment opportunities meant people who might have otherwise turned to crime had legitimate outlets for making money. Another possible explanation could be through social factors, such as the declining market for and increased stigmatization of crack cocaine since the drug was linked to homicide and robbery (Butterfield, 1998). Violent crime rates have been in a slight decline in recent years as well. Federal Bureau of Investigation data shows that this trend is on track to continue (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2014). Property crimeVictimless crimeWhite-collar crimeHate crimesOrganized crime

deviance and crime

We all probably recognize certain behaviors that we define as deviant, or varying from social norms. The definition of deviance depends mostly on the group who is judging the behavior. Some sociological theories argue that deviance is necessary to maintain stability in society, while others say that the definition of what is deviant is created solely by those who hold power in a society in an effort to maintain their own control. Still others believe that the most important point in studying deviance is how we label others and internalize the labels put upon ourselves. Deviance shifts across space and time. Behaviors once classified as deviant might not be so anymore, and vice versa. One city or state or country might label a behavior deviant that is not labeled so elsewhere. Sociologists hesitate to define any one type of behavior as deviant, because of its shifting definition and meaning. The medicalization of deviant behavior is a good example of changing attitudes about deviance. People with mental illnesses were once considered outsiders in their community, but progress has been made in understanding these illnesses and treating them as medical problems, rather than as behavioral issues. Criminal behavior is one very visible type of deviance that is present in all societies, but it is necessary to remember that not all deviant behaviors are crimes, and not all crimes are necessarily considered deviant. In some social circles, for example, smoking marijuana would not be considered deviant, even if it is illegal in the state. Deviance is a central category for certain behaviors in a culture--and even for certain people. Sociologists are interested in deviance because it can tell them a lot about the values of a culture and how those values are enforced.

intro

What seven-year-old boy doesn't dream about taking the family car out for a spin? It's a totally normal, childhood fantasy in our automobile-obsessed culture, right? Most of us don't actually get to act out that fantasy, of course, and that's certainly a good thing for highway safety. But every now and then some little kid does slip behind the wheel—and what happens next can say a lot about our society and how it deals with unacceptable behavior, or what sociologists call deviance*. Lisa Wade studied side-by-side the cases of Preston Scarborough and Latarian Milton, two kids who lived that fantasy. Back in 2009, Preston Scarborough, a seven-year-old from Utah, swiped the keys to the family sedan and drove for several miles before the police caught up with him. He got a stern talking-to from his parents and had to go for four days without video games. However, his parents' reactions were mostly indulgent: his father called the incident "funny" and described Preston as a "cotton-candy, all-American kid" (DeGeneres, 2012). Preston and family wound up chatting with Meredith Vieira on the Today show and with Ellen DeGeneres on her syndicated talk show. Wade compared Preston's treatment to Latarian Milton's when he grabbed the keys to his grandmother's SUV and took it for a spin a year earlier. Once police caught up with Latarian, a Black seven-year-old, a few miles down the road, his grandmother said she wanted to "whip his behind" and police said they planned to press charges "to get him into the system, so that they can get him some kind of help" (Wade, 2013). Latarian, for his part, observed that "it's fun to do bad things" and referred to himself as a "hoodrat" (WPBF 25 News, 2008). Rather than the Today show and Ellen, he was invited to appear before Judge Judy and was parodied on the animated series The Boondocks. These two incidents, involving essentially identical behaviors, triggered reactions that were as different as black and white. From a sociological standpoint, the way people react to behavior helps define whether it is deviant—that is, a behavior that violates social norms*. As Howard Becker (1963) noted, deviance is "not a quality of a bad person but the result of someone defining someone's activity as bad." By that definition, which seven-year-old kid was deviant—Preston or Latarian? Both Preston and Latarian did the same thing, and the police caught both. But the reaction to Preston's joyride was essentially positive, a sort of "what a crazy kid" vibe, coupled with genuine relief that no one had gotten hurt. Once Preston was back with his parents, the police bowed out of the picture. By contrast, the reaction to Latarian's behavior was starkly negative: his grandmother's anger, the police's decision to press charges, the insinuation that Latarian was a bad kid who needed help, the merciless pillorying he took on social media after the TV coverage of his joyride went viral. Clearly, Latarian's behavior—though no different from Preston's—was deviant, because of the way society reacted to it. As Howard Becker might say, society defined Latarian's behavior as bad but not Preston's. Unfortunately, this differential treatment is well documented in the juvenile criminal justice system, in which African-American youth are more likely to be arrested than White youth and to receive harsher punishment (Rosich, 2007). Becker was a pioneer in advancing labeling theory*, which holds that people tend to fulfill the predictions others make about them. Strongly negative labels, or stigmas*, cause people to be shunned as outsiders; people may, in turn, internalize these negative labels and act accordingly, leading to more deviant behavior. Some people work very hard to avoid adopting the label as part of their identities, but resisting or fighting against a label is extremely difficult. Labels placed on us by others in our society are very powerful and oftentimes virtually impossible to shake by the person who has been labeled as such. But either way, the deviant label itself changes people—it forces them to define themselves in reaction to label about their identity. Let's apply those ideas to the Case of the Joyriding Seven-Year-Old. Latarian certainly didn't reject the deviant label: he said he enjoyed doing bad things. And, at least in the short term, he seemed to have internalized the label and was displaying more deviant behavior, because just two weeks after the SUV incident, he assaulted his grandmother at a local Wal-Mart because she refused to buy him some chicken wings. Authorities took him to a nearby hospital for psychiatric evaluation, and he seemed well on his way to becoming an outsider. Seven years later, Latarian seems to be fighting back against the deviant label. He has not had any scrapes with the law, and he recently graduated from middle school (Complex, 2015). He's looking forward to playing football in high school and college and hopes that someday he might play in the NFL. But the only reason we know all that about Latarian, and the only reason that his graduation from middle school made the evening news and then YouTube, is because he was once labeled, very publicly, as deviant. That's the essence of labeling theory: whether you accept the label or fight against it, it comes to define who you are.

victims and gender

When we look at gender in relation to victims of violent crime, there is also a gap between men and women. Although men are the victims of more violent crimes overall, women are more often the victims of partner-on-partner violence, and women are killed by their partners at twice the rate of males (Catalano, Smith, Snyder, & Rand, 2009; Truman, Langton, & Planty, 2013). Black women also historically experience this kind of violence at higher rates than White women (Catalano, Smith, Snyder, & Rand, 2009). The sociological perspective helps us to understand gender differences in crime, based on the type of crime being committed and the gender of the perpetrator and the victim.

violent crime

a crime in which violence is used or threatened

victimless crime

a crime that involves only the perpetrator or two consenting adults, such as the consumption of illegal drugs or prostitution

hate crime

a crime that is motivated by biases based on characteristics of the victim such as race, gender, gender identity, religion, disability, sexual orientation, and ethnicity

property crime

a crime to obtain money, property, or some other material benefit

master status

a special status that more completely defines a person than the other statuses he or she has

corporate crimes

a type of crime that involves executives violating laws in order to benefit there corporation

deviance

actions, behaviors, traits, and characteristics that violate socially accepted standards and norms

status set

all of the statuses one person has at a given time

Voluntary

also called normative organizations, are organizations that a person willingly joins because they align with his or her interests or beliefs. Examples include sports organizations, clubs, volunteer work, or activism. In some cases, an individual may join because he or she feels a strong sense of obligation to, even though it is not required, such as a religious organization (Etzioni, 1975). Improv Everywhere Improv Everywhere touts itself as "a New York City-based prank collective that causes scenes of chaos and joy in public places." The group was created in 2001 by Charlie Todd. Participants, called "agents," respond to the organizers' requests to attend events with specifications on how to dress and act. The group operates entirely for fun, and videos of their pranks have consistently gone viral throughout the internet.

cohabitation

an arrangement in which two people living together are engaged in an intimate relationship but are not married

organized crime

an enterprise run by individuals who engage in illegal activity, usually for money or profit, that often involves the sale of illegal goods and services

prejudice

an evaluation and unjustifiable attitude towards a group and its members

status

an individuals position in a group or society defined by certain associated benefits and responsibilities

discriminations

an intentional or unintentional act which adversely affects a person or group's opportunities because of race, color, religion, sex, disability, marital status, national origin. age or other factors

The sociological explanations for crime and incarceration differ from the psychological or biological, which see the source of criminality in the mind or body of the individual criminal. Different strands of sociology have come to understand the criminal justice system in somewhat different ways, but all examine its role in society. Below are the three major perspectives:

functionalist, conflict, symbolic interaction

social bonding theory

holds that social control depends on people anticipating the consequences of deviant behavior

innovation

in Merton's structural strain theory, when people accept society's goals but adopt alternative (disapproved) means of achieving those goals; in globalization, the process by which an organization generates new ideas and converts them into new products, business practices and strategies that create shareholder value

white-collar crimes

non-violent crime often committed by business professionals or someone of high school status who is motivated by financial gain

white-collar crime

non-violent crime often committed by business professionals or someone of high social status who is motivated by financial gain

secondary groups

people with whom an individual shares a functional relationship; the length of interaction is typically shorter and oriented around a common task

social control

society's attempt to regulate and govern social behaviors, which can be formal or informal needs

medicalization

the process by which certain human attitudes and behaviors are redefined as medical conditions, and therefore treated as a disease or illness

conformity

the process of maintaining or changing behaviors to comply with the norms established by a society, subculture, or other group; in Merton's structural strain theory, the response of structural strain of pursuing socially approved goals by legitamate means

ritualism

the response to social strain of giving up on or rejection the socially approved goal, but sticking with the legitimate means to achieve that goal

retreatism

the response to social strain of rejecting both the socially approved goal and the legitimate means to achieve it

rebellion

the response to social strain of rejecting both the socially prompted goal and the legitimate means to attain it, while substituting new goals and means

ethnocentrism

the tendency to believe that ones ethnic group or culture is superior

role strain

the tension among the role expectations associated with one strain

goal displacement

the the mean used to achieve a goal becomes more important than the goal itself

labeling theory

the theory that how people are labeled or identified will influence the self-identification and behavior of the people labeled

structural strain theory

the typology of responses to a mismatch between socially-prompted goals and access to legitimate means for achieving this goal

social loafing

when members of a group exert less effort on a common task than when working individually