Chapter 8 Devienace and Social Control

CHAPTER 8: deviance and social control Deviance and Social Control  Defining Deviance  The Role of Deviance Within Social Structures  Explaining Deviance  Culture and Deviance: Deviant Bodies  Power and Deviance  Social Control and Deviance  Crime and Punishment  In Transition: Deviance as a Marketable Product  Through a Sociological Lens: When Deviance Is Inherited: Genetic Explanations and Stigma  Sociology Works: Donna Gaines and the World of Punk Music  Sociology Matters: Women’s Prison Association Defining Deviance  Deviance and Social Context  Durkheim: the collective conscience  Deviance: behavior that does not conform to basic cultural norms and expectations  collective conscience: the shared norms, beliefs, and values in a community  Labeling Theory: Defining Deviant Behavior  A behavior is defined as deviant when it is marked publicly as deviant by those with enough power to enforce that designation.  Erickson: “Deviance is not a property inherent in any particular kind of behavior; it is a property conferred upon that behavior” (1966).  The Effects of Deviant Labels  Stigma: the shame attached to a behavior or status that is considered socially unacceptable or discrediting  Secondary deviance  deviant behavior that is a response to the negative consequences of labeling  Labeling as a self-fulfilling prophecy The Role of Deviance Within Social Structures  Durkheim: Deviance can be functional, playing a positive social role.  Defining Group Boundaries  Creating Social Solidarity  Providing a Source of Innovation Explaining Deviance  Deviance as Immorality  Concept does little to help us identify the social conditions that produce deviance or understand the ways people respond to deviance  Deviance as Illness: Medicalization  Treating a deviant behavior as a disorder can alter the stigma associated with it.  Five key stages in the medicalization of deviance:  Behavior or activity is defined as deviant  Medical conception of this deviant behavior is “discovered”  Organized interests advance claims for medical designation for the behavior  Those who advance medical claims appeal to government to legitimize the medical definition  Medical definition is institutionalized and accepted, medically and legally  Deviance as Rational Choice  Deviance and Socialization: Differential Association Theory  Deviant Subcultures: a group in which membership is based on a shared commitment to specific nonconformist beliefs or behaviors  Loner Deviance: the activities of individuals who commit deviant acts without the social support of other participants  Deviance and Structure: Merton’s Strain Theory  Innovation: socially unacceptable routes to success  Ritualism: going through the motions while rejecting culturally-valued goals  Retreatism: isolation and withdrawal when without access to the means of success and rejecting goals  Rebellion: creation of new goals and adoption of new means of attaining them Culture and Deviance: Deviant Bodies  Body Weight  Altering Bodies  Rethinking the Disabled Body overconformity following cultural expectations to an excessive degree positive deviance overconformity that gets a positive response Power and Deviance  Power is connected to our basic assumptions about what’s normal and what’s deviant.  Power determines whether and how authorities enforce norms and punish deviance.  Access to power enables some privileged groups to engage in distinct forms of deviant behavior.  Power allows some people to escape being branded or punished as deviant. Social Control and Deviance  Internal Influences: Socialization  External Influences: Control Theory  Agents of socialization are also agents of social control.  social control  the incentives and punishments that promote conformity in social life  agents of social control  the social institutions that enforce norms and rules, attempt to prevent rule violations, and identify and punish rule violators Crime and Punishment  Types of Crime  Street crime: violent crime and property crime  Public order crimes  Crime Rates: a measure of the incidence of crime in relation to population size  Decriminalization: the process of making an illegal action legal  Debates About Punishment  Five competing rationales:  Retribution  Rehabilitation  Deterrence  Protection  Restoration Capital Punishment: The death penalty In Transition Deviance as a Marketable Product  The commercialization of deviance—the process by which nonconformist activities or styles turn into commercial products— often creates dilemmas for agents of social control. Sociology Matters: Women’s Prison Association 1. What do you think policymakers could learn from listening to the perspectives of incarcerated women? 2. What kinds of support services do you think would be most helpful to women when they are released from prison?