Deviance

Friday, August 12, 2022 10:10 AM

First Topic for the 2nd Major Sociology Exam

• DEVIANCE- an act or behavior that violates a social norm.
• Deviant- a person that commits the violations of social norms.
• Social Norms = Social Group
• Norm Violence = Deviance
• Sociologists point out that:
1. Deviance is relative, meaning it is different in every culture.
2. It depends in every individual if they view the specific act as deviant or not, (subjective?)
3. Deviant can be distinguish or define through their social power.
• Types of Deviant Activities
○ 1. Informal deviance- it refers to minor violations such as picking one’s nose, eye to eye contact.
○ 2. Formal Deviance- refers to major violations that involves authorities in handling the punishments. One example is crime - an act that violate criminal law.
• Types of Crime- V(2)WHOP
○ 1. Violent crime- a crime that is a direct crime, ex. Murder and rape.
○ 2. Victimless crime- a crime that is no obvious victim but only the one who commits the crime itself, ex. Suicide, pornography, drug abuse and gam bling.
○ 3. White-collar crime- a crime that is committed by an authorized or respectable individual, ex. Corruption, bribing, price fixing, environmental po llution.
○ 4. Hate crime- it is a type of crime that is against a person’s property based on its race, religion, ethnicity or any personal biases, ex. Physical assault, bombing the church and
harassment.
○ 5. Organized crime- it is a crime that is committed by an organization a criminal enterprise involved in illegal activities, ex. Mafia, underworl d activities, terrorism,
Cybercrime, force labor.
○ 6. Property crime- a crime that involved theft of property belonging to other, ex. Copyright infringement, stealing, arson, vandalism, conspirac y. In Hate crime we have this so
called
○ Criminal Recidivism- a later offense committed by people who are convicted before. We also have this special type of criminal act and that is
○ Juvenile Delinquency- a crime committed by young people or juvenile
• Note: All CRIMINALS are DEVIANT but not all DEVIANT are CRIMINALS.
• Social Control- refers to various techniques or strategies for preventing deviant behavior in any
society.
• Types of Social Control-
○ 1. Informal Social Control- carried out by ordinary people through, smiles, laughing and so on.
○ 2. Formal Social Control- carried out by an authorized agents.
• Criminal Justice System- formal response by police, courts, and prison officials to alleged violation of the law.
• Plea Bargaining- a legal negotiation in which a prosecutor reduces the charge of a criminal because of the defendants guilty plea.
• Justifications for Punishment:
○ Deterrence- the attempt to discourage criminality using a punishment.
○ Rehabilitation- a program of reforming the offender to prevent later offense.
○ Retribution- A vengeance in which the society makes the offender suffer the punishment as much as the suffering caused by the crimes.
○ Societal Protection- rendering an offender incapable of further offenses temporarily through imprisonment or permanently by execution.
• Explanation on Deviance in 4 Different Fields
○ Biological theories- in biological perspective, it explains that a person commits a crime depending on its genetic predisposition.
○ William Sheldon- a biologist that study body types to determine why a certain person committed a crime. More likely, he observed the physical appearance of a human in
determining the said reason.
○ Psychological Approach- this approach focuses the abnormalities in personalities of an individual.
○ "To summarize the two perspective, it only focuses on individual, its personal characteristics."
○ Demonic Theory- this theory explains that a certain person committed crime because they are possessed by an evil.
○ Sociological Perspective- which tends to focus on societal factors on why an individual committed a crime.
▪ Functionalist Perspective
(Emile Durkheim)- explained that deviance is functional to society for it contributes social order such as the following:
1. Deviance Clarifies rules
2. Deviance brings people together
3. Deviance promotes social change.
(Robert Merton's strain theory)- this explains or define deviance in terms of society's cultural goals and the means available to achieve them.
Types of Deviance and the Means of Individual Adaptation
1. Innovative Deviance- occurs when people accept society's goal but adopt disapproved means for achieving them.
2. Ritualistic Deviance- occurs when people give up on societal goals but still adhere to the socially approved means for achieving them.
3. Retreatism- occurs when people abandon both the approved goals and the means of achieving them.
4. Rebellion- occurs when people challenge both the approved goals and the approved means for achieving them and advocates alternative goal s or means.
5. Conformist- when an individual accepts the goals and means.
Cultural Goals Institutional Means
+ + Conformists
+ - Innovators
- + Ritualistic
- - Retreatist
+/- +/- Rebels
" Deviants lacks approved means, fall into state of anomie, use deviant means."
▪ Interactionist Perspective or Symbolic Interaction Perspective
□ Cultural transmission theory- from the word transmission, this view explains that people learned deviant or criminal behavior through their interaction wit h
others. "Its not that we are born wild, we learn to be wild".
To support this theory, various sociologist made more theories to support this.
1. Edwin Sutherland's Differential association theory - the proposition that exposure to attitudes favorable to deviance or criminal acts leads to the violation
of rules. This theory focuses on the key variables involved learning.
i) Age of the learner
ii) Intensity of the contact with deviant
iii) And ratio of contacts with deviant
2. Control Theory- a view of conformity and deviance that suggest our connection to members of society leads us to systematically conform to so ciety's norm.
Travis Hirschi's Social Bond Theory- this theory states that people break the law due to a breakdown in interpersonal social relationships. (in my own
understanding, this theory explains that people made deviant act because there are something wrong with their interaction or relationship with others).
4 elements of social control or social bond theory.
1. Attachment
2. Commitment
3. Involvement in conventional versus deviant or criminal activities
4. Belief
3. Gresham Sykes and David Matza's Neutralization Theory- The proposition that criminals rationalize actions by neutralizing the definitions of crime .
Techniques of Neutralizing Deviance:

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 Techniques of Neutralizing Deviance:
1. Denial of Responsibility
2. Denial of Injury
3. Denial of a victim
4. Condemnation of the condemners
5. And appeal to higher loyalty
4. Howard Becker's Labeling Theory or Societal- Reaction Approach- an idea that deviance result not so much from what people do but how others respond
to those actions. An approach reminding us that it is response to an act, not the act itself, that determines deviance.
LEVELS:
Primary Deviance- an initial act of norm violation.
- You itself doesn't consider it as deviance
- No one notice the act.
Secondary Deviance - repeated violation of norms.
Erving Goffman- coined the term stigma- to describe a powerful negative labels society uses to devalue members of certain social groups. A
label that greatly changes a person's self-concept and social identity.
Tertiary Deviance- this occurs when a person who has been labelled a deviant seeks to normalize the behavior by relabeling it as non-deviant.
▪ Conflict Perspective- points out that laws and other norms reflects the interest of the powerful.
□ Differential justice- differences in the way social control is exercised over different groups - putting others (minority groups) at a disadvantage in the justice system.
□ Richard Quinney- a leading proponent of the view that the criminal justice system serves the interests of the powerful.
• The Medicalization of Deviance- is the transformation of moral and legal deviance into a medical condition.
• Social Implications of Deviance- Functions and
○ Dysfunction- It is costly both economic and social, Some people become disillusioned with conformity and choose to become deviant themselv es, There are usually negative
consequences for the people who are regarded as deviant.

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