1. Conformity, deviance, and crime

2. What is deviance? It depends who you ask
It depends on when you define the term
Sociologists define it as “non-conformity to a given set of norms that are accepted by a significant number of people in a community or society.
Are there other definitions? Yes
Four models are used to clarify what deviance is.

3. Spiritual Model of Deviance
The source of deviant behavior is demonic possession or that the deviant behavior may be rooted in some spiritual imbalance.
This model was the earliest of the four and has more or less been replaced by the others.
It had a profound impact on how deviant behavior was viewed and how it was treated.

4. Social Standards Model
This model suggests that deviance is defined by society itself.
Depending on the society, the timing, and the situational demands on that society, some behaviors may or may not be considered deviant.
Examples of this controversial model are numerous and include some of the writings of Thomas Szasz, a noted American psychiatrist.

5. Statistical Model
This model suggests that deviance is defined by the relative infrequency of a particular behavior.
It is a model that modern psychology uses, especially behaviorally oriented theories, and looks at such things as base rates of particular symptoms or disorders.
It may be somewhat tricky to use this model to defined deviance but allows for relatively easy measurement of the deviant behavior.

6. Medical Model
This model is the most current and dominates the provision of care for the deviant.
The model suggests that deviance comes from pathological states. To treat the deviance one must treat the pathology.
It includes such terms as diagnosis, etiology, prognosis, and treatment.
While it sounds like this may be the most convincing approach to defining deviance it has many problems associated with it.

7. Other sociological models
Lombroso (1870’s) – the atavistic man
Suggested that criminals are “throwbacks to earlier periods in human development”
Sheldon (1940’s) – Body type
Ectomorph
Endomorph
Mesomorph

8. Social Pathology Model
The deviant or criminal person is a produce of “social sickness” or social disintegration.
This notion is all but discredited among professionals because it suggests no real theory of causality.

9. Cultural Conflict (Conflict Theory)
Cultural conflict creates opportunities for deviance and criminal gain in deviant subcultures (like prohibition creating opportunities for organized crime).
Marxian Theory suggests that capitalism produces poor and powerless masses who may resort to crime to survive. The rich employ their own agents to break laws and enhance their power and wealth.
However, crime still exists in societies that have sought to eliminate capitalism.

10. Interactionist Crime exists through differential association
Criminal careers result from recruitment into criminal groups based on association and interaction with criminals.
Difficult to explain deviant careers but explains how people get into groups.

11. Interactionist
Labeling suggests that deviance is created by groups that have the power to attach labels to others, making particular people as outsiders. It is difficult to she a label once it has been established and the labeled person tends to behave in the expected manner.

12. Functionalists
Functionalist believe that deviance is a natural part of society and it exists for a reason…it serves a function.
It develops because of structural tensions and a lack of moral regulations within the society.
If the aspirations held by individuals and groups in society do not coincide with the available rewards, this disparity between desires and fulfillment will be felt in the deviant motivations of some of its members.

13. Durkheim
Suggested that in modern societies traditional norms and standards become undermined without being replaced by new ones.
Anomie exists when there are no clear standards to guide behavior in a given area of social life.

14. Under these circumstances, people feel disoriented and anxious…anomie is therefore one of the social factors influencing dispositions to suicide.
Durkheim coined the idea of “social facts” and saw crime and deviance as inevitable and necessary elements in modern societies.
People are less constrained in the modern world. And, because there is more room for choice, it is inevitable that there will be some nonconformity.

15. Deviance fulfills two important functions:
No society will ever be in complete consensus about the norms and values that govern it.
Deviance fulfills two important functions:
Deviance has adaptive functions (it is an innovative force that makes society adapt and change)
It promotes boundary maintenance between “good” and “bad” promoting solidarity and clarifying social norms of behavior.

16. Merton
Also a functionalist, he believed that the source of crime was in the very fabric of American society.
He believed that there is strain or anomie placed on the individual when “accepted norms” conflict with “social reality”.
For example, in American society there is value placed on material success and the means for achieving success are self-discipline and hard work.

17. It is believed that if you just work hard enough that you will be successful. This “fact” however is not the reality because there are plenty of people who work hard and do not have the means or opportunity to advance.
This may create great pressure to get ahead by any means available.
Therefore, deviance is a by-product of economic inequalities.

18. Merton’s Modes of Adaptation
Cultural Goal
Institutional Means
Conformity +
Innovation -
Ritualism
Retreatism
Rebellion
+/-

19. Merton’s Modes of Adaptation Examples
The Poor
The Middle Class
The Rich
Conformity
The Working Poor
The Suburban Family
Wealthy civic leader
Innovation
The mugger
The embezzler
The stock manipulator
Ritualism
The chronic welfare recipient
The resigned bureaucrat
The hedonist
Retreatism
The wino or junkie
The skid row alcoholic
The bohemian
Rebellion
The bandit
The anarchist
The fascist

20. Control of Deviant Behavior
The ways in which society prevents deviance and punishes deviants are known as “social control”.
Police, prisons, and mental hospitals, etc. are responsible for applying social control.
Less threatening forms of deviance are controlled through everyday interactions of individuals.
Three dimensions, power, culture, and voluntary vs. involuntary behavior and the most important determinants of crime.

21. Stigma Is a personal attribute that is deeply discrediting.
While stigmatized individuals may deviate from societies norms they are not necessarily deviants.

22. Crime
Is usually defined as an act or the omission of an act for which the state can apply sanctions.
Which behaviors constitute crime and what degree of sanction is appropriate is questionable.

23. Crime Is there such thing as a “victimless” crime?
The most serious and frequently occuring crimes, called “index crimes” are reported in the FBI’s crime index.
Most crimes in this index are grossly underreported; may be 2 or 3 times higher.

24. Crime
Deviant behavior can be categorized in terms of the degree of consensus on whether they are deviant and on the appropriate degree of sanction to be applied.
As a culture’s values and norms change, so do its notions of what kinds of behaviors are deviant and how strongly they should be sanctioned.
Individuals may belong to subcultures in which a particular form of deviant behavior is practiced. While they may be deviant in terms of societies norms the behavior of its members is not considered deviant within the group.

25. Deviance in the US before the Civil War
Weak sanction
weak consensus
Killing native
Americans
Lynching African Americans
Prostitution
Wife or child beating
Weak sanction strong consensus
Political
Corruption
Corporate
Crime
Strong sanction weak consensus
Abortion
Indebtedness
Illegitimacy
Divorce
Adultery
Strong sanction strong consensus
Major
felonies
against
whites
Treason
Homosexuality

26. Deviance in the US more currently
Weak sanction
weak consensus
Recreational drug use
Homosexuality
Abortion
Weak sanction strong consensus
Schizophrenia
Driving under
the influence of
alcohol
Public
drunkenness
Corporate crime
Wife or child
beating
Strong sanction weak consensus
Sale of whiskey
during the
prohibition
Prostitution
Abortion before
1973
Strong sanction strong consensus
Major
felonies
Treason

27. Crime Rates

28. Incarceration Rates

29. Male Crime Rates – Urban vs. Rural

30. Crime Rates Committed by Men

31. Crime Rates in the US

32. Homicide Rates per 100,000 in 2003

33. Prison Population

34. Justice Employment and Crime Rate