1. Deviance, Crime and Social Control
Chapter 7
Deviance, Crime and Social Control

2. Social Control
Attempts by society to regulate people’s thought and behavior.
Conformity – going along with peers
Obedience – compliance with higher authorities in a hierarchical structure

3. Informal and Formal Social Control
Informal social control: Used casually to enforce norms
Smiles, laughter, raised eyebrows, ridicule
Formal social control: Carried out by authorized agents
Informal social control can undermine formal social control, encouraging people to violate social norms

4. Sanctions
Penalties and rewards for conduct concerning a social norm

5. Deviance
Recognized violation of cultural norms.

6. Social Foundation of Deviance
Deviance varies according to cultural norms.
People become deviant as others define them that way.
Both norms and the way people define them involve social power.

7. Durkheim’s 4 Functions Deviance affirms cultural values and norms.
Responding to deviance clarifies moral boundaries.
Responding to deviance brings people together.
Deviance encourages social change.

8. Crime violation of society’s formally enacted criminal law
criminal justice system – a formal response by police, courts, and prison officials to alleged violations of the law

9. 5 criticisms of the criminal justice system
Tendency of police to arrest suspects from minority groups at substantially higher rates than those from the majority group in situations where discretion is possible.
The overrepresentation of certain dominant social, ethnic, and racial groups on juries.
The difficulty the poor encounter in affording bail.
The poor quality of free legal defense.
The disparity in sentencing for members of dominant and minority groups.

10. Merton’s Anomie Theory
The strain between our culture’s emphasis on wealth and the limited opportunity to get rich gives rise to crime and other forms of deviance.

11. Merton’s Modes of Individual Adaptation

12. Labeling Theory
Deviance and conformity result, not so much from what people do, as from how others respond to those actions.
Primary deviance – passing episodes of norm violation
Secondary deviance – repeated violation of norm. Takes on a deviant identity.
Stigma – a powerfully negative social label that changes a person’s self-concept and social identity, operating as a master status.

13. Differential Association
Deviance is learned in groups
Exposure to attitudes favorable to criminal acts leads to a violation of the rules.

14. Routine Activities Theory
In order to have crime you must have motivated offenders and suitable targets.

15. Social disorganization theory
Increases in crime and deviance can be attributed to the absence or breakdown of communal relationships and social institutions.

16. Control Theory
Social control depends on imagining the consequences of one’s behavior

17. FBI Index of Crime
8 types of crimes that are tabulated each year by the FBI
Murder, rape, assault, robbery, theft, grand motor theft, arson, and burglary.

18. Table 4-4: National Crime Rate and Percentage Change

19. Figure 4–2 Victimization Rates, 1973–2007

20. Types of crime
Organized crime – a business supplying illegal goods or services.
Professional crime – pursues crime as a day –to-day occupation
Corporate crime – the illegal actions of a corporation or those acting on its behalf
White collar crime – crimes committed by persons of high social position in the course of their occupations.
Hate crimes – a criminal act against a person or a person’s property motivated by bias.

21. Types of Crimes
Transnational crime – crime that occurs across multiple national borders
Crimes against the person – direct violence or the threat of violence against others.
Crimes against property – involve theft of property belonging to others.
Victimless crimes – violations of law in which there are no readily apparent victims.

22. 4 reasons to punish
Deterrence – attempt to discourage criminality through punishment.
Societal protection – rendering an offender incapable of further offenses.

23. 4 reasons to punish
Rehabilitation – reforming the offender to prevent subsequent offenses.
Retribution – an act of moral vengeance by which society subjects an offender to suffering comparable to that caused by the offense.

24. Figure 25-3: Executions by State since 1976
Source: Death Penalty Information Center 2011. 24