SO 121 - Chapter 7: Deviance

Deviance

The recognized violation of cultural norms

Crime

The violation of a society's formally enacted criminal law

Social control

Attempts by society to regulate people's thoughts and behaviour

Criminal Justice System

- The organizations that respond to alleged violations of the law
- Police, courts, prison officials

Biological context of deviance - Cesare Lombroso

- Criminals stand out physically
- Low foreheads, prominent jaws + cheekbones, hariness, long arms

Biological context of deviance - William Sheldon

- General body structure might predict criminality
- Boys with muscular and athletic builds

Biological context of deviance - Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck

- Muscular build doesn't cause/predict criminality
- Parents are distant from large sons -> sons may become emotionally insensitive

Biological context of deviance - today's reseach

- Genes + environmental factors = strong predictors of adult crime or violence
- These factors TOGETHER, rather than alone

Personality factors of deviance

Today's research suggests that kids with low levels of self-control, frustration tolerance, and delay of gratification are more likely to get into trouble/criminal activity

Social foundations of deviance

1. Deviance varies according to cultural norms
- Thoughts and actions become deviant in response to particular norms
2. People become deviant as others define them that way
- If behaviour is perceived as deviant, it depends on how others perceive, define, and respond to it
3. How societies set norms and define rule breaking both involve social power

Structural-functional analysis of deviance (Durkheim)

1. Responding to deviance clarifies moral boundaries
2. Deviance affirms cultural values and norms
3. Responding to deviance brings people together
4. Deviance encourages social change

Merton's strain theory

- Society can be set up in a way that encourages deviance
- The extent and type of deviance people engage in depends on if a society provides the means to achieve cultural goals

Conformity

- Pursuing cultural goals through approved means
- The strain b/w emphasis on wealth and lack of opportunities to do so can lead to street crime, especially among the poor

Innovation

Using unconventional means (street crime) rather than conventional means (job) to achieve a culturally approved goal (wealth)

Ritualism

People may not care much about the goal but stick to means/conventional means so they feel respectable

Retreatism

- Rejecting both cultural goals and conventional means
- "dropping out"

Rebellion

Reject both cultural goals and conventional means, AND form a counterculture against them

Deviant subcultures

- Deviance or conformity arises from the relative opportunity structure that frames a person's life
- When the structure of opportunity favours criminal activity, the development of criminal subcultures is likely to occur

Conflict subcultures

-Form when there is no opportunity
- Violent street gangs

Retreatist subcultures

- Form when there is no opportunity
- Deviants drop out and abuse alcohol and other drugs

Albert Cohen

- Delinquency is more common among lower-class youths because they have the least opportunity to achieve conventional success

Characteristics of deviant subcultures

- Trouble
- Toughness
- Smartness
- Need for excitement
- Belief in fate
- Desire for freedom

Elijah Anderson

- In poor urban neighbourhoods, people conform to "decent" values
- When faced with violence + crime -> live by street-code

Labelling Theory

- The idea that deviance and conformity result mostly from how others respond to those actions
- People may define the same behaviour in many ways
- People have a tendency to treat behaviour that irritates or threaten them as deviance or mental illness

Primary deviance

Norm violations that provoke slight reactions from others and have little effect on a person's self-concept

Secondary deviance

When a person employs deviant behaviour as a means of defense, attack, or adjustment to the consqeuences created by social reaction

Stigma

- A powerfully negative label that greatly changes a person's self-concept and social identity
- Can operate as a master status

Degradation ceremony

An entire community formally stigmatizes an individual (ex. a criminal trial)

Retrospective labelling

Interpreting someone's past in light of some present deviance

Projective labelling

Using someone's deviant identity to predict future actions

The difference labels make

- Who responds to deviance
- How people respond deviance
- Personal competence of the deviant person

Sutherland's Differential Association Theory

A person's tendency toward conformity or deviance depends on the amount of contact with others who encourage or reject conventional behaviour

Hirschi's Control Theory

Control depends on people anticipating the consequences of their behaviour

4 types of social control linked to conformity (Hirschi)

1. Attachment
2. Opportunity
3. Involvement
4. Belief in conventional morality

Deviance and power

- All norms generally reflect the interests of the rich and powerful
- The powerful have resources to resist deviant labels
- The widespread belief that norms and laws are natural and good masks political behaviour

Deviance and capitalism

1. Capitalism is based on private control of property, so people who threaten property of others are labelled deviant
2. Capitalism depends on productive labour, so people who can't/won't work are deviant
3. Capitalism depends on respect for authority figures
4. People who challenge capitalist status quo are deivant

White-collar crime

- Crime committed by people of high social positions in the course of their occupations
- bank embezzlement, business fraud, bribery, antitrust violations
- Usually escape punishment

Corporate crime

- The illegal actions of a corportation or people acting on its behalf
- Can be financial, safety, or environmental

Organized crime

- A business supplying illegal goods or services
- Ex. selling illegal drugs, sex trafficking, credit card fraud, selling false ID papers

Hate crimes

- A criminal act against a person or person's property by an offender motivated by racial or ethnic bias
- Can also be religiously motivated or motivated by sexual orientation

Deviance and gender

- Men often escape responsibility for actions that victimize women
- Cultural goals tend to have more to do with the lives of men

Types of crime

- Crimes against the person (violent crimes)
- Crimes against property (property crimes)
- Victimless crimes (crimes without complaint)

Crimes against the person

- Crimes that direct violence or the threat of violence against others
- Ex. murder, manslaughter, aggravated assault, sexual assault, robbery

Crimes against property

- Crimes that involve theft of property belonging to others
- Ex. Burglary, larceny-theft, auto theft, arson

Victimless crimes

- Violations of the law with no obvious victims
- Usually not completely victimless
- Ex. illegal drug use, prostitution, gambling

Street criminal profile: age

- Criminal offences peak at 17
- specific rates higher on young adults (18-24)

Street criminal profile: gender

- Police charge more males than females
- Law enforcement is hesitant to define women as criminals

street criminal profile: social class

- Street crime is more widespread among people of lower social position
- White-collar crime is more widespread among the wealthy
- Offenders from higher class backgrounds spend less time in prison

street criminal profile: race and ethnicity

- Police are more likely to arrest/charge Indigenous and Black people
- Crimes committed by visible minorities are over-emphasized
- Use of encoded terms ("illegal immigrants" "terrorists")

Fundamental justice

- Criminal justice system must guarantee procedural fairness and operate according to the law
- Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

Anyone charged must recieve:

1. Fair notice of legal proceedings
2. Opportunity to present a defence during a hearing of the charges
3. An impartial judge and jury

Police

- Primary point of contact b/w a society's population and criminal justice system
- Use considerable personal judgement

Common police personal judgements

- The more serious the situation, the more likely to make an arrest
- Police take victim's wishes into account
- Odds of arrest increase if a suspect isn't cooperative
- Presence of observers increases chance of arrest
- police are more likely to arrest someone they've arrested before
- Police are more likely to arrest Black and Indigenous people

Plea bargaining

- A legal negotiation in which a prosecutor reduces a charge in exchange for a defendant's guilty plea
- Spares the system time and expenses
- Can pressure defendants

Retribution

An act of moral vengeance by which society makes the offender suffer as much as suffering caused by the crime
- "an eye for an eye"

Deterrence

Attempt to discourage criminality through the use of punishment

Specific deterrence

Used to convince an individual that crime does not pay

General detereence

Punishment of one person serves as an example for others

Rehabilitation

A program for reforming the offender to prevent later offences

Societal protection

Rendering an offender incapable of further offences temporarily by imprisonment or permanently by execution

The death penalty

- Research suggests it has limited value as a deterrent
- As public concern increases, usage decreases
- Judges and prosecutors less likely to call for it because it is often applied unjustly, offenders can be sentenced to life with no parole, and capital cases are costly

Community-based corrections

Correctional programs operating within society rather than behind prison walls

Benefits of community-based corrections

1. Reduce costs
2. Reduce prison overcrowding
3. Allows for supervision of convicts wile eliminating hardship of prison life

Probation

- A convicted offender remains in the community under conditions imposed by court
- Regular supervision

Parole

- Releasing inmates to serve the rest of their sentence in the local community under supervision of a parole officer
- If conditions are not obeyed, offender is sent back to prison

Sentencing circles

- Available for Indigenous offenders
- Offender, victim, elders, and community members work through a process of remedying harm done and preventing it from happening again