Chapter 7: Deviance, Crime, and Social Control

Deviance

Behavior that violates the standards of conduct or expectations of a group or society.

Stigma

Coined by Goffman, it is the labels society uses to devalue members of certain social groups.

Social Control

The techniques and strategies for preventing deviant behavior in any society.

Sanctions

Penalties and rewards to certain behaviors.

Conformity

Coined by Stanley Milgram, it refers to going along with peers, those who have no special right to influence our behavior.

Obedience

Compliance with higher authorities in a hierarchal structure.

Jerry Burger

A psychologist that repeated the obedience experiments with college undergraduates and found very similar results of compliance.

Informal Social Control

Regulation of social norms through casual enforcement.

Examples of Informal Social Control

Smiles, laughter, a raised eyebrow, and ridicule. Can also involve physical discipline of a child from a parent like spanking.

Formal Social Control

Regulation of social norms through authorized agents, serving as a last resort when socialization and informal sanctions are ineffective.

Examples of Formal Social Control

Death penalty, higher national security, and solitary confinement.

Law

Governmental social control.

Control Theory

Our connection to members of society leads to systematically conform to society’s norms.

Anomie Theory of Deviance

Proposed by Robert Merton, it explains how people adapt in certain ways by either conforming or devoting, in which he includes five types of behavior.

Retreatist

Withdrawing from both goals and the means of society (drug addict).

Innovator

One who accepts the goals of society but pursues them through improper means.

Ritualist

One who abandons the goal of materialism in favor of being committed to the institutional means (bureaucrat that blindly follows rules).

Rebel

One who feels alienated from the dominant goals and behaviors and seeks an alternative route for a different social order (militia groups).

Edwin Sutherland

A sociologist that advanced the idea that an individual undergoes the same basic socialization process in learning conforming and deviant acts.

Cultural Transmission

An idea that Sutherland drew on which suggests that one learns criminal behavior by interacting with others, including the motivations, drives, and rationalizations behind it. But it fails to explain the initial decision to engage in crime or deviance.

Differential Association

A term coined by Sutherland that describes the process through which exposure to attitudes favorable to criminal acts leads to the violation of rules. It can also refer to noncriminal deviant acts.

Social Disorganization Theory

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

Labeling Theory

It attempts to explain why certain people are viewed as deviants while others whose behavior is similar is not seen in such harsh terms. Some individuals or groups have the power to define labels and apply them to others.

Social-Reaction Approach

It is the response to an act, not the behavior, that determines deviance. Labelling theory is also called this.

Racial Profiling

An arbitrary action initiated by an authority based on race, ethnicity, or national origin rather than on a person’s behavior.

Social Constructionist Method

Deviance is the product of the culture we live in. Focuses upon the decision-making process that creates the deviant identity.

Richard Quinney

A conflict theorist that saw that the criminal justice system serves the powerful. Defined crime as construct created by authorized agents of social control in a politically organized society.

Differential Justice

Differences in the way social control is exercised over different groups.

Freda Adler and Meda Chesney-Lind

Believed that many of the existing approaches of deviance and crime were developed with only men in mind.

Crime

A violation of criminal law for which some governmental authority applies formal penalties. Sociologists categorize them based on how they were committed and how society views the offense.

Sociological Categories of Crime

Victimless crime, professional crime, organized crime, white collar crime, tech-based crime, hate crime, and transnational crime.

Victimless Crime

The willing exchange among adults of widely desired by illegal goods and services (prostitution).

Professional Crime

Committing crimes as a career field, developing skills, and enjoying status among other criminals. Career criminal. Criminals will also collaborate.

Organized Crime

The work of a group that regulates relations among criminal enterprises involved in illegal activities (prostitution, gambling, and smuggling). It regulates itself and can take over legitimate businesses. Intimidate witnesses and force taxes for protection.

Ethnic Succession

Coined by Daniel Bell, it refers the sequential passage of leadership from the Irish immigrants in early 20th century, to Jewish Americans in 1920s, and then to Italian Americans in 1930s.

White-Collar Crime

Illegal acts committed in the course of business activities, often by affluent, respectable people.

White-Collar Crimes

Income tax evasion, stock manipulation, customer fraud, bribery and extraction of kickbacks, embezzlement, and misrepresentation in ads.

Cybercrime

Illegal activity conducted through the use of computer hardware or software.

Corporate Crime

Illegal actions committed by a corporation and the victims can be individuals, organizations, and institutions.

Corporate Crimes

Anticompetitive behavior, environmental pollution, medical fraud, tax fraud, stock fraud and manipulation, account fraud, production of unsafe goods, bribery and corruption, and health

Hate Crime

A specific crime in which the offender is motivated to choose a victim based on race, religion, ethnic group, national origin, or sexual orientation, and when ample evidence shows hatred prompted the crime. Also known as a bias crime.

Transnational Crime

Crime that occurs over multiple national borders.

Transnational Crimes

Bankruptcy and insurance fraud, computer crime, corruption and bribery of public officials, counterfeiting, environmental crime, hijacking airplanes, illegal drug trade, illegal money transfers, illegal sale of firearms and ammunition, infiltration of legal businesses, intellectual property crime, migrant smuggling, networking of criminal organizations, sea piracy, terrorism, theft of art and cultural objects, trafficking body parts, human trafficking.

Index Crimes

A set of eight crimes used by the FBI for statistical reporting, including murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson.

Victimization Surveys

Surveys that collect data on individuals' experiences with crime, including both reported and unreported incidents. However, fraud, income tax evasion, and blackmail are most likely not to be included.