Chapter 5 - Deviance

Deviance

any behaviour that diverges from accepted standard → violates social rules/norms, challenges usual or accepted social standards, ex: violating Behavioural/Relationship/Appearance/Political/Law Norms, neutral term, carry social consequences, may be common/widely accepted (jaywalking/speeding)

Types of Deviance

Minor deviance, Lesser crimes, Consensus crimes

Minor Deviance

Carry a low/negligible risk of harm, Sanction are minor, Most common type of deviance

Lesser crimes

Deviant act that pose moderate risk of harm, punishable by law(fines/jail)

Consensus crimes

deviant act that society agrees are deeply harmful, carry strict legal penalties (jail/imprisonment)

Moral Panic

Social concern over an issue that provokes intense feeling/fears, public anxiety outweigh actual threat to society, ex: Video games and violence/ Heavy metal and suicide/ trans folk and washrooms/ Fruit machine

Fruit machine

Red scarce lead to fear of security threat (blackmailable social members) -? no evidence, RCMP/armed forces acted as moral entrepreneur, identified queer member of civil service by random traits,

Gouzenko Defection

soviet embassy clerk defection after WWII, exposed massive spy network link nuclear secrets, lead to arrest of suspected traitors → Fred Rose (communist leader)

Red Scare

moral panic, public fear of communist, passing of Padlock law → lock building suspected used by communist (stop spread)

Crime

only exist in relation to criminal law (not all societies have), Canada’s legal reflects Enlightenment ideals (rationalization/secularism), Institution of Law (connect to every social institution)

Functionalist theory and crime/law

Niklas Luhmann positivity of law, Durkheim 4 function of deviance, Merton Anomie/strain theory of crime, Control theory

Merton Anomie/strain theory of crime

Conformity → accept society goal and mean to achieve them, Rebellion → reject society goals and mean to achieve them (create new system), Ritualism → reject society goals but follows mean to achieve them, Retreatism → reject society goals and mean to achieve them (live outside norms), Innovation→ accept society goal but reject mean to achieve them (ex:crime instead)

Niklas Luhman Positivity of Law 4 points

Laws are reflection of values → contributes social cohesion/established through legal procedures, Laws are changeable → change as value changes, Legal system is neutral → determine lawful or not/not about morality, law capable of reconciling competing rules/goals → evaluate precedence and individual character

Durkheim 4 function of deviance

Reflect cultural values → help understand social rules, Responds to deviance help understand right and wrong, Responding to deviance builds social solidarity, deviance encourages social change → innovation (ex: rosa parks)

Control theory

people follow laws (and break them) when it benefit them, assume all have deviants impulse but don’t act, benefit of conformity > deviance impulse, social context is important factor → weak relationship = higher likelihood of deviance

Conflict theory and crime

law serve interest of wealthy/powerful member of society → create/shape and enforce law how they want, law is a business → best lawyer have highest paying clients, ex: white collar crime cost more then recovered in fines

Feminism and crime

Focus inequality in criminal justice statistic (men commit more violent crimes and women more victim of), Focus Victimization → experience of becoming a victim of crime/sexism

Symbolic interactionism and crime

process of labelling some people as Deviant, Labelling theory, Primary and Secondary deviance, Stigma

Labelling theory

people come to identify/behave in ways that reflect how other label them, internalized negative label compounds deviance producing effect by blocking opportunities/promoting association with deviant group, Howard Becker → every one participate in but getting caught and the stigma leads to change in deviance

Primary and Secondary Deviance

labelling someone a deviant after primary (earlier/random 1st act of deviance) leads to secondary because of societal reaction

Stigma (Erving Goffman)

any quality/behaviour/reputation that is socially discrediting, want to avoid by impression management

Stigmatization

disgrace and marginalization bc of life circumstance/person characteristic that prevent them from being fully socially accepted

Impression management

curation of our public image, create intended image of ourself for others, to avoid stigma, Queer theory and passing (presenting as straight)

Purposes of Punishment (5)

Deterrence, Rehabilitation, Restoration, Retribution, Protection of Society

Punishment and Deterrence

legal idea, punishment should be prevent/deter crime by imposing significant cost - control theory, conflict theory believes ignores social causes. ex: capital punishment (death penalty)

Punishment and Rehabilitation

Reform and reintegration, punishment should reform criminals and help them become law abiding member of society, Prisonization theory, Recidivism

Prisonization theory

prison inadequate at rehabilitation, prison degrade prisoners (socialize them to prison life), crime subculture, Alienation → makes them less able to live normally outside (heavily regulated inside vs un regulated outside)

Recidivism

Tendency of prisoner to reoffend

Panopticon

Prison designed by Jeremy Bentham, one guard can see all inmates but inmates don’t know whether being watched or not, universal unseen surveillance (self governing regulation), makes good prisoner but not good citizens

Governmentality

Michel Foucault → inspired Panopticon, state exercising control/governing citizenry by getting them to govern themself

Punishment and Retribution

Punishment should be comparable to harm caused (punishment fits crime), crime upset society balance/order and punishment restores, unbalance cause vitcim to fell unheard/lose faith in system

Punishment and Protection of Society

Punishment (incarceration) protect society, prevent offenders from commiting crimes

Berger and Luckmann Social Construction of reality

All knowledge/reality created and maintained through interaction, reality dictated by context, Bias (know our reality but blind others), society objective and subjective

Durkheim and social construction

society is Objective, social facts outside of us shape social action, reality is measurable and empirical

Weber social construction

Society is Subjective, meaning inside of us shape social action, interaction/experiences, meaning not natural → assigned, socialization and social structures

2 steps of social construction of reality

Categorization and Action, Naturalization

Categorization and Action of social construction

sort experiences into categories, build routines around experiences

Naturalization of social construction

over time forget constructed these categories, categories appear natural/permanent/unchangeable

Language

constantly evolving, represent changes in culture, symbolic interactionist study, contain of cultural identity, Subcultural context → Meaning shift based social orientation, impacts/shape how we think, reflect cultural attitudes

Durkheim and language

represent articulation of thought, literal translation fail bc omit cultural nuance/perspective, need understand culture to understand language

George Orwell 1984 Newspeak

banning words eliminate ability to even contemplate, stripping language makes alternative modes of thought impossible

Robert B. Moore Linguistic bias

language develop alongside historical/economic/political evolution, linguistic patterns structurally reinforce inequalities (black tied to negativity → blackmail), shape thought (framing of events)