sociology

Retribution:

Moral vengeance making the offender suffer as much as the suffering
caused by the crime

Incapacitation / Societal Protection:

Protecting society by rendering an offender incapable of further offenses through imprisonment or execution

Restitution:

Compensating victims or society for the losses incurred through criminal acts.

Rehabilitation

Reforming an offender to prevent subsequent offenses

Medicalization

The process by which nonmedical problems become defined and treated as medical illnesses, disorders, or conditions.

highest global incarceration rate

seychelles (799)

lowest global incarceration rate

Senegal (60)

Age

Young adults between ages 15 and 24.

Gender

Males constitute the majority of arrests for violent and property crimes.

Race

 Documented racial disparities in arrest rates.

Contributing Factors & Biases:

Relative deprivation, high levels of cyclical single motherhood, racial profiling, omission of white-collar crimes from official crime indexes, the 'criminalization of poverty,' and unequal drug laws.

Measurement Nuances:

Arrest rates count only those arrested, not total crimes committed. The accuracy of rates regarding actual crime varies by the severity of the offense.

Victimization Surveys:

reflect actual crime rates about twice as high as official police arrest statistics.

Historical Decline Since Mid-90s:

All major crime rates have declined since the mid-1990s, driven by factors such as community policing, economic improvements, demographic changes (fewer youth), decline of the drug trade, and increased incarceration ('everyone is already in jail').

Global Homicide Rate Comparisons:

U.S. homicide rate stands at 3.9 (108th highest globally, UNODC data); Honduras is highest at 84.6; Ghana at 1.7 (157th); Japan is 6th lowest at 0.3.

Physical Traits:

Cesare Lombroso's (1876) theory of atavistic physical traits linked to criminality (largely discredited historical theory).

Genetics & Environment:

Morey and Hall (2003) meta-analysis provided evidence of a connection between certain genes (such as those associated with ADHD) and an increased risk of antisocial behavior, but only when coupled with environmental/sociological factors. Caution is warranted against overgeneralization, deterministic predictions, and eugenics.

Personality Factors (Containment Theory):

Focuses on 'unsuccessful socialization,' level of conscience, tolerance of frustration, and identification with conventional cultural norms.

Cultural Variation:

What is defined as deviant varies across cultures and historical time periods.

Social Construction:

Deviance and crime are socially constructed through human interaction and institutional processes.

Socioeconomic Power:

plays a crucial role in determining both the social construction of deviance and the application of legal and social sanctions.

Affirming Norms:

Deviance affirms societal norms and values through their opposites.

Moral Boundaries:

Deviance helps clarify moral boundaries for the community.

Social Cohesion:

Deviance unifies people in collective response

Promoting Social Change:

Deviance can lead to social change and reevaluation of outdated societal norms.

Robert Merton’s Strain Theory

is a cornerstone structural-functionalist (meso-level) theory explaining how societal structures can pressure individuals into committing deviant or criminal acts.

1. Legitimate Cultural Goals:

Society promotes culturally approved goals (e.g., financial success, the 'American Dream', material wealth, security).

2. Institutionalized Means:

Society defines institutionalized means considered appropriate and legal to achieve those goals (e.g., education, hard work, legitimate career paths) (Ferrante, 1995).

3. Opportunity Structure:

The structural distribution of and actual access to opportunities for achievement across different social classes and groups.

Strain

occurs when there is a structural contradiction or disconnect between these foundational pillars—specifically when individuals are socialized to value cultural goals (like wealth) but lack equal access to the legitimate means and institutionalized opportunities required to achieve them (Ferrante, 1996).

Application to U.S. Society:

The United States experiences high levels of structural strain due to systemic imbalances across all three levels. While Americans are universally taught to value financial success, the legitimate means of achieving it are highly unequal and often ambiguous. Furthermore, society creates a constant cultural pressure asking 'How much wealth is enough?' while maintaining extreme disparities in real economic opportunity.

Conformity:

Pursuing cultural goals through conventional, approved means (e.g., studying hard and getting a professional job).

Innovation:

Using unconventional or illegitimate means (sometimes criminal, such as theft, fraud, or drug dealing) to achieve culturally approved goals of wealth or success when legitimate avenues are blocked.

Ritualism

Abandoning or lowering cultural goals of high success while rigidly clinging to institutionalized rules and routines (going through the motions without ambition).

Retreatism:

Rejecting both cultural goals and institutionalized means, effectively dropping out of society (e.g., severe substance abuse, chronic homelessness, transient lifestyles).

Rebellion:

Rejecting existing goals and means and attempting to create a new social structure with entirely new political and cultural goals and means.

Core Elements of Social Bonds:

Attachment, commitment, involvement, and belief.

Bond to Society:

Conformity is directly dependent on the strength of bonds between an individual and society.

Community Ties:

Individuals who have strong, positive ties with their community (e.g., strong family relationships, school success, stable employment, church/community involvement) are significantly less likely to engage in deviance.

Originators of Differential Association Theory

Edwin H. Sutherland and Donald R. Cressey (1978).

Core Concept of Association Theory

Deviance is learned behavior, improving upon earlier 'cultural transmission theories.'

Mechanism 1 (Socialization):

Socialization through interactions with peers, family members, and close associates who engage in deviant or criminal behavior.

Mechanism 2 (Frequency & Contact):

Direct and frequent contact with deviant subcultures increases the likelihood of adopting deviant values and techniques.

Core Premise:

Focuses "not so much on what others do, but how people respond to their actions" (Macionis, 1998).

Stigma:

A powerful negative label that profoundly alters a person's self-concept and social identity (e.g., an ex-con struggling to find work).

Primary Deviance:

Initial rule-breaking acts that have minor impact on a person's identity and are seldom labeled by others.

Secondary Deviance:

Subsequent deviant behavior that occurs in response to being publicly labeled as 'deviant,' leading to a changed self-perception and conformity to a deviant social role.

Degradation Ceremony:

Harold Garfinkel's term for public ceremonies (such as a criminal trial) that formally strip away a person's old identity and apply a stigmatizing deviant label.

Retrospective Labeling:

Looking back at a deviant person's past life and reinterpreting past behaviors through the lens of current deviant labels/pathology.

Prospective Labeling:

Predicting a future of ongoing deviant behavior based on an individual's current label, further reinforcing deviant identity.

Medicalization of Deviance:

The expanding trend of defining behaviors, conditions, and problems previously viewed as moral failings or criminal acts as medical conditions or psychological disorders.

Power Dynamics:

Powerful individuals and dominant economic/political institutions have the power to label the powerless as deviant.

Legal System:

Laws and legal systems are structured and passed to protect the interests of the wealthy and powerful ruling class.

Unequal Enforcement:

The wealthy possess greater financial and legal resources to resist accountability and evade severe criminal penalties for their deviance.

Social Class & Labeling:

William Chambliss's (1973) classic study demonstrating how social class shapes societal labeling, contrasting 'The Saints' (middle-class youth whose delinquency was excused) and 'The Roughnecks' (lower-class youth whose identical behavior was severely labeled and punished).

Critique & Counter-Critique on Law:

Critics argue that certain laws are actually passed to the detriment of the wealthy (e.g., rigorous labor regulations, environmental protection laws). Counter-critiques note these laws are typically the hard-won products of anti-capitalist and labor social movements.

Durkheim's Critique:

observed that deviance exists across all known societies, regardless of their economic system (capitalist or socialist), suggesting deviance is not solely a product of capitalism.

Challenging Class Relations:

People who actively challenge existing economic class relations are frequently targeted and labeled as deviants by those in power.

White-Collar and Corporate Crime:

Illegal or harmful acts committed by powerful people in the course of their professional occupations, frequently resulting in massive public harm yet facing disproportionately lenient penalties (often regulated by civil rather than criminal law).

Corporate Historical Misconduct:

Historical corporate misconduct examples discussed in the course include major U.S. companies (such as IBM, AT&T, Ford, and Boeing) producing war materials during WWII, some later receiving government indemnifications for plant damages from Allied bombings (e.g., ITT receiving $27 million, General Motors $33 million), and documented corporate use of forced labor in concentration camps.

Between-Country (Income) Inequality:

The inequality that exists between Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or Gross National Income (GNI) per capita between countries (the difference between poor and rich countries).

Development:

A multifaceted concept that reflects sovereignty, productivity (mode of production), levels of debt, economic diversification, educational levels of the population, inequality, population health, sanitation and water resources, social safety nets, housing, workers' rights, and other infrastructure. GDP alone does not capture all of these dimensions.

Privatization:

Selling off a state-owned enterprise or public part of the economy to private investors.

Imperialism:

“The relationship in which the ruling interests of one country dominate, through the use of economic and military power, the land, labor, natural resources, finances, and politics of another country” (Parenti 2011: 150).

Colonialism:

A form of imperialism where a foreign power directly administers a country's political and economic system for the benefit of capital in the so-called "mother" country. It enriches the colonizing country at the expense of the colonized country and people. It is direct and obvious, often resulting in a small indigenous elite emerging to align their interests with the colonizer.

Neocolonialism:

A form of imperialism where a foreign power grants formal independence but retains economic and political power through debt, currency control, control over global financial institutions, unfair trade, and at times direct political interference and sabotage.

2014 Milestone:

just 62 people owned as much wealth as the poorest half of the planet

2017 Billionaires Growth:

there were 2,043 billionaires whose wealth increased by $762 billion; enough to end global poverty seven times over

Concentration (2017):

just 42 people held as much as the combined wealth of the poorest half of the world (

2018 Disparity: .

26 people had the same amount of wealth as the 3.8 billion poorest individuals

Debt Transfer (2025): According to Oxfam's 2025 report, roughly $30 million US dollars per hour are transferred from Global South countries to the richest 1% in interest on debt alone (Taneja et al. 2025).

Roughly $30 million US dollars per hour are transferred from Global South countries to the richest 1% in interest on debt alone

Top 1% Dominance:

Since 2015 the richest 1% has owned more wealth than the rest of the planet

Scale of Wealth:

The world's richest man, Jeff Bezos, saw his fortune increase to $112 billion. Just 1% of his fortune is equivalent to the entire health budget of Ethiopia

Tax Regressivity:

In countries like Brazil and the UK, the poorest 10% pay a higher proportion of their incomes in tax than the richest 10%

2024 Growth:

The richest 10 billionaires saw their wealth increase by over $100 million per day

Political Power:

Billionaires are 4,000 times more likely to hold public office