Deviance Pre-Midterm Flashcards

Sociology

The study of human behavior in society

Identity is shaped by

Our relationships, culture, society

Social Science

Methods of empirical observation, reasoning, logical analysis, verification

Theory

Set of propositions used for explanation, prediction, and understanding

Deviance

What we call it when someone violates a norm

Norms

Rules of behavior which guide people’s actions

Folkways

Everyday norms; rude/polite distinction; don’t trigger much outrage

Mores

Moral/ethical norms; right/wrong distinction; normally trigger outrage

Taboos

Strong negative norms; trigger distrust if broken

Laws

Norms codified and enforced by authority; backed by official sanctions

Social Control

Exercised through social norms and sanctions for their violation

Beliefs

Shared ideas held collectively by people about what is true

Values

Abstract standards; define what is desirable, proper, good/bad

3 Conceptions of Deviance

Positivist/Absolutist, Relativist/Social Constructionist, Critical

Positivist/Absolutist

An act is deviant by virtue of characteristics inherent to the act itself

Relativist/Social Constructionist

An act becomes deviant when a society judges that act as so

Critical

Understanding of deviance is established by those in power to maintain their power

Sociological Imagination

Ability to connect personal experiences to broader social structures and historical forces; helps us resist tendency to individualize

Social Order

Product of generally cohesive set of norms

Emile Durkheim (“Suicide“, 1897)

“Suicide varies increasingly with the degree of integration of the social groups of which the individual forms a part.“; Individual ties to society play a crucial part in the self-regulation of the individual

Three Types of Suicide

Altruistic, Egoistic, Anomic

Altruistic Suicide

Person closely oriented with fulfilling society’s expectations; Suicide obligatory when they fail to meet said expectations or when necessary to carry out group goals

Egoistic Suicide

Individuals are excessively self-oriented; takes precedence over relationships and community

Anomic Suicide

Absence of norms or established standards; suicide increased when moral patterns of social life are uprooted

Structural Strain Theory (Merton)

Material success is highly valued in society; disadvantaged people lack the conventional means

Strain

When societal values do not align with the conventionally available (legitimate) means to achieve them

Merton’s Deviance Typology (5)

Conformity, Innovation, Ritualism, Retreatism, Rebellion

Conformity

Accept institutional (legitimate) means + accept cultural goals; ex. college student in school to learn to get a good job

Innovation

Rejects institutional (legitimate) means + accepts cultural goals; ex. drug dealer

Ritualism

Accepts institutional (legitimate) means + denies cultural goals; ex. clock-watchers

Retreatism

Rejects institutional (legitimate) means + denies cultural goals; ex. addicts

Rebellion

Replaces both institutional means and cultural goals with new ideas; ex. right-wing extremists

Cloward and Ohlin (1960; Delinquency+ Opportunity)

Merton’s model does not explain why people commit particular types of deviance and not others; not everyone has the same access to illegitimate means /same opportunities to engage in deviance

Subculture

A distinct group within a larger subculture that has its own subset or norms, values, behaviors, and/or characteristics

Counterculture

Subculture created as a reaction against the values of the dominant movement; strictly rebellious

Criminal Subculture (Cloward+ Ohlin)

Characterized by systematic, organized crime, clear authority structure; provides an outlet in illegal employment for youth, role models through older members for children; relatively little violence in neighborhoods; not a failure to learn

Conflict Subculture (Cloward+ Ohlin)

Disorganized communities, legitimate and illegitimate opportunities unavailable to young people; characterized by social instability; crime tends to be individualistic, disorganized, poorly paid, unprotected; few social controls, violence for the sake of violence or to prove oneself

Retreatist Subculture (Cloward+ Ohlin)

Adolescents can’t find a place for themselves in criminal or conflict subcultures, “double failures”; they retreat into drugs and isolation

Albert Cohen (“Delinquent Boys“; 1955)

Lower or working class bottom of the status hierarchy; leads to status frustration (strain); develops delinquent subculture in which middle-class norms and values are replaced by their opposites; non-utilitarian, ex. stealing for the hell of it; offers alternative for lower and working class boys to excel at values in new subculture that main culture calls devience

Steven Messner + Richard Rosenfeld (“Crime and the American Dream“; 2007)

Strong emphasis on monetary success and weak emphasis on legitimate means; institutional anomie results

American Dream Values

Achievement= personal worth, individualism: egoistic self-interest, universalism: the pressure of values affects everyone, materialism: money+ things, preeminent way we measure success and achievement

Critiques of Anomie+ Strain

Assumed everyone values narrow notion of success; class bias (doesn’t discuss privileged classes); Merton suggests creating more equal opportunity is the solution to crime+ deviance

Katherine McLean (“There’s Nothing Here“)

68k synthetic opiate deaths in 2020 alone, synthetic shot up since 2015-16; location of drug overdose deaths correlated to locations where more pills are prescribed

Opiate Epidemic

Media+ political discourse tends to exaggerate impact on people from “all walks of life“; opiate abuse strongly associated with poverty; [Allegheny County] fatalities clustered in regions of deindustrialized communities and inner-city neighborhoods

Risk Environment

Spaces, whether physical or social which a variety of factors interact to increase chances of harm occurring

McKeesport, PA (General info)

Once had 2nd largest population in region; deindustrialization (60s) caused mass layoffs; 2013: 15% unemployment, 23% living under poverty line

Spaces and Relationships

Drug use indoors most likely to result in [fatal] overdose; most survivors were found by friends and family, but traditionally in opiate subculture most relationships are for expedience

Criminality (Drug use)

Fear of being arrested, no idea of “Good Samaritan” laws; lack of harm-reduction resources

Opportunity Structure

Connection between drug overdoses and poverty; few legitimate opportunities leads to increased drug dealing in an area

Anomie (Relation to drugs in McKeesport)

Stigma- cops don’t care; “Nobody wants to come around here”; no community

Deaths of Despair (Anne Case+ Angus Deaton)

Drug use, alcohol addiction, suicide

White males without college education

Uptick in deaths of despair for this group

Why? (DoD)

Deindustrialization (70s to present); rise of unemployment and unstable employment rates; lack of “medium wage” jobs; decline in marriage, uptick in divorce

Does Economic Hardship Cause DoD?

Case/Deaton: No- groups with equal or greater disadvantage do not have similar mortality increases

Probable Cause of DoD

Failure to meet demands, lack of family and related resources

Social Disorganization Theory

Focus: How groups adapt to their environment, and how their environment shapes their behavior

Concentric Zone Model (Inward to outward; Park+ Burgess)

Central business district, transitional zone, working class zone (row homes), working class residences (row+ detached), commuter zone (suburban)

Juvenile Delinquency and Urban Areas (Shaw+ McCay)

Delinquency not evenly distributed in a city, patterns persist over time even with population changes, neighborhood itself causes deviance uptick not individuals themselves

Deviance mapped in…

Zones of transition

Where was the most deviancy concentrated (Chicago)

central business district (CBD)

Economic Deprivation and Neighborhood Crime Rates (Bursik+ Grosmich)

More complex relationship that poverty=delinquency; economic deprivation: weakens neighborhood institutions, reduces community cohesion, undermines informal social control

“Neighborhoods and Violent Crime: A Multilevel Story of Collective Efficacy” Sampson et al.

Why do neighborhoods with concentrated disadvantage and residential instability have higher rates of criminal deviance? What is the relationship between social characteristics and violent crime rate?

Collective Efficacy

Social cohesion among neighborhoods combined with their willingness to intervene on behalf of the common good

Social Cohesion

Neighborhood relationships characterized by positive interactions

Absence of collecctive efficacy plus residential instability/disadvantage causes

high crime rates

even in unstable neighborhoods, collective efficacy offsets

high crime rates

Absence of parental efficacy causes

problem behaviors in children > higher crime rates

Disorganization Theory

Focuses on internal dynamics of deviant neighborhoods; shift from “those people” to “that neighborhood”

Incivility Policing

Encompasses range of policies and practices, “zero tolerance”; regulate/ban types of sub-criminal public behavior; fueled by [80s/90s] fears that crime rates were going up

Punitiveness/Law and Order Mentality: Zero Tolerance Policies

Idea that small disorder breeds larger crime or social decay; cause: heightened moral panic about decay, fear of crime, perceptions of disorder

The Revanchist City

Revanchism- revanche- “revenge”; 80s/90s recession looking to place blame on city’s conditions; role of police to take back the city

Privatization and Market Pressures

Effort to “sanitize” public for big business

Broken Window Theory

Small acts of deviance or signs of disorder create environments that lead to more serious deviance

Differences between disorganization and disorder

Both concerned with both social and physical characteristics of environment, but BWT is more concerned with types of sub-criminal behaviors specifically

Policing Signs of “Disorder”

Expands target of policing; Proactive effort to rid community of sub-criminal (criminogenic) elements

Criminogenic Elements

Homelessness, public intoxication, sleeping in public, loitering, standing at a street corner, selling goods without a permit, derelict property, etc

Implications

views both marginally deviant and normal acts as more serious than they are/should be; expands what qualified as a probable cause; widespread use of invasive policing policies (ex. stop and frisk); heavy-handed policing; destroys trust between community and law enforcement; leads to stigmatizations of neighborhoods and specific groups; strong emphasis on crackdowns purely in marginalized communities, unfair target

Sampson + Raudenbush rejection of broken window theory

disorder is not an objective fact, but it is instead a perception shaped by neighborhood perceptions and class composition; perceptions strongly associated with class, race, etc; people “see” disorder through stereotypes