Crime and Deviance
Definition
Crime and Deviance
Deviance- is defined as variation
from the norm and society’s
reaction to it.
Labels
• To label someone deviant is
related to our notions of social
convention….the normal
society…entrenched with
laws,rules and norms.
Crime and Deviance
A major area in sociological
research:
• We are all interested in the deviant :
- Crime TV….Law and Order, Cops etc..
- Hero mystique-Robin Hood
- PEOPLE -OUTSIDE THE NORM
The Social Self
The `deviant’ are reflections of ourselves and
our sense of “otherness”
• Self and society –connected but not the
same. We are not automatons.
Comparative differences between
Canada and the US
• Illustration of differences in political
culture, levels of racism etc..
• Canada is more conservative, elitist, less
individualistic…than US…
• Our law: Burkean
• American Law: Lockean…
Frontier thesis,
• US 50% of all homicide involved
handguns whereas in Canada this figure was
only 10%
• Frontier thesis, Canadian have firmer
control in monarchial system than in the
American Republic..
• Our policing is more peaceful.
Canada vs. US
• US=Overt Racism-American are blatantly
racist whereas Canadians are polite racists.
• Canada= Covert Racism (Kallen, 1974;
McCauley, 1990)
• This evident in the culture of American vs.
Canadian cities, hiring practices, social
segregation etc.
Policing-Cops vs To serve and
protect
• Canadians have firmer control in
monarchial system than in the American
Republic, policing is more peaceful
• Canadian system is Burkean in nature as
opposed to Lockean
• Burke-social control
• Locke –individual rights and freedoms
. Burke
• . Burke maintained the crime
control model which held that
personal freedom can only be
achieved through social control
John Locke
Locke, on the other hand,
advocated the due-process modeldue process seeks to ensure useful
safeguard in favour of the
individual over the system
• Although both systems reflect
classic liberalism, there are
qualitative differences in the
perception and treatment of
deviance.
Qualitative Deviance Concepts
•
Measures of Deviance Include:
1.
2.
3.
4.
SEVERITY
PERCEPTION
DEGREE OF AGREEMENT
LABELLING
Qualitative Deviance Concepts
• Measures of Deviance Include:
• 1. Severity- capital punishment-the more
serious the crime the more we take freedom
away…
Perception• 2. While society speaks with a collective
conscience on certain matters of crime such
as murder.
• On other matters there may be a continuum
of responses from extremely harmful to
inconsequential…
3. Degree of agreement• . Degree of agreement- across nations
there are some behaviours that are agreed
upon as seriously, deviant and against the
codes of social order-collective conscience
extends to all human life.
Examples..
1.
2.
3.
4.
•
Armed robbery,
Sexual assault,
Incest,
MurderAnthropologists tell us that the incest
taboo is almost universal as is aversion to
cannibalism.
Severity and Degree of
Agreement
• Conflict crimes- are those
crimes in which there exists
conflicting opinions about their
nature. (severity and degree of
agreement do not match)
• 1. Ie. drug use and sexual
activity- we know that these
things are bad for us…but are
they deviant? or simply
immoral? Streaking?
•
4. Labelling
• Labeling theory (or social reaction
theory) is concerned with how the selfidentity and behavior of an individual is
influenced (or created) by how that
individual is categorized and described by
others in their society.
Negative Labels
• The theory focuses on the linguistic
tendency of majorities to negatively label
minorities or those seen as deviant from
norms, and is associated with the concept of
a self-fulfilling prophecy and stereotyping
Labelling
• Labeling theory (or social
reaction theory) is concerned with
how self-identity is influenced
Self Fulfilling Prophecy?
• (or created) by how that
individual is categorized and
described by others in their society.
• Labels can lead to self-fulfilling
prophecies.
Sanity Insanity: A Social
Construct
• E. Goffman Asylums, for which he
gathered information at the National
Institute of Mental Health in Washington,
D.C
Rosenthan (1973)
• Rosenthan (1973) and his team had
themselves committed…they complained of
hearing voices and they were labeled
schizophrenic….
• .
Sociological Approaches
Theorization follows other empirical
topics and draws upon paradigms
1. Conflict,
2. Symbolic Interactionist
3. Structural functional
Paradigms
Theories of Deviance
I. Structural Functionalism
• Structural Functionalism- structural
strain, dysfunction-the school, family,
religion and the polity are supposed to
produce order,
• DEVIANCE=dis-equilibrium and nonconformity.
Function and Dysfunction
• There is some suggestion that
deviance is not dysfunctional
but functional…
Functionalist solution:
Individualistic
• a. Change Values- Commitment and
control…the system teaches us control;
some do not buy into it;
Delinquent Subculture
• Subcultural Theories-delinquent
subculture-socialization theories…
• Also a functionalist approachsocialization paradigm
• Culture of poverty –O. Lewis..
Ie. Merton (1957)-structural
strain
• Anomie-absence of social
regulation, normlessness- deviance
results from problem of strain or
disequalibrium…
Merton (1957)• …between culturally defined
goals (money, power, success) and
the socially accepted means of
achieving them…(education)
Functional/Disfunctional
Adjustment
Four way individuals adjust to a
conflicting society include:
1. innovation,
2. ritualism,
3. retreatism
4. and rebellion
II. Symbolic Interactionism
• SI is less concerned with values, attitudes
and behaviours (Anomie) than with the
meanings that people attached to
situation…
• Definitions of context….
Edward Sutherland (1924)
• Edward Sutherland (1924) one of the
fathers of criminology developed the
concept differential association to refer to
not only association between individuals but
also between ideas.
• Sutherland = Learning Theory and
symbolic interactionism.
Sutherland –crime in context
• Deviance and criminal behaviour develops
among those who define the behaviour
favourably.
• In any given situation or context, an
individual if the weight of the favourable
definition of crime exceeds the
unfavourable definition, then criminal
activity will result.
Street vs Suite Crime
• White collar crime, for example, is
rationalized along these lines…
• Sutherland proves this through a study of
100 imprisoned embezzlers…. Each felt
they were helping `the company’ and its
operation.
Ethnicity, Class and Addiction
1. IRISH: `Paddy
Wagon’-
2. ITALIAN `MOBSTER’
3.. BLACK `DRUG DEALER’
SI CONCEPTS
• SELF IDENTITY
• LABEL
• SELF FULFILLING PROPHECY
To Symbolic Interactionists
• IDENTITY IS SOCIAL CONSTRUCTED
• MEANINGS ARE DEVELOPED
THROUGH RELATIONSHIP WITH
OTHERS
• INTERACTION-LOOKING GLASS
SELF
Symbolic Interactionists
•
Symbolic Interactionists-G. H Mead, C.
Cooley
• We all can identify with criminals.
• See Chicago School studies:
1. Street Corner Society
2. Social Order of the Slum
3. The Professional Thief
Self-fulfilling prophecy
• A self-fulfilling prophecy is a
prediction that directly or
indirectly causes itself to
become true.
Sutherland –crime in context
• Deviance and criminal behaviour
develops among those who define
the behaviour favourably.
•.
Criminal as `Professional/
crime as work’
• . Another interesting aspect of
symbolic interactionist
approach is the notion of
crime as work.
Crime School
highly skilled
Prisons are like schools,,.
1. Mechanical skills-burglary, safe
cracking explosive
2. Social skills- fraud embezzlement
III. Conflict Theory/
• Focus on dominant societal
groups…..
• These groups impose labels
upon members of subordinate
societal groups.
Conflict theorist and Crime
• Conflict theorists evaluate sub-culture on
the level of class analysis. I.e. Labels
• Subcultures form in reaction to class
consciousness and ideology.
• Crime is about scarcity!!!!
Spitzer (1975)
• Criminals challenge the social
relations of production….
• The oppressed threaten existing
social relations and therefore must be
controlled.
Class and Deviance
• Schmidt, Smart and Moss (1968) found that
lower class alcoholics were more likely to
receive drug intervention therapy whereas
upper class alcoholic were more likely to
receive talk therapies.
Crime and Political Economy
• Conflict Theory
• Commitment to a psychiatric ward is often
not much different from jail.
• Jail is more likely in neo-liberal societies
• Today’s emphasis on capitalism vs. state
intervention.
Criminals challenge capitalism
•
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
Criminals challenge bourgeois ideology
Notions of production,
Social conditions of production
Patterns of distribution and consumption
Socialization processes
Dominant ideologies.
Conflict Theory and Crime
• a. When the poor steals from
the rich he/she challenges are
notion of appropriate human labour
When the poor person collect
welfare or refuses to work in the
way we feel is best-the system is
undermined?
• b.
Conflict Theory and Crime
When the drug user escapes
or transcends culture rather than
uses drugs for sociability, he/she
de-legitimizes our notions of
adequate social adjustment
• c.
• d.
When juvenile delinquents
fail to attend school they challenge
our notions of adequate
socialization into our on-going
legitimate social order
• e.
When organizations
(underworld) develop they
undermine the ideology that
supports capitalistic society
Summary
• Crime is a societal indicator of the
relationship of individuals to the larger
social system
• Crime is relativistic
• Crime is related to factors such as race,
class and gender
• Understanding crime helps understand
other aspects of society and socialization
Learning to Labour: Paul
Willis
• : How working class kids get working class
jobs.
• Willis combines Marxist and
symbolic interactionist forms of
analysis
• Looks at education and youth,
deviance
• British school system vs. `The Lads’