Deviance Chapter - Worldlist One

Deviance is the recognized violation of cultural norms.

Most familiar examples of noncomformitiy are negative instances of rule breaking, such as stealing from a campus bookstore, assaulting a fellow student, or driving while intoxicated.

In 1876 Cesare Lombroso, an Italian physician who worked in prisons, theorized that criminals stand out physically, with low foreheads, prominent jaws and cheekbones, protruding ears, hairy bodies, and unusually long arms.

In addition, because a biological approach looks an the individual, it offers no insight into how some kinds of behaviors come to be defined as deviant in the first place.

Like biological theories, psychological explanations of deviance focus on individual abnormality.

Deviance, then is viewed as the result of "unsuccessful" socialization.

Because all the boys lived in areas where delinquency was widespread, the investigators attributed staying out of trouble to a personality that controlled deviant impulses.

Because all the boys lived in areas where delinquency was widespread, the investigators attributed staying out of trouble to a personality that controlled deviant impulses.

Based on this onclusion, Reckless and Dinitz called their analysis containment theory.

No thought or action is inherently deviant; it become deviant only in relation to particular norms.

Further, most cities and towns have at lease one unique law.

Around the world, deviance is even more diverse.

As moral creatures, people must prefer some attitudes and bheaviors to others.

But any definition of virtue rests on an opposing idea of vice.

But any definition of virtue rests on an opposing idea of vice.

In doing so, Durkheim explained, they reaffirm the moral ties that bind them together.

Deviant people push a society's moral boundaries, suggesting alternatives to the status quo and encouraging change.

Imagine a society of saints, a perfect cloister of exemplary individuals.

Specifically, the extend the the kind of deviance depend on whether a society provides the means (such as schooling and job opportunties)to achieve the cultural goals (such as financial success).

Merton called this type of deviance innovation - using unconventional means (street crime)rather than conventional means (hard work at a "straight job") to achieve a culturally approved goal (wealth).

But not everyone who wants conventional success has the opportunity to attain it.

Merton called this type of deviance innovation - using unconventional means (street crime)rather than conventional means (hard work at a "straight job") to achieve a culturally approved goal (wealth).

Like retreatists, rebels such as radical "survivalists" reject both the cultural definition of success and the conventional means of achieving it but go one step further by forming a counterculture supporting alternatives to the existing social order.

Richard Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin (1966) extended Merton's theory, proposing that crime results not simply from limited legitimate opportunity, but also from readily accessible illegitimate opportunity.

Richard Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin (1966) extended Merton's theory, proposing that crime results not simply from limited legitimate opportunity, but also from readily accessible illegitimate opportunity.

The life of Al Capone, a notorious gangster, illustrates Cloward and Ohlin's theory.

Deviance affirms cultural norms.

As people develop a deeper commitment to their deviant behavior, they typically acquire a stigma.

Sometimes, however, an entire community stigmatizes a person in a public way through a degradation ceremony.

Once people signatize a personal as deviant, they may engage in regrospective labeling, an reinterpretation of a person's past in light of some present deviance.

However, the scientific objectivity of medicine passes no moral judment, instead using clinical diagnoses, such as "sick" or "well."

This is Sutherland's theory of differential association.

Extensive involvement in legitmate activities - such as holding a job, going to school, or playing sports, inhibits deviance.

Strong believes in convential morality and respect for authority figures restrain tendencies toward deviance.

People who threaten the ealthy are likely to be labeled as deviant, whether it's by taking people's property (commone thieves) or advocating a more egalitarian society (political radicals).

Conversely, the rich who take advantage of the poor of less likely to be labeled as deviant.

Welfare recipients are considered unworty freeloaders, ppor people who rate at their plight are labeled as rioters, and anyone who rages at the government is labeled as a radical or communist.

For this reason, sociologists sometimes call white-collar-offenses "crime in the suites."

The most common white-collar crimes are bank embezzlement, business fraud, bribery, and violating anti-trust laws that require businesses to be competitive.

The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force reports that one in five lesbians and gay men has been physically assaulted and more that 90 percent have been verbally abused because of sexual orientation.

By 2008, forty-five states had enacted legistlation that raises penalties for crimes motivated by hatred.

In other parts of the world, constraints are still great.