SO 121 - Chapter 7: Deviance

The recognized violation of cultural norms

The violation of a society's formally enacted criminal law

Attempts by society to regulate people's thoughts and behaviour

• The organizations that respond to alleged violations of the law

• Police, courts, prison officials

• Criminals stand out physically

• Low foreheads, prominent jaws + cheekbones, hariness, long arms

• General body structure might predict criminality

• Boys with muscular and athletic builds

• Muscular build doesn't cause/predict criminality

• Parents are distant from large sons -> sons may become emotionally insensitive

• Genes + environmental factors = strong predictors of adult crime or violence

• These factors TOGETHER, rather than alone

Today's research suggests that kids with low levels of self-control, frustration tolerance, and delay of gratification are more likely to get into trouble/criminal activity

1. Deviance varies according to cultural norms

• Thoughts and actions become deviant in response to particular norms

2. People become deviant as others define them that way

• If behaviour is perceived as deviant, it depends on how others perceive, define, and respond to it

3. How societies set norms and define rule breaking both involve social power

1. Responding to deviance clarifies moral boundaries

2. Deviance affirms cultural values and norms

3. Responding to deviance brings people together

4. Deviance encourages social change

• Society can be set up in a way that encourages deviance

• The extent and type of deviance people engage in depends on if a society provides the means to achieve cultural goals

• Pursuing cultural goals through approved means

• The strain b/w emphasis on wealth and lack of opportunities to do so can lead to street crime, especially among the poor

Using unconventional means (street crime) rather than conventional means (job) to achieve a culturally approved goal (wealth)

People may not care much about the goal but stick to means/conventional means so they feel respectable

• Rejecting both cultural goals and conventional means

• "dropping out"

Reject both cultural goals and conventional means, AND form a counterculture against them

• Deviance or conformity arises from the relative opportunity structure that frames a person's life

• When the structure of opportunity favours criminal activity, the development of criminal subcultures is likely to occur

-Form when there is no opportunity

• Violent street gangs

• Form when there is no opportunity

• Deviants drop out and abuse alcohol and other drugs

• Delinquency is more common among lower-class youths because they have the least opportunity to achieve conventional success

• Trouble

• Toughness

• Smartness

• Need for excitement

• Belief in fate

• Desire for freedom

• In poor urban neighbourhoods, people conform to "decent" values

• When faced with violence + crime -> live by street-code

• The idea that deviance and conformity result mostly from how others respond to those actions

• People may define the same behaviour in many ways

• People have a tendency to treat behaviour that irritates or threaten them as deviance or mental illness

Norm violations that provoke slight reactions from others and have little effect on a person's self-concept

When a person employs deviant behaviour as a means of defense, attack, or adjustment to the consqeuences created by social reaction

• A powerfully negative label that greatly changes a person's self-concept and social identity

• Can operate as a master status

An entire community formally stigmatizes an individual (ex. a criminal trial)

Interpreting someone's past in light of some present deviance

Using someone's deviant identity to predict future actions

• Who responds to deviance

• How people respond deviance

• Personal competence of the deviant person

A person's tendency toward conformity or deviance depends on the amount of contact with others who encourage or reject conventional behaviour

Control depends on people anticipating the consequences of their behaviour

1. Attachment

2. Opportunity

3. Involvement

4. Belief in conventional morality

• All norms generally reflect the interests of the rich and powerful

• The powerful have resources to resist deviant labels

• The widespread belief that norms and laws are natural and good masks political behaviour

1. Capitalism is based on private control of property, so people who threaten property of others are labelled deviant

2. Capitalism depends on productive labour, so people who can't/won't work are deviant

3. Capitalism depends on respect for authority figures

4. People who challenge capitalist status quo are deivant

• Crime committed by people of high social positions in the course of their occupations

• bank embezzlement, business fraud, bribery, antitrust violations

• Usually escape punishment

• The illegal actions of a corportation or people acting on its behalf

• Can be financial, safety, or environmental

• A business supplying illegal goods or services

• Ex. selling illegal drugs, sex trafficking, credit card fraud, selling false ID papers

• A criminal act against a person or person's property by an offender motivated by racial or ethnic bias

• Can also be religiously motivated or motivated by sexual orientation

• Men often escape responsibility for actions that victimize women

• Cultural goals tend to have more to do with the lives of men

• Crimes against the person (violent crimes)

• Crimes against property (property crimes)

• Victimless crimes (crimes without complaint)

• Crimes that direct violence or the threat of violence against others

• Ex. murder, manslaughter, aggravated assault, sexual assault, robbery

• Crimes that involve theft of property belonging to others

• Ex. Burglary, larceny-theft, auto theft, arson

• Violations of the law with no obvious victims

• Usually not completely victimless

• Ex. illegal drug use, prostitution, gambling

• Criminal offences peak at 17

• specific rates higher on young adults (18-24)

• Police charge more males than females

• Law enforcement is hesitant to define women as criminals

• Street crime is more widespread among people of lower social position

• White-collar crime is more widespread among the wealthy

• Offenders from higher class backgrounds spend less time in prison

• Police are more likely to arrest/charge Indigenous and Black people

• Crimes committed by visible minorities are over-emphasized

• Use of encoded terms ("illegal immigrants" "terrorists")

• Criminal justice system must guarantee procedural fairness and operate according to the law

• Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

1. Fair notice of legal proceedings

2. Opportunity to present a defence during a hearing of the charges

3. An impartial judge and jury

• Primary point of contact b/w a society's population and criminal justice system

• Use considerable personal judgement

• The more serious the situation, the more likely to make an arrest

• Police take victim's wishes into account

• Odds of arrest increase if a suspect isn't cooperative

• Presence of observers increases chance of arrest

• police are more likely to arrest someone they've arrested before

• Police are more likely to arrest Black and Indigenous people

• A legal negotiation in which a prosecutor reduces a charge in exchange for a defendant's guilty plea

• Spares the system time and expenses

• Can pressure defendants

An act of moral vengeance by which society makes the offender suffer as much as suffering caused by the crime

• "an eye for an eye"

Attempt to discourage criminality through the use of punishment

Used to convince an individual that crime does not pay

Punishment of one person serves as an example for others

A program for reforming the offender to prevent later offences

Rendering an offender incapable of further offences temporarily by imprisonment or permanently by execution

• Research suggests it has limited value as a deterrent

• As public concern increases, usage decreases

• Judges and prosecutors less likely to call for it because it is often applied unjustly, offenders can be sentenced to life with no parole, and capital cases are costly

Correctional programs operating within society rather than behind prison walls

1. Reduce costs

2. Reduce prison overcrowding

3. Allows for supervision of convicts wile eliminating hardship of prison life

• A convicted offender remains in the community under conditions imposed by court

• Regular supervision

• Releasing inmates to serve the rest of their sentence in the local community under supervision of a parole officer

• If conditions are not obeyed, offender is sent back to prison

• Available for Indigenous offenders

• Offender, victim, elders, and community members work through a process of remedying harm done and preventing it from happening again