Uncommon Grace The Autobiography of Isaac Folorunso
Deviance, crime, and social control
1. K A L E E M U L L A H
Deviance, Crime, and
Social Control
2. Deviance
Deviance is behavior that violates the
standards of conduct or expectations of a group or
society.
In the United States, alcoholics, compulsive
gamblers, and the mentally ill would all be classified
as deviants. Being late for class is categorized as a
deviant act; the same is true of wearing jeans to a
formal wedding.
On the basis of the sociological definition, we are all
deviant from time to time. Each of us violates
common social norms in certain situations.
3. Deviance involves the violation of group norms,
which may or may not be formalized into law.
It is a comprehensive concept that includes not only
criminal behavior but also many actions that are not
subject to prosecution.
4. Deviance and Social Stigma
The interactionist Erving Goffman coined the term
stigma to describe the labels society uses to devalue
members of certain social groups.
5. Social Control
The term Social Control refers to the techniques
and strategies for preventing deviant human
behavior in any society.
Social control occurs on all levels of society.
6. In the family, we are socialized to obey our parents
simply because they are our parents.
Peer groups introduce us to informal norms, such as
dress codes, that govern the behavior of their
members. Colleges establish standards they expect of
students.
In bureaucratic organizations, workers encounter a
formal system of rules and regulations.
Finally, the government of every society legislates
and enforces social norms
7. Functionalists maintain that people must respect
social norms if any group or society is to survive.
In their view, societies literally could not function if
massive numbers of people defied standards of
appropriate conduct.
8. In contrast, Conflict Theorists contend that the
successful functioning of a society will consistently
benefit the powerful and work to the disadvantage of
other groups.
They point out that in the United States, widespread
resistance to social norms was necessary to win our
independence from Great Britain, to overturn the
institution of slavery, to allow women to vote, to
secure civil rights, and to force an end to the war in
Vietnam.
9. Conformity and Obedience
Techniques for social control operate on both the
group level and the societal level. People we think of
as peers or equals influence us to act in particular
ways; the same is true of people who hold authority
over us or occupy awe-inspiring positions.
Social psychologist Stanley Milgram (1975) made a
useful distinction between these two levels of social
control
10. The Milgram Experiment
One of the most famous studies of obedience in
psychology was carried out by Milgram (1963).
Stanley Milgram, a psychologist at Yale University,
conducted an experiment focusing on the conflict
between obedience to authority and personal
conscience.
11. Milgram (1963) wanted to investigate whether
Germans were particularly obedient to authority
figures as this was a common explanation for the
Nazi killings in World War II. Milgram selected
participants for his experiment by newspaper
advertising for male participants to take part in a
study of learning at Yale University.
12. The procedure was that the participant was paired
with another person and they drew lots to find out
who would be the ‘learner’ and who would be the
‘teacher’. The draw was fixed so that the participant
was always the teacher, and the learner was one of
Milgram’s confederates (pretending to be a real
participant).
13. Milgram (1963) was interested in researching how
far people would go in obeying an instruction if it
involved harming another person.
Stanley Milgram was interested in how easily
ordinary people could be influenced into committing
atrocities for example, Germans in WWII.
14. Volunteers were recruited for a lab experiment
investigating “learning” (re: ethics: deception).
Participants were 40 males, aged between 20 and 50,
whose jobs ranged from unskilled to professional,
from the New Haven area. They were paid $4.50 for
just turning up.
15. At the beginning of the experiment they were
introduced to another participant, who was actually
a confederate of the experimenter (Milgram).
They drew straws to determine their roles – learner
or teacher – although this was fixed and the
confederate was always the learner.
There was also an “experimenter” dressed in a grey
lab coat, played by an actor (not Milgram).
16. Two rooms in the Yale Interaction Laboratory were
used - one for the learner (with an electric chair) and
another for the teacher and experimenter with an
electric shock generator.
The “learner” (Mr. Wallace) was strapped to a chair
with electrodes. After he has learned a list of word
pairs given him to learn, the "teacher" tests him by
naming a word and asking the learner to recall its
partner/pair from a list of four possible choices.
17. The teacher is told to administer an electric shock
every time the learner makes a mistake, increasing
the level of shock each time.
There were 30 switches on the shock generator
marked from 15 volts (slight shock) to 450 (danger –
severe shock).
18. The learner gave mainly wrong answers (on purpose)
and for each of these the teacher gave him an electric
shock.
When the teacher refused to administer a shock the
experimenter was to give a series of orders / prods to
ensure they continued.
There were 4 prods and if one was not obeyed then
the experimenter (Mr. Williams) read out the next
prod, and so on.
19. Prod 1: Please continue.
Prod 2: The experiment requires you to continue.
Prod 3: It is absolutely essential that you continue.
Prod 4: You have no other choice but to continue.
20. Results:
65% (two-thirds) of participants (i.e. teachers)
continued to the highest level of 450 volts. All the
participants continued to 300 volts.
Milgram did more than one experiment – he carried
out 18 variations of his study. All he did was alter
the situation (IV) to see how this affected obedience
(DV).
21. Ordinary people are likely to follow orders given by an
authority figure, even to the extent of killing an innocent
human being. Obedience to authority is ingrained in us
all from the way we are brought up.
People tend to obey orders from other people if they
recognize their authority as morally right and / or legally
based. This response to legitimate authority is learned in
a variety of situations, for example in the family, school
and workplace.
Milgram summed up in the article “The Perils of
Obedience” (Milgram 1974), writing:
22. 'The legal and philosophic aspects of obedience are
of enormous import, but they say very little about
how most people behave in concrete situations.
I set up a simple experiment at Yale University to
test how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict
on another person simply because he was ordered to
by an experimental scientist.
23. Stark authority was pitted against the subjects’
[participants’] strongest moral imperatives against
hurting others, and, with the subjects’ [participants’]
ears ringing with the screams of the victims,
authority won more often than not.
The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any
lengths on the command of an authority constitutes
the chief finding of the study and the fact most
urgently demanding explanation.'
24. Milgram (1974) explained the behavior of his
participants by suggesting that people actually have two
states of behavior when they are in a social situation:
The autonomous state – people direct their own
actions, and they take responsibility for the results of
those actions.
The agentic state – people allow others to direct their
actions, and then pass off the responsibility for the
consequences to the person giving the orders. In other
words, they act as agents for another person’s will.
25. Reference
McLeod, S. A. (2007). The Milgram Experiment.
Retrieved from
www.simplypsychology.org/milgram.html
26. Class Assignment
If you were a participant in Milgram’s research on
conformity, how far do you think you would go in
carrying out orders? Do you see any ethical problem
with the experimenter’s manipulation of the
subjects?
27. Informal and Formal Social Control
The sanctions that are used to encourage conformity
and obedience—and to discourage violation of social
norms—are carried out through both informal and
formal social control.
As the term implies, people use informal social
control casually to enforce norms. Examples
include smiles, laughter, a raised eyebrow, and
ridicule.
28. Formal social control is carried out by
authorized agents, such as police officers, judges,
school administrators, employers, military officers,
and managers of movie theaters.
29. It can serve as a last resort when socialization and
informal sanctions do not bring about desired
behavior. Sometimes, informal social control can
actually undermine formal social control,
encouraging people to violate social norms. Box 7-1
(page 156) examines binge drinking among college
students, who receive conflicting messages about the
acceptability of the behavior from sources of social
control.
30. Class Activity
Think about a job you once held. How did your
employer exercise social control over the employees?
How did you, as an employee, use social control in
relating to those around you?
31. Law and Society
Law may be defined as governmental social
control (Black 1995). Some laws, such as the
prohibition against murder, are directed at all
members of society.
Others, such as fishing and hunting regulations,
affect particular categories of people. Still others
govern the behavior of social institutions (for
instance, corporate law and laws regarding the
taxing of nonprofit enterprises).
32. Socialization is the primary source of conforming
and obedient behavior, including obedience to law.
Generally, it is not external pressure from a peer
group or authority figure that makes us go along with
social norms.
33. Rather, we have internalized such norms as valid and
desirable and are committed to observing them. In a
profound sense, we want to see ourselves (and to be
seen) as loyal, cooperative, responsible, and
respectful of others.
In the United States and other societies around the
world, people are socialized both to want to belong
and to fear being viewed as different or deviant
35. Functionalist Perspective
According to functionalists, deviance is a common
part of human existence, with positive as well as
negative consequences for social stability.
Deviance helps to define the limits of proper
behavior. Children who see one parent scold the
other for belching at the dinner table learn about
approved conduct.
36. The same is true of the driver who receives a
speeding ticket, the department store cashier who is
fired for yelling at a customer, and the college
student who is penalized for handing in papers
weeks overdue. Durkheim’s Legacy Émile
Durkheim ([1895] 1964) focused
37. his sociological investigations mainly on criminal
acts, yet his conclusions have implications for all
types of deviant behavior. In Durkheim’s view, the
punishments established within a culture (including
both formal and informal mechanisms of social
control) help to define acceptable behavior and thus
contribute to stability. If improper acts were not
sanctioned, people might stretch their standards of
what constitutes appropriate conduct.
38. Sociologist Kai Erikson (1966) illustrated the
boundary-maintenance function of deviance in his
study of the Puritans of 17th-century New England.
By today’s standards, the Puritans placed
tremendous emphasis on conventional morals.
39. Their persecution and execution of women as
witches represented a continuing attempt to define
and redefine the boundaries of their community. In
effect, their changing social norms created crime
waves, as people whose behavior was previously
acceptable suddenly faced punishment for being
deviant (R. Schaefer and Zellner 2011).
40. Durkheim ([1897] 1951) introduced the term anomie
into sociological literature to describe the loss of
direction felt in society when social control of individual
behavior has become ineffective. Anomie is a state of
normlessness that typically occurs during a period of
profound social change and disorder, such as a time of
economic collapse. People become more aggressive or
depressed, which results in higher rates of violent crime
and suicide. Since there is much less agreement on what
constitutes proper behavior during times of revolution,
sudden prosperity, or economic depression, conformity
and obedience become less significant as social forces. It
also becomes much more difficult to state exactly what
constitutes deviance
41. Merton’s Theory of Deviance What do a mugger and
a teacher have in common? Each is “working” to
obtain money that can then be exchanged for desired
goods. As this example illustrates, behavior that
violates accepted norms (such as mugging) may be
based on the same basic objectives as the behavior of
people who pursue more conventional lifestyles. On
the basis of this kind of analysis, sociologist Robert
Merton (1968) adapted Durkheim’s notion of anomie
to explain why people accept or reject the goals of a
society, the socially approved means of fulfilling their
aspirations, or both.
42. Merton maintained that one important cultural goal
in the United States is success, measured largely in
terms of money. In addition to providing this goal for
people, our society offers specific instructions on
how to pursue s uccess—go to school, work hard, do
not quit, take advantage of opportunities, and so
forth. W hat happens to individuals in a society with
a heavy emphasis on wealth as a basic symbol of
success? Merton reasoned that people adapt in
certain ways, either by conforming to or by deviating
from such cultural expectations.
43. His anomie theory of deviance posits five basic forms
of adaptation ( Table 7-1 ). Conformity to social norms,
the most common adaptation in Merton’s typology, is the
opposite of deviance.
It involves acceptance of both the overall societal goal
(“become affluent”) and the approved means (“work
hard”).
In Merton’s view, there must be some consensus
regarding accepted cultural goals and the legitimate
means for attaining them. Without such a consensus,
soci- eties could exist only as collectives of people rather
than as unified cultures, and might experience continual
chaos.
44. T he other four types of behavior represented in T
able 7-1 all involve some departure from conformity.
The “innovator” accepts the goals of society but
pursues them with means that are regarded as
improper.
45. For instance, a safecracker may steal money to buy
consumer goods and expensive vacations. I n
Merton’s typology, the “ritualist” has abandoned the
goal of material success and become compulsively
committed to the institutional means. Work becomes
simply a way of life rather than a means to the goal
of success.
46. An example would be the bureaucratic official who
blindly applies rules and regulations without
remembering the larger goals of the organization.
Certainly that would be true of a welfare caseworker
who refuses to assist a homeless family because their
last apartment was in another district.
47. The “retreatist,” as described by Merton, has
basically retreated (or withdrawn) from both the
goals and the means of society. In the United States,
drug addicts and vagrants are typically portrayed as
retreatists. Concern has been growing that
adolescents who are addicted to alcohol will become
retreatists at an early age.
48. The final adaptation identified by Merton reflects
people’s attempts to create a new social structure.
The “rebel” feels alienated from the dominant means
and goals and may seek a dramatically different
social order. Members of a revolutionary political
organization, such as a militia group, can be
categorized as rebels according to Merton’s model.
49. Merton made a key contribution to the sociological
understanding of deviance by pointing out that
deviants such as innovators and ritualists share a
great deal with conforming people. The convicted
felon may hold many of the same aspirations as
people with no criminal background.
50. The theory helps us to understand deviance as a
socially created behavior rather than as the result of
momentary pathological impulses.
However, this theory of deviance has not been
applied systematically to real-world crime. Box 7-2
(page 160) examines scholars’ efforts to confirm the
theory’s validity.
51. Class Activity
Using examples drawn from work or college life,
illustrate each of Merton’s five modes of individual
adaption.
52. Interactionist Perspective
The functionalist approach to deviance explains why
rule violations continue to happen despite pressure
to conform and obey. However, functionalists do not
indicate how a given person comes to commit a
deviant act or why on some occasions crimes do or
do not occur.
The emphasis on everyday behavior that is the focus
of the interactionist perspective offers two
explanations of crime: cultural transmission and
routine activities theory.
53. Edwin Sutherland (1883–1950) first advanced the
idea that an individual undergoes the same basic
socialization process in learning conforming and
deviant acts.
54. Sutherland’s ideas have been the dominating force
in criminology. He drew on the cultural
transmission school, which emphasizes that one
learns criminal behavior by interacting with others.
Such learning includes not only the techniques of
lawbreaking (for example, how to break into a car
quickly and quietly) but also the motives, drives, and
rationalizations of the criminal.
55. The cultural transmission approach can also be used to
explain the behavior of those who habitually abuse
alcohol or drugs.
Sutherland maintained that through interactions with a
primary group and significant others, people acquire
definitions of proper and improper behavior.
He used the term differential association to describe the
process through which exposure to attitudes favorable
to criminal acts leads to the violation of rules. Research
suggests that this view of differential association also
applies to noncriminal deviant acts, such as smoking,
truancy
56. Social disorganization
According to social disorganization theory,
increases in crime and deviance can be attributed to
the absence or breakdown of communal
relationships and social institutions, such as the
family, school, church, and local government.
57. This theory was developed at the University of
Chicago in the early 1900s to describe the apparent
disorganization that occurred as cities expanded with
rapid immigration and migration from rural areas.
Using the latest survey techniques, Clifford Shaw and
Henry McKay literally mapped the distribution of
social problems in Chicago.
58. They found high rates of social problems in
neighborhoods where buildings had deteriorated and
the population had declined. Interestingly, the
patterns persisted over time, despite changes in the
neighborhoods’ ethnic and racial composition
59. Labeling theory
Unlike Sutherland’s work, labeling theory does not
focus on why some individuals come to commit
deviant acts. Instead, it attempts to explain why
certain people (such as the Roughnecks) are viewed
as deviants, delinquents, bad kids, losers, and
criminals, whereas others whose behavior is similar
(such as the Saints) are not seen in such harsh terms.
60. Reflecting the contribution of interactionist
theorists, labeling theory emphasizes how a person
comes to be labeled as deviant or to accept that label.
Sociologist Howard Becker (1963:9; 1964), who
popularized this approach, summed it up with this
statement: “Deviant behavior is behavior that people
so label.”
61. Labeling theory is also called the s ocietal-reaction
approach , reminding us that it is the response to
an act, not the behavior itself, that determines
deviance. For example, studies have shown that
some school personnel and therapists expand
educational programs designed for learningdisabled
students to include those with behavioral problems.
Consequently, a “troublemaker” can be improperly
labeled as “ learning-disabled,” and vice versa
62. The popularity of labeling theory is reflected in the
emergence of a related perspective, called social
constructionism.
According to the social constructionist perspective,
deviance is the product of the culture we live in.
63. Social constructionists focus specifically on the
decision-making process that creates the deviant
identity. They point out that “child abductors,”
“deadbeat dads,” “spree killers,” and “date rapists”
have always been with us, but at times have become
the major social concern of policymakers because of
intensive media coverage
64. Class Activity
You are a teacher. What labels, freely used in
education, might you attach to your students?
65. Conflict Perspective
Conflict theorists point out that people with power
protect their interests and define deviance to suit
their needs.
66. Sociologist Richard Quinney (1974, 1979, 1980) was
a leading exponent of the view that the criminal
justice system serves the interests of the powerful.
Crime, according to Quinney (1970), is a definition of
conduct created by authorized agents of social
control— such as legislators and law enforcement
officers—in a politically organized society.
He and other conflict theorists argue that law
making is often an attempt by the powerful to coerce
others into their morality
67. This theory helps to explain why our society has
laws against gambling, drug use, and prostitution,
many of which are violated on a massive scale. (We
will examine these “victimless crimes” later in the
chapter.)
68. According to conflict theorists, criminal law does not
represent a consistent application of societal values,
but instead reflects competing values and interests.
Thus, the U.S. criminal code outlaws marijuana
because of its alleged harm to users, yet cigarettes
and alcohol—both of which can be harmful to users—
are sold legally almost everywhere.
69. In fact, conflict theorists contend that the entire
criminal justice system in the United States treats
suspects differently based on their racial, ethnic, or
social-class background.
In many cases, officials in the system use their own
discretion to make biased decisions about whether to
press charges or drop them, whether to set bail and
how much, whether to offer parole or deny it.
70. Researchers have found that this kind of d
ifferential justice — differences in the way social
control is exercised over different groups—puts
African Americans and Latinos at a disadvantage in
the justice system, both as juveniles and as adults.
On average, White offenders receive shorter
sentences than comparable Latino and African
American offenders, even when prior arrest records
and the relative severity of the crime are taken into
consideration
71. The perspective advanced by conflict and labeling
theorists forms quite a contrast to the functionalist
approach to deviance.
Functionalists see standards of deviant behavior as
merely reflecting cultural norms; conflict and
labeling theorists point out that the most powerful
groups in a society can shape laws and standards and
determine who is (or is not) prosecuted as a criminal.
72. These groups would be unlikely to apply the label
“deviant” to the corporate executive whose decisions
lead to large-scale environmental pollution.
In the opinion of conflict theorists, agents of social
control and other powerful groups can impose their
own self-serving definitions of deviance on the
general public.
73. Feminist Perspective
Feminist criminologists such as Freda Adler and
Meda Chesney Lind have suggested that many of the
existing approaches to deviance and crime were
developed with only men in mind.
74. It took repeated protests by feminist organizations
to get changes in the criminal law defining rape.
Beginning in 1993, husbands in all 50 states could be
prosecuted under most circumstances for the rape of
their wives. There remain alarming exceptions in no
fewer than 30 states, however.
75. Crime: A Sociological Approach
Crime is a violation of criminal law for which some
governmental authority applies formal penalties.
It represents a deviation from formal social norms
administered by the state.
76. Laws divide crimes into various categories,
depending on the severity of the offense, the age of
the offender, the potential punishment, and the
court that holds jurisdiction over the case.
In this section we will examine six types of crime
differentiated by sociologists victimless crimes,
professional crime, organized crime, white-collar
and technology-based crime, hate crimes, and
transnational crime.
77. i)Victimless crime
Sociologists use the term victimless crime refer to
actions that have been made illegal but which do not
directly violate or threaten the rights of any other
individual.
For example, in most countries current victimless crimes
include recreational drug use.
78. ii
ii)Professional Crime
A professional criminal, or career criminal, is a
person who pursues crime as a day-to-day
occupation, developing skilled techniques and
enjoying a certain degree of status among other
criminals. Some professional criminals specialize in
burglary, pickpocketing, and shoplifting.
Such people have acquired skills that reduce the
likelihood of arrest, conviction, and imprisonment.
As a result, they may have long careers in their
chosen profession
79. iii)Organized Crime
The work of a group that regulates relations among
criminal enterprises involved in illegal activities,
including the smuggling and sale of illegal drugs.
Organized crime dominates the world of illegal
business just as large corporations dominate the
conventional business world.
80. iv)White-Collar and Technology-Based Crime
White-collar crime refers to financially motivated
nonviolent crime committed by business and
government professionals.
Within criminology, it was first defined by
sociologist Edwin Sutherland in 1939 as "a crime
committed by a person of respectability and high
social status in the course of his occupation"
81. Sutherland (1940) coined the term white-collar
crime in 1939 to refer to acts by individuals, but the
term has been broadened more recently to include
offenses by businesses and corporations as well.
Corporate crime, or any act by a corporation that is
punishable by the government, takes many forms
and includes individuals, organizations, and
institutions among its victims.
Typical white-collar crimes could possibly include
fraud, bribery.
82. v) Hate Crime
The government considers an ordinary crime to be a
hate crime when the offender is motivated to choose a
victim based on race, religion, ethnic group, national
origin, and when evidence shows that hatred prompted
the offender to commit the crime.
Hate crimes are sometimes referred to as bias crimes.
A hate crime (also known as a bias-motivated crime)
is a prejudice-motivatedcrime, which occurs when a
perpetrator targets a victim because of his or her
membership (or perceived membership) in a certain
social group.
83. vi)Transnational Crime
More and more, scholars and police officials are
turning their attention to transnational crime, or
crime that occurs across multiple national borders.
In the past, international crime was often limited to
the clandestine shipment of goods across the border
between two countries. But increasingly, crime is no
more restricted by such borders than is legal
commerce.
84. Class Assignment
As the editor of an online news service, how might
you treat stories on white-collar crime differently
from those on Hate crime?
