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Deviance is any violation of society’s norms.
Each society defines deviance differently. Deviance is a relative issue and may differ based on location, age, social status, and individual societies.
Social control is a way society encourages conformity to norms. It consists of positive and negative sanctions.
Positive sanctions are socially constructed expressions of approval.
Negative sanctions are socially constructed expressions of disapproval.
The symbolic interactionist perspective is one of the main frameworks that sociologists use to analyze society. Symbolic interactionists view society as a byproduct of everyday social interaction.
Edwin Sutherland’s theory of differential association asserts that deviance is a learned behavior that people learn from the different groups with which they associate. Some people form deviant subcultures based on a shared deviance.
According to William Reckless’ control theory, people have two control systems to keep them from acting outside society’s norms: inner and outer controls.
Inner controls are internalized thought processes such as conscience. Outer controls include people who influence us.
Travis Hirschi elaborated on control theory and identified four factors that make individuals more or less likely to commit deviance. These factors are attachment, commitment, involvement, and belief.
Howard Becker’s labeling theory posits that deviant behavior is that which society labels as deviant.
Edwin Lemert distinguished between primary deviance, the initial act, and secondary deviance, the repeated deviance that occurs in response to people’s reaction to the primary deviance.
William Chambliss’ study of boys he called the Saints and Roughnecks showed the power of labeling.
Stigma theory, developed primarily by sociologist Erving Goffman, examines how individuals are socially discredited based on attributes, behaviors, or identities that deviate from societal norms.
Control theory, primarily developed by sociologist Travis Hirschi, proposes that social bonds play a critical role in maintaining conformity and preventing deviance.
Another sociological framework, the structural functional theory, focuses on society as a whole rather than the individuals within society.
Deviance is a normal and necessary part of any society.
Émile Durkheim said that deviance fulfills four functions for society: affirmation of cultural norms and values, clarification of right and wrong, unification of others in society, and bringing about social change.
According to Robert Merton’s strain theory of deviance, when people are prevented from achieving culturally approved goals through institutionalized means, they experience strain that can lead to deviance.
Denied access to institutionalized means to success, poor people turn to illegitimate opportunity structures.
Merton identified five reactions to goals and institutionalized means: conformists, innovators, ritualists, retreatists, and rebels.
The conflict theory is Karl Marx’s theoretical paradigm that views society as a struggle between groups over limited resources.
Conflict theory identifies two categories of people in industrialized societies: the capitalist class and the working class. Those in positions of wealth and power make up the capitalist class. The working class sells its labor to the capitalist class.
The two classes are always in conflict with one another. Capitalists establish the norms of society; laws support them.
Members of the capitalist class are less likely to be considered deviant because they make laws to benefit themselves.
Members of the elite are more likely to commit white-collar crime, nonviolent crime committed in the course of their occupations.
According to Alexander Liazos, people we commonly label as deviant are also relatively powerless.
The three general categories of crime are crimes against the person, crimes against property, and victimless crimes.
Age, gender, social class, and race and ethnicity are categories that sociologists use to create a criminal profile.
