Transcript File - sociology 101

Unit 7: Deviance and Social Control
Topic: Defining deviance in different
cultural/societal contexts
Do Now: Do any of these images
offend/shock you?
Most pierced woman in the
world
In a bizarre publicity stunt, Dr Wei Sheng
pierced 2008 decorative needles in his head,
face, hands and chest in the five colours of
the Olympic rings. Dr Sheng's stunt was not
the first time he had gained notoriety for
sticking pins in his body. In 2004 he secured
a Guinness World Record after piercing
1790 needles into his head.
Deviance is…
•Any violation of group
norms, however major or
minor.
•Deviant behavior differs
from society to society
•Sociologists, psychologists,
psychiatrists, and
criminologists study how
these norms are created,
how they change over time
and how they are enforced.
What are some examples
of deviance in different
social contexts?
Social Stigma:
Stigma (Goffman, 1963) describes the labels society uses
to devalue members of certain social groups (overweight
people, short people, redheads, etc.
How do social interactions online impact our ideas
About what is/isn’t deviant social behavior?
Social Control:
Techniques & strategies for
preventing deviant human
behavior in society.
Occurs on all levels of
society
Can you think of some
examples from:
1. School?
2. Your Home?
3. Society in general?
•In the United States, anti-miscegenation
laws were state laws passed by individual
states to prohibit interracial marriage and
interracial sex.
•Typically defining miscegenation as a felony,
these laws prohibited the solemnization of
weddings between persons of different races
and prohibited the officiating of such
ceremonies.
•Sometimes, the individuals attempting to
marry would not be held guilty of
miscegenation itself, but felony charges of
adultery or fornication would be brought
against them instead. All anti-miscegenation
laws banned the marriage of whites and nonwhite groups, primarily blacks, but often also
Native Americans and Asians
The Social Context of Deviance
Describe when each of the following actions can be either
deviant or completely acceptable:
1. Murder
2.
Fighting (physically)
3.
Being drunk in public
4.
Doing drugs
5.
6.
Being sexually promiscuous
Lying
• Conformity: Going along with peers who have no
particular right to direct our behavior
• Obedience: compliance with higher authority in a
hierarchical structure.
• Can you give examples of each?
The line on the left is equal in length to which line
on the right (A, B, or C?)
• In a control group, with no
pressure to conform to an
erroneous view, only 1 subject
out of 35 ever gave an
incorrect answer. However,
when surrounded by
individuals all voicing an
incorrect answer, participants
provided incorrect responses
on a high proportion of the
questions (36.8%). 75% of
the participants gave an
incorrect answer to at least
one question.
The Milgram Experiment (1963)
Social Experiment that
measured the willingness
of study participants to
obey an authority figure
who instructed them to
perform acts that
conflicted with their
personal conscience.
“Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular
hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive
process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work
become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions
incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few
people have the resources needed to resist authority.”---Stanley Milgram
The “Banality of Evil”
• Phrase coined by Hannah
Arendt and incorporated
in the title of her 1963
work Eichmann in
Jerusalem: A Report on
the Banality of Evil.
• Thesis that the great evils
in history were/are not
executed by fanatics or
sociopaths but rather by
ordinary people who
accepted the premises of
their state and therefore
participated with the view
that their actions were
normal.
---Him Huy, head of guard detail at Tuol Sleng (S-21) death camp
where he personally oversaw the deaths of 14,000 individuals. Huy,
now 50, lives in a small village in Cambodia where he lives
alongside former victims.
“I’m not a bad person. I’m a good man. I never argue with anyone. I never fight
with anyone. I have good intentions as a human being…”
“We were all prisoners, those who killed and those who were killed. We were
victims too. I had no choice. If I hadn’t killed them [Cambodian citizens], I
would have been killed myself.”
The Nuremberg Defense:
• Coined during the
Nazi war crimes trials
at Nuremberg after
World War II.
• Nazi war criminals who
were charged with
genocide, mass murder,
torture and other
atrocities used the
defense "I was only
following orders" so
frequently that the
argument became
known generically as
"The Nuremberg
Defense".
Sociological Perspectives on
Deviance
Functionalist: deviance has
both positive and negative
purposes (defines
boundaries, reinforces
norms, etc.)
Interactionists: deviance is a
form of cultural transmission
(e.g. graffiti gangs in L.A.) same socialization process to
both deviant and nondeviant behavior
Merton: objectives of
deviant people the same
as non-deviant ones (e.g. a
their and a store clerk
both ‘working’ for what
they want)
Differential Association Theory:
• States that
association with
groups oriented
towards deviance
makes us more
likely to engage in
deviant acts
ourselves
Control Theory:
• Everyone is propelled towards deviance
• Have both inner (morality, fear of punishment,
etc) & outer controls (family, friends, etc) that
influence us to stay away from crime
Labeling Theory (societal-reaction
approach):
• Does not focus on why some individuals commit devaint acts, but
attempts to explain why certain people are viewed as deviants,
delinquents, bad kids, losers, and criminals whereas others whose
behavior is similar are not (e.g. famous sociological case study of the
“Saints and the Roughnecks”) - READING
• What are some labels we apply to people we think of as deviant?
Social Constructionist
Perspective
Related to labeling theory, this perspective states that
deviance is a product of culture. Social constructivists
believe that although ‘deadbeat dads’, ‘date rapists’, ‘child
molesters’, and ‘spree killers’ have always been among us,
but have been labeled at different times in history based
on what society values.
Reads (from bottom to
top) “Patronly, Prusish,
Old-Fashioned, Proper,
Flirty, Cheeky,
Provacative, Asking for
it, Slut, Whore”
What point is
this making
regarding our
labels of
people?
Crime
Aim: How do societies determine laws
based on perceptions of deviance?
• Do Now: What is a ‘crime’ - offer some
examples. How does a society determine
what a crime is?
• Write down all of the
terms you associate with
the word “Criminal” –
How does your label
impact how you view
someone who is a
‘criminal’
Crime & Deviance:
• Sociologically, crime is defined
as legally regulated deviant
behavior
• Deviance is a broad concept
of which crime is only a small
part
• Therefore, all crime is
classified as deviant, but not
all deviance is classified as
crime!
3 Strikes Laws (these are all true!)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
In Iowa, a man was sentenced to 10 years for stealing $30 worth of
steaks from a grocery store
In California, a 21-year-old anthropology major was sentenced to 10
years for mailing sheets of LSD to her boyfriend.
In Los Angeles, a 27-year-old man was sentenced to 25 years for
stealing a pizza.
In Alabama, a husband, father, Vietnam veteran, and owner to a
roofing business bought a pound of marijuana. Thirteen years
earlier, he had been arrested for several petty crimes- crimes that
didn’t even carry a prison sentence. He was sentenced to life in
prison without parole.
In Sacramento, a man who passed himself off as Tiger Woods to go
on a $17,000 shopping spree was sentenced to 200 years in prison.
Victimless Crime (Schur, 1965, 1985): describes the
willing exchange among adults of widely desired but illegal
goods and services such as drugs and prostitution concept is highly controversial.
Social Perceptions of Prostitution…
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
How are prostitutes viewed by our society?
Why isn’t prostitution looked at with the same prestige as other
work? Why isn’t it even perceived as work?
If promiscuity is legal, why is prostitution illegal?
Would prostitution be viewed differently if it were a male
enterprise, predominantly?
Why do other nations such as Holland perceive prostitution
differently?
How do you personally view it?
Why does our legal system disproportionately use negative legal
sanctions on the women who engage in prostitution, and not on the
men who frequent prostitutes? Do you agree with this?
Drugs, Alcohol, and Deviance…
1.
2.
3.
4.
Why are certain types of drugs
legal and others not (so-called
‘street drugs’)
Do different standards exist for
different drug users (crack vs.
cocaine, for example, or nicotine
vs. illegal drugs)
What threat do drugs pose to any
given society?
Should governments regulate a
citizen’s drug consumption?
Race, Deviance, & Crime Discussion:
1. What is your perception regarding which races/ethnic
groups commit the most crimes?
2. Where does your perception come from? Do you think it’s
accurate?
3. Is there a difference in the types of crimes committed by
races/ethnicities? If so, why might this be so?
Social Control and Conflict Theory:
• Elites of society create the laws which govern
everyone
• Law is instrument of repression designed for
privileged to maintain their power/wealth
• Criminal justice system directs energies towards
middle/lower classes (called “differential justice)
Social Disorganization Theory
Says that social relationships within a
neighborhood impact people’s behaviors theory states that increases in crime and
deviance can occur when there is a breakdown
of communal relationships such as family,
church, schools, and local governments.
Social Class & Crime
The ‘hustler’ is a role model
for urban poor because he/she
is one of the few who comes
close to cultural goals of
success (Cloward, Ohlin)
• Illegitimate Opportunity
Structures: seemingly
glamorous opportunities
for cultural success for the
poor- burglary,
prostitution, drug dealing,
gambling, and other
common crimes
• Concentrated in urban
slums
“White Collar” Crime
(Sutherland, 1983):
• Refers to crimes that people of
respectable and high social status
commit in the course of their
occupation. Includes things like
income tax evation, stock
manipulation, embezzlement,
misrepresentation in adverstising,
etc.)
• Physicians never rob cabbies on
the way to work, for example, but
many do cheat Medicare in the
course of their careers.
Difference in perceptions:
• There is a misperception that
lower classes engage in more
criminal activity
• This is due to visibility
• Street crimes are more covered
in the media (newspapers,
nightly news, etc) and more
people fear being raped, killed,
or mugged that they do being
defrauded by a Wall Street
company
Understanding Crime Statistics
Crime has dropped nationally in
the last several decades (why do
you think this is? Freakonomic?)
Feminist scholars note that nonviolent crimes committed by
women have actually increased in
recent years (why?)
The Feminist
Perspective
Feminist criminologists (Adler, Chesney-Lind) noted that
exiting approaches to deviance and crime were male-centered,
and ingnored crimes against women (e.g. rape laws, which only
defined rape as pertaining to sexual relations between people
not married to each other)
Shaming/Degradation Ceremonies:
• Formal attempts to
brand someone an
outsider.
• Rituals that are
designed to strip an
individual of his or
her identity as a
group member.
• Creates in/out
groups
Shaming/Degradation Ceremony:
• http://criminaljustice.state.ny.us/SomsSUBDire
ctory/search_index.jsp
In a scene that could have
been lifted from the
Cultural Revolution, 17
Chinese villagers who
petitioned against
government land-grabs
were recently subjected to a
public humiliation session
by district officials, in
Ankang City, Shaanxi
Province.
Self-Fulfilling Prophecies:
• Once labeled, a
group will take on
characteristics of
the
label/stereotype
• In other words, the
way we are treated
actually shapes our
behavior.
Deviance Activity:
• Read through the bulleted list of
deviant acts (some of which are actual
crimes, some of which are not)
• Next to each, write down the number
of the sanction you would personally
give that crime were you making the
laws.
0 = No Punishment
1 = Social disapproval
2 = Small criminal fine
3 = Large criminal fine
4 = Probation of suspended sentence
5 = Short jail sentence (less than 6 months)
6 = Lengthy jail sentence (6 months - 1 yr)
7 = Short prison sentence (1-3 years)
8 = Moderate prison sentence (3-5 years)
9 = Lengthy prison sentence (more than 5 years)
10 = Life imprisonment
11 = Execution
Our America: Sex Offenders
Sex Offenders & Deviance Discussion:
1.
2.
3.
Why do you think sex offenders are
so looked down upon in our society even compared to other violent
criminals?
Do you agree with this perception?
Why or why not?
Would you want a sex offender living
in your neighborhood? Explain.
The West Memphis Three:
• We will be watching selected clips from the HBO documentary
Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills.
• As you watch, consider the concepts discussed in class,
including labeling theory, control theory, and
shaming/degradation ceremonies.
As we watch the documentary “The
World’s Most Dangerous Gang”
with Lisa Ling, try to identify
sociological examples of the roles
of gangs