Transcript Deviance, crime and control

Module 23: Social Control
Sociology in Modules
Richard T. Schaefer
3rd edition
Culture and norms regarding
appropriate behavior
Social Control
• Social control: techniques and strategies
employed for preventing deviant human
behavior in any society
– Parents
– Peer groups
– Government
– Bureaucratic organizations
Why do we accept these norms?
Social Control and sactions
• Sanctions: penalties and rewards for conduct
concerning a social norm
– If we fail to live up to the norm we may face
informal sanctions (fear and ridicule) or formal
sanctions (jail sentences or fines)
Why do we need norms?
• What is the functionalist view?
– Why are norms functional for society?
– Why should few decide about these norms?
• Conflict perspective –
• Resistance to social norms is necessary to bring about
change.
• Civil rights movement
Conformity and Obedience
• The Milgram Experiment
– Experimenter instructed people to administer
increasingly painful electric shocks to a subject
– Conformity: going along with peers who have no
special right to direct behavior
• Similar status – peer group, minority status group
– Obedience: compliance with higher authorities in
a hierarchical structure
• Higher status – police officers
We also consider social positioning
• Conflict perspective
Authority figure
Your position
Your position
Position of the victim
• Garry Schulman – recreating the Milgram Experiment
– What happened when race was introduced?
Conformity and Obedience
• Reflecting on the Milgram Experiment
– Two-thirds of participants fell into category of
“obedient subjects”
• People in modern industrial world accustomed
to submitting to impersonal authority figures
• Recent replications of experiment confirm findings
Reflecting on the Milgram experiment
• Why did these subjects obey? – why were
they willing to inflict painful socks on innocent
people?
– Submission to authority
– Power of symbols – people in uniform
– Shift of responsibility to authority figure
Informal and Formal
Social Control
• Informal social control: used casually to
enforce norms
– Smiles, laughter, raised eyebrows, ridicule
• Formal social control: carried out by
authorized agents
– Informal social control can undermine
formal social control, encouraging
people to violate social norms
– Example – Binge drinking
Law and Society
• Some norms are so important to a
society that they are formalized into laws
– Law: governmental social control
– Regulations – hunting regulations
How laws are created?
• Laws are passed due to perceived need for
social control
• Nixon's private comments about marijuana showed he was the
epitome of misinformation and prejudice. He believed marijuana
led to hard drugs, despite the evidence to the contrary. He saw
marijuana as tied to "radical demonstrators." He believed that "the
Jews," especially "Jewish psychiatrists" were behind advocacy for
legalization, asking advisor Bob Haldeman, "What the Christ is the
matter with the Jews, Bob?" He made a bizarre distinction between
marijuana and alcohol, saying people use marijuana "to get high"
while "a person drinks to have fun."
• He also saw marijuana as part of the culture war that
was destroying the United States, and claimed that
Communists were using it as a weapon. "Homosexuality,
dope, immorality in general," Nixon fumed. "These are
the enemies of strong societies. That's why the
Communists and the left-wingers are pushing the stuff,
they're trying to destroy us." His approach drug
education was just as simplistic: "Enforce the law. You've
got to scare them.“
•
Source: This article originally appeared on Points, an Atlantic partner site.
• The legal order reflects values of
those in a position to exercise authority
– Medical use of marijuana
– Gay marriage
• These values are internalized through the process
of socialization
- We are socialized to want to belong and be fearful of
being viewed as different of deviant
Control Theory
• Control theory: connection to
members of society leads people to
systematically conform to society’s norms
Social
connections
Induce
conformity
Family
Peer group
Mores
Folkways
Self-control
Socialization
Internalization
Social norms
Module 24: What Is Deviance?
Sociology in Modules
Richard T. Schaefer
3rd edition
Deviant behavior
What Is Deviance?
• Deviance: behavior that violates the standards
of conduct or expectations of
a group or society
– Involves violation of group norms, which
may or may not be formalized into law
– Subject to social definition within a
particular society and at a particular time
What Is Deviance?
• Deviance and Social Stigma
– Stigma: labels society uses to devalue members of
certain social groups
– Mental illness and perception of crime
– Overweight people
Sociological Perspectives
on Deviance
• Why do people violate social norms?
• Early explanations blamed supernatural
causes or genetic factors (“bad blood”)
• Socio-biologists critical of emphasis on genetic
roots of crime and deviance
– Lombroso (1835-1909) – Italian physician – his
theory – all criminals have some physical traits in
common
Functionalist Perspective
• Durkheim’s Legacy
– Punishments established within a culture help
define acceptable behavior and contribute to
stability
– Erikson illustrated boundary-maintenance
function of deviance
– Anomie: loss of direction felt in society when
social control of individual behavior has become
ineffective
Table 24-1: Merton’s Deviance Theory
Interactionist Perspective
• Cultural Transmission
– Cultural transmission: humans learn how to
behave in social situations, whether properly or
improperly
– Differential association: process through which
exposure to attitudes favorable to criminal acts
leads to the violation of rules (Sutherland)
Social disorganization theory
Interactionist Perspective
• Social Disorganization Theory
– Increases in crime and deviance attributed
to absence or breakdown of communal
relationships and social institutions
– Some claim social disorganization theory seems to
“blame the victim”
Labeling Perspective
• Labeling theory: attempts to explain
why some people are viewed as deviants
while others are not; also known as societalreaction approach
– Societal-reaction approach: another term for
labeling theory, designed to remind us that the
response to an act, not the behavior, determines
deviance
Labeling Perspective
• Labeling and Agents of Social Control
– Focuses on police, probation officers,
psychiatrists, judges, teachers, employers, school
officials, and other regulators of social control
– Social constructionist perspective: deviance is a
product of the culture we live in
Conflict Perspective
• People with power protect their own interests
and define deviance to suit their needs
• Contends that the entire criminal justice
system in the United States treats suspects
differently based on their race, ethnicity, or
social class
– Differential justice: differences in way social
control is exercised over different groups
Conflict theory of deviance
Who has power?
Feminist Perspective
• Adler and Chesney-Lind suggest existing
approaches to deviance and crime developed
with men in mind
– Great effort undertaken by feminist organizations
to redefine legal definitions
of rape
– Cultural views and attitudes toward women
influence how they are perceived and labeled
Module 25: Crime
Sociology in Modules
Richard T. Schaefer
3rd edition
Crime
• Crime: violation of criminal law for which
governmental authority applies formal
penalties
– Six types differentiated by sociologists:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Victimless crimes
Professional crime
Organized crime
White-collar and technology-based crime
Hate crimes
Transnational crime
Types of Crime
• Victimless Crimes
– Willing exchange among adults of widely desired,
but illegal, goods and services
• Professional Crime
– Committed by a professional criminal:
person who pursues crime as a day-to-day
occupation
Types of Crime
• Organized Crime
– Group that regulates relations between various
criminal enterprises involved in illegal activities
– Dominates world of illegal business, just as large
corporations dominate conventional businesses
– Serves as means of upward mobility for
groups of people struggling to escape poverty
– Can be characterized by the process of ethnic
succession
Types of Crime
• White Collar and
Technology-Based Crime
– White-collar crime: illegal acts committed in the
course of business activities
– Computer crime: use of high technology to carry
out embezzlement or electronic fraud
– Corporate crime: any act by a corporation that is
punishable by the government
Types of Crime
• Hate Crime
– Offender is motivated to choose a victim based on
race, religion, ethnic group, national origin, or
sexual orientation, and when evidence shows that
hatred prompted offender to commit the crime
– In 2013, official reports of more than 7,200
hate crimes and bias-motivated incidents
Figure 25-1: Categorization of Reported Hate Crimes
Types of Crime
• Transnational Crime
– Crime that occurs across multiple national borders
– Once often limited to shipment of goods across
single border; now, spans the globe
– Slavery
– Trafficking in endangered species, drugs, stolen art
and antiquities
Crime Statistics
• Index Crimes and Victimization Surveys
– Index crimes include eight types of crime
tabulated by the FBI
– Violent crimes against people
• Murder, rape, robbery, assault
– Crimes against property
• Burglary, theft, motor vehicle theft, arson
Crime Statistics
• Index Crimes and Victimization Surveys
(continued)
– Crime index is disproportionately
devoted to property crimes
• Only crimes reported to law enforcement agencies
tracked
– Victimization surveys: surveys of ordinary
people, not police officers, to determine whether
they have been victims of crime
Crime Statistics
• Crime Trends
– Public regards crime as major social
problem, yet rate of crime being reported in
2012 was comparable to what it was in 1963
• Changes in public policy, public health,
technology, and demographics may explain
– Feminist scholars: proportion of major crimes
committed by women has increased
Crime Statistics
• International Crime Rates
– Violent crimes much more common in U.S.
than western Europe in 1980s and 1990s
– England, Ireland, Denmark, and New Zealand
have higher rates of car theft than U.S.
– Rapid rise in homicide rates in developing
countries that supply drugs to industrialized
countries
Figure 25-2: Victimization Rates, 1993–2012
Social Policy and Social Control: Gun
Control
• Looking at the Issue
– Guns are big business in the U.S.; very high ratio of
guns to people in the U.S.
– Number of citizens favoring stricter gun control has
dropped
– Role of firearms in crime has remained steady
– Brady Act requires background checks for gun
purchases
– Supreme Court has recently favored more gun rights
Social Policy and Social Control: Gun
Control
• Applying Sociology
– Sociologists find it difficult to get funding for
studies of gun violence
• Near total cutoff of federal funding for gun studies
– Conflict theorists point out power of NRA over
legislative process
– Interactionists note use of symbols by both proand anti-gun rights activists