9: Deviance

Ch. 7: Deviance

Violation of cultural norms ("crime" is violation of formal norms called laws)

100 years ago, deviance explanations were mostly biological in nature.
   
Head/face feature profiling (phrenology) -> build profiling (but there are issues with self-fulfilling prophecies, i.e. the Thomas Theorum - if you define someone as criminal, they start to internalize that label and come to realize it) -> genetics combined with environment (nurture/abuse) (explored in films such as Minority Report, and Gattaca)

Unfortunately for these biology-based theories, most deviance is done by physically "normal" people.

Worldcrunch article on most mass/serial killers not being mentally ill... one can be sociopathic without being pyschopathic...

More recently, we have developed psychological or personality-related theories, such as containment theory (p.178) which says that, in the same bad environment, boys with a strong conscience (Freud would say "superego"), who can handle frustration, and who identify with cultural norms, will stay out of trouble, whereas other boys will not.

SO, Psychology/Biology both view deviance as a trait of individuals, but Sociology points out that "wrongdoing" also has to do with society, where power influences our ideas of morality.

Society attempts to regulate (make predictable) people with social control, such as the criminal justice system. It also defines deviance, who is deviant, and how we react to it.

p. 178 Social Foundations

1. Nothing is inherently deviant, but rather deviant behavior is defined that way only in relation to specific norms.
   1. Cigarette smoking, how has this changed over time? How has this been accomplished?
      1. Laws, medicine, media, etc.
2. People become deviant as they are labeled that way. (Thomas Theorum/self-fulfilling prophecy/looking-glass self)
   1. so, deviance is a characteristic of a behavior – something you DO is a deviant action IF it breaks norms. But then it can subsequently become part of your identity – something you ARE.
3. Conflict theory says the law is how the powerful protect their interests.

Structural-Functionalism

Durkheim says deviance is a pattern, a cultural universal because all societies have it, and so therefore it must serve a function.  He says it is necessary for society.

1. affirms values – "good" is meaningless without its distinction from "evil"
2. clarifies boundaries by society's response
3. brings people together (sometimes)
4. encourages social change by pushing boundaries
   

   • Rock and Roll was deviant in the 50s, now its mainstream. Is any current music "deviant?"
   • women wanting to vote and have jobs was deviant 100 years ago

Merton's Strain Theory

Society defines goals, and provides means.  If the goals are too high for the means, "strain" results, which leads to deviance.

What is the American Dream?

Discuss table on p. 180.

How many people will be millionaires? Less than 1%.

Symbolic Interactionism

Sees deviance as a process, not a characteristic, and it depends entirely on the reaction of an audience.

Labeling theory (p.???) – deviance and conformity are relative terms that result NOT from what people DO, but rather from how OTHER people RESPOND to the actions.
Involves a highly variable process of "detection" of relevant data, definition of concepts, and response.

Primary deviance – passing episodes of norm-violating behavior,
e.g. skipping school, underage drinking

Secondary deviance – when your self-concept or character changes relative to an audience,
e.g. "that person IS a truant/delinquent/drunkard" etc...

Stigma – Greek for "tattoo," a powerful negative label that changes one's self-concept/identity.  Often this is informal but can be formalized in a "degradation ceremony" such as in The Scarlet Letter.

Retrospective (reinterpretation of history) and projective (predict future) labeling...

Labeling difference as deviance – depends on social power, people treat things that irritate or threaten them as deviance.

Medicalization - swapping moral labels for medical ones

• e.g., thievery becomes kleptomania, being a drunkard become being an alcoholic/addict, murderers become psychopathic/insane, promiscuity becomes nymphomania, bigotry becomes homophobia, etc...
• affects who responds and how we react – cops and lawyers vs. doctors and psychiatrists.
• Affects our opinion of deviants' personal competence.
• example of virginity-testing of girls in South Africa... this practice could be examined from all three of our theoretical perspectives.

Differential Association theory – deviance depends on the amount of contact with others who encourage or discourage activity.

- eighth grader sex survey, hypothetically rational in terms of pursuit of status.

• related to importance of "deviant subcultures," PLAUSIBILITY STRUCTURES

Control Theory – deviance depends on people anticipating consequences – criminal justice system using prevention by fear... does it work?

Attachment – networks

Opportunity structures – legit possibilities?

Involvement – social engagement

Belief – acceptance of morals / respect for authority (superego)

The Social Conflict Approach

Asks: why does society define certain activities as deviant in the first place?  Who benefits?

Points out that who and what are defined as "deviant" is not merely socially constructed, but it is done so on the basis of which categories of people have power.  The powerful have means to resist deviant labels, that the powerless lack.  

This implies that power affects HOW labels are applied.   For example, a rich person may be discredited by an audience for behaving badly (Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme), but we are unlikely to attribute their flaws to others like them.  But observing a poor or powerless person behaving badly, we are more likely to discredit their entire CATEGORY. (this is why stereotypes negatively affect minorities moreso than majority categories, e.g. look at that hispanic guy lounging around, they're all so lazy, or that black kid was on the news for stealing, they're all criminals...)

This approach points out that the common, widespread belief that the laws (and other norms) of our society are "just" and "good" masks their political character.  Of course it is in the interests of the elite that the masses don't question the neutrality of our system of law.

This approach also focuses on the relationship between normative systems and economic systems.  (later, we'll talk more about how "fiscal/economic" issues and "moral/social" issues are not as separate as many people think.)


Remember, Marx was a "material determinist" so his philosophy says that physical and economic realities have primacy - they come first, so to speak.  Our ideas about the world, including beliefs about how we ought to behave (i.e. norms) come second - they are a consequence or a result of material structures.

Our norms, then, have been influenced by ideology of CAPITALISM, so we would expect them to by systematically different from the set of norms we would see in a feudalist or communist society.

• e.g., many of our laws and mores are based on property rights and individual liberties
• theft is highlighted when poor do it as much as, or more than, when rich do it.
• non-productivity is laziness (Americans work more hours than other countries)
• challenges to status quo often framed negatively (union strikes, radical activist protests)
• positive label for things that support capitalist ideology – winning, achievement, competition.

CRIME

An interesting irony is that even though our capitalist culture focuses on property-related deviance, petty theft and street crime stand out more than "whitecollar" crime, which is also less stigmatizing, rarely brings police, and is often dealt with in civil court (business dealings between private parties) rather than criminal court (deals with moral responsibilities to society).

DAVE CHAPELLE as Tron Carter

Corporate – a whole corporation doing something illegal in the course of running a legitimate busness e.g. Enron circa 2001

Organized – PRODUCTS are illegal (many organized crime rings are run very similarly to legitimate businesses, using the same business models and organizational structures - they just focus on making money from drugs, prostitution, gambling, etc...)

Hate crime – motivated by categorical bias

punished differently depending on motivation? See box on p.189

America is a violent country compared to other, similar countries.

more data in the wake of CT school shooting, 12/12, including data from Kieran

gender – feminists might say Merton's Strain Theory makes assumptions based on androcentric cultural ideal (separate spheres) of financial wealth

(domestic violence - why women in some countries affirm a man's right to hit them)

Police? Constructed by whites as helpful, blacks as out to get you, racial profiling means more likely to get stopped for no reason. (find handout or old blog post???)
(socimages on failing to understand fear of police...)

Imagine, for the sake of argument, that black and white populations carry illegal drugs and guns in their cars at the same RATES. If blacks are more likely to be EXPECTED to be criminals, then cops are more likely to pull them over than whites (ever hear of Driving While Black? Pulling over a black motorist who hasn't done anything wrong, or at least nothing that you would pull over a white motorist for).

So if more blacks are being pulled over and searched than whites, and even they're carrying at the exact same rate, then police statistics will reflect a HIGHER rate of blacks carrying. This is then used to justify the profileing practices and perpetuates the cycle of expecting to find blacks doing crime more than whites.

Has racial profiling failed?

(25 min)

We can also talke about property crime vs. Crime against persons – chart on p. 191

Stats come from POLICE reports, which are 1/3 of victimization survey numbers.

Street criminals' avereage age is late teens, early 20s.

Males are 69% of property crimes, and 82% of violent crimes.

Whites do 70% of all crime. Blacks are 12% of popualtion but 29% of property arrests and 39% of violent crime arrests

• correlation with poverty, one theory that explains this is that those who are RELATIVELY DISADVANTAGED see society as unjust, and so why should they strive to follow the law?
• family patterns, more single-parent families
• prejudice – people more likely to report blacks, police more likely to investigate and arrest – ELABORATE ON POLICE PROFILING
• street crime stats do not include white collar, or drunk driving types of crimes.

US CJ System

Philosophies of punishment – p. 197 – DISCUSS EACH

does locking them up and throwing away the key decrease the crime rate?
Louisiana is the world prison capitol, largely due to privatization.

1. retribution – if you do something bad, something bad should happen to you. Oldest philosophy, eye-for-an-eye, basic sense of justice as balance in the world. Whatever you do wrong, something of the same magnitude should be done to you. Proportional punishment, should fit the crime.

2. deterrence – punishment sends a message, clarifies moral boundaries, so that individuals will rationally choose not to commit crime (depends on both 1. rationality, and 2. knowledge of consequences). So punishment may be more severe than the crime, in order to send a strong message about a crime of high cultural significance. Or punishment may be less severe than the crime, if the culture doesn't really have much to say about the kind of crime. Discuss examples?

3. protection – sanctions against criminals are not punishments per se, but are simply done out of a societal desire to remove sources of social harm, to protect the law-abiding population. Society does not thirst for vengeance, but coldly and rationally seeks to prevent crimes by weeding out criminals. No need to inflict harm or pain, so punishments would most likely include long periods of humane incarceration (or incapacitation of criminals, such as chemical castration as a response to a rapist).

4. rehabilitation – reinterpretation of crime from moral deviance to medical or social deviance: crime is seen as a symptom of "problems" of a mental or social nature that simply need to be "fixed." Instead of being viewed as "bad" criminals are seen as "sick," so they can be healed into a law-abiding, productive citizen capable of contributing to society instead of being a drain on tax dollars. Again, no need to inflict harm or pain on criminals, so instead they receive treatment, counseling, medicine, education and re-socialization.

OZ

story on 198 – 1% of population is in prison – costs more than college per person!  Up to $45 grand/year, plus the opportunity cost of those people not contributing to society by having jobs and paying taxes.
Wisconsin, for the first time in 2011, actually spent more money TOTAL on our prison system than we did on our university system.

Industry – brings jobs, politically expedient to seem "tough on crime," privatization lobby

The death penalty: discuss – roughly 2/3 americans support this penalty for murderers

BUT: there is no rise in murder rate when abolished

also, it turns out it is actually more expensive with appeals, and lawyers, and new kinds of evidence (DNA), etc...

Community based corrections, (cheaper, less stigmatizing) and shaming? – discuss?

BREACHING EXPERIMENT

My name is Ela. I am seventeen years old. I am not Muslim, but my friend told me about her friend being discriminated against for wearing a hijab. So I decided to see the discrimination firsthand to get a better understanding of what Muslim women go through.

My friend and I pinned scarves around our heads, and then we went to the mall. Normally, vendors try to get us to buy things and ask us to sample a snack. Clerks usually ask us if we need help, tell us about sales, and smile at us. Not today. People, including vendors, clerks, and other shoppers, wouldn't look at us. They didn't talk to us. They acted like we didn’t exist. They didn't want to be caught staring at us, so they didn't look at all.

And then, in one store, a girl (who looked about four years old) asked her mom if my friend and I were terrorists. She wasn't trying to be mean or anything. I don’t even think she could have grasped the idea of prejudice. However, her mother’s response is one I can never forgive or forget. The mother hushed her child, glared at me, and then took her daughter by the hand and led her out of the store.

All that because I put a scarf on my head. Just like that, a mother taught her little girl that being Muslim was evil. It didn't matter that I was a nice person. All that mattered was that I looked different. That little girl may grow up and teach her children the same thing.

This experiment gave me a huge wake-up call. It lasted for only a few hours, so I can’t even begin to imagine how much prejudice Muslim girls go through every day. It reminded me of something that many people know but rarely remember: the women in hijabs are people, just like all those women out there who aren't Muslim

Michel Foucault

Michel Foucault believed that torture had been phased out from modern society due to the dispersion of power; there was no need anymore for the wrath of the state on a deviant individual. Rather, the modern state receives praise for its fairness and dispersion of power which, instead of controlling each individual, controls the mass.
He also theorized that institutions control people through the use of discipline.[12]"Race and ethnicity could be relevant to an understanding of prison rule breaking if inmates bring their ecologically structured beliefs regarding legal authority, crime and deviance into the institutional environment." For example, the modern prison (more specifically the panopticon) is a template for these institutions because it controls its inmates by the perfect use of discipline.
Foucault theorizes that, in a sense, the postmodern society is characterized by the lack of free will on the part of individuals. Institutions of knowledge, norms, and values, are simply in place to categorize and control humans.