CHAPTER 5 DEVIANCE, CRIME, AND SOCIAL CONTROL

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

After reading Chapter 6, you should be able to:

Express how people define deviance and crime differently in different times and places.
Interpret differences in crime rates over time and between different population categories.
Compare how deviance was treated in the past with how it is treated today.
Explain why punishment for criminal acts has become harsher in the United States in recent decades.
Explain why fear of crime is increasing in the United States.
Describe the growing movement for criminal rehabilitation.

CHAPTER SUMMARY

Deviance occurs when someone goes against the existing norm. Crime is a deviance that breaks a law. Deviance and crime are relative.

People who break a norm may experience negative sanctions or behaviors that indicate disapproval. People who commit more series acts of deviance can be punished throughinformal punishment or formal punishment which could include being stigmatized.

Hagan classified four types of deviance and crime that he based on differences in the severity of the social response, the perceived harmfulness of the act, and the degree of public agreement about whether the act should be considered deviant.

Crime statistics come from official sources, self-report surveys, and indirect measures. Each source has strengths and weaknesses. For example, victimless crimes are not included in the Uniform Crime Reports or the National Incident-Based Reporting System of the FBI.

Violent and property crime rates began to drop in the late 1970s. Since 1990 the incidence of all types of crime has been decreasing. Sociologists explain the decrease in crime as due to increased police presence on the streets, community watch program, and the aging of the American population. A controversial explanation notes that crime rates dropped significantly about 20 years after abortion became legal reducing the numbers of unwanted children.

African Americans are overrepresented in street crime while European Americans are overrepresented in white-collar crimes. These are not indexed with other crimes making it appear that blacks commit a higher percentage of crime than they do.

The “War on Drugs” has not significantly reduced the use of illegal drugs, but since 1980 it has increased the cost of drug enforcement 20-fold, and has resulted in 10 times the number of arrests of Americans for drug-related offenses.

There are many ways to explain deviance and crime. Functional theories focus on the social factors that drive people to commit deviant and criminal acts. An example is Merton’sstrain theory. Conflict theories focus on the role of social inequality in the construction of deviance and crime (or conventional behavior) on people. From this perspective poweris a key element in defining deviance and crime. Powerful groups are generally able to create norms and laws that suit their interests. Less powerful groups are usually unable to do so.

Examples include labeling theory and control theory.

Symbolic-interactionist theories focus on deviance as learned behavior, and identifying the circumstances that promote learning deviant or criminal roles. Labeling theory finds that deviance results from the behavior being effectively labeled deviant by others.

Social control is important in studying deviance and crime. All societies insure that their members obey norms and laws by imposing sanctions on rule breakers. The degree and form of social control vary historically and culturally.

Increasingly, we deal with deviance by medicalizing it. This relieves the individual of some responsibility and makes the deviance treatable with medications.

The prison has become an important form of punishment in modern industrial societies. Since the 1980s, the incarceration rate has shot up in the United States. Prisons now focus less on rehabilitation than on isolating and incapacitating inmates.

Moral panic occurs when many people ardently believe that some form of deviance or crime poses a profound threat to society's well being. The mushrooming prison population is a consequence of the moral panic that has engulfed the nation over crime. In crime prevention and punishment, most Americans have taken a get-tough stance. A variety of commercial and political groups benefit from the moral panic over crime and therefore encourage it.

Alternative forms of punishment are contentious issues concerning the punishment of criminals. Some people view capital punishment as a form of revenge, a deterrent (but it is ineffective unless frequently applied), a form of justice (but strong racial biases and frequent errors suggest otherwise), and a way of saving money (but, with appeals, it is often more expensive than life imprisonment.

Rehabilitative correctional facilities are often cost effective, especially for less serious offenders. In 2008 the federal government passed the Second Chance Act that allocates funds to help prisoners reenter society. The program is new and funds are small at this point.