Table of Contents |
Sociologists who follow the functionalist approach are concerned with the way the different elements of a society contribute to the whole. They view deviance as a key component of a functioning society. Durkheim's theories, strain theory, social disorganization theory, and cultural deviance theory represent four functionalist perspectives on deviance in society.
Émile Durkheim, writing in the 1890s, believed that deviance is a necessary part of a successful society. Deviance, according to Durkheim, serves four crucial functions:
EXAMPLE
Seeing a student given detention for skipping class reminds other high schoolers that playing hooky isn’t allowed and that they, too, could get detention.EXAMPLE
If you get caught stealing and are punished, this sends a signal to the rest of society that stealing is wrong. It clarifies the boundaries of moral behavior by defining what is right and wrong.EXAMPLE
National responses to disasters like 9/11 or Pearl Harbor unified an entire nation against a common enemy.EXAMPLE
This impulse can be wielded for viciousness and prejudice as well. Think of white people who band together to stop a Black family from buying a house on their formerly all-white street.EXAMPLE
When Rosa Parks refused to sit in the area of the bus designated for Black people, she was engaging in a calculated and planned act of civil disobedience. But it was also an instance of deviance from the norms of segregation. Her deviant behavior became a catalyst to galvanize a movement to cause social change.Functionalist Robert Merton agreed that deviance is an inherent part of a functioning society, but he expanded on Durkheim’s ideas by developing strain theory, which notes that access to socially acceptable goals plays a part in determining whether a person conforms or deviates.
Think of the American value of financial success. A woman who attends business school, receives her MBA, and goes on to make a million-dollar income as CEO of a company is said to be a success. However, not everyone in our society stands on equal footing. A person may have the socially acceptable goal of financial success but lack a socially acceptable way to reach that goal, due to a lack of education, access, ability, luck, or many other factors. According to Merton’s theory, not having access to socially acceptable routes to common goals is what frequently leads people to deviance.
EXAMPLE
An entrepreneur who can’t afford to launch his own company may be tempted to embezzle from his employer for start-up funds.Merton defined five ways people respond to this gap between having a socially accepted goal and having no socially accepted way to pursue it.
Developed by researchers at the University of Chicago in the 1920s and 1930s, social disorganization theory asserts that crime is most likely to occur in communities with weak social ties and the absence of social control. The theory suggests that an individual who grows up in a poor neighborhood with high rates of drug use, violence, and teenage delinquency, is more likely to become a street-level criminal than an individual from a wealthy neighborhood with a good school system and access to professional opportunities.
Social disorganization theory points to broad social factors as the cause of deviance. A person isn’t born a criminal but becomes one over time, often based on factors in their social environment. Research into social disorganization theory can greatly influence public policy.
EXAMPLE
Studies have found that children from disadvantaged communities who attend preschool programs that teach basic social skills are significantly less likely to engage in criminal activity.Cultural deviance theory suggests that conformity to the prevailing cultural norms of lower-class society causes crime. Researchers Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay studied crime patterns in Chicago in the early 1900s. They found that violence and crime were at their worst in the middle of the city and gradually decreased the farther someone traveled from the urban center toward the suburbs. Shaw and McKay noticed that this pattern matched the migration patterns of Chicago citizens. New immigrants, many of them poor and speaking languages other than English, lived in neighborhoods inside the city. As the urban population expanded, wealthier people moved to the suburbs and left behind the less privileged.
As wealthier neighbors move away they take their resources with them. The lack of cohesion among constantly moving and changing demographics, relative lack of English language literacy, and lack of opportunity as resources dwindle create opportunities for the thriving of criminal organizations both formal and informal. When a neighborhood lacks universal Pre-K, strong K-12 schools, community centers, and other educational opportunities, it increases the likelihood that children and youth will be unskilled and under-supervised, and available for recruitment by criminal organizations.
Social and cultural norms get changed as a result of the lower class trying to achieve success in isolation. Criminal legacies are handed down to children in the way that legacy admissions to college support the path of the upper class. Shaw and McKay concluded that socioeconomic status correlated to changing ethnic demographics created an opportunity for crime to flourish. The mix of cultures and values created a smaller society with different ideas of deviance, and those values and ideas were transferred from generation to generation.
Conflict theory looks to social and economic factors as the causes of crime and deviance. Unlike functionalists, conflict theorists don’t see these factors as positive functions of society. They see them as evidence of inequality in the system. They also challenge social disorganization theory and control theory and argue that both ignore racial, gender, and socioeconomic issues and oversimplify social trends. Conflict theorists also look for answers to the correlation of gender and race with wealth and crime.
Conflict theory was greatly influenced by the work of German philosopher, economist, and social scientist Karl Marx. Marx believed that the general population was divided into two groups. He labeled the wealthy, who controlled the means of production and business, the bourgeoisie. He labeled the workers, who depended on the bourgeoisie for employment and survival, the proletariat. Marx believed that the bourgeoisie centralized their power and influence through government, laws, and other authority agencies in order to maintain and expand their positions of power in society. Though Marx spoke little of deviance, his ideas created the foundation for conflict theorists who study the intersection of deviance and crime with wealth and power.
In 1956, sociologist C. Wright Mills described the existence of what he dubbed the power elite, a small group of wealthy and influential people at the top of society who hold the power and resources. Wealthy executives, politicians, celebrities, and military leaders often have access to national and international power, and in some cases, their decisions affect everyone in society. Because of this, the rules of society are stacked in favor of a privileged few who manipulate them to stay on top. It is these people who decide what is criminal and what is not, and the effects are often felt most by those who have little power.
EXAMPLE
Mills’ theories explain why celebrities such as Roman Polanski and Woody Allen, or powerful politicians such as Eliot Spitzer and Donald Trump, can commit crimes and suffer little or no legal retribution.IN CONTEXT
While crime is often associated with the underprivileged, crimes committed by the wealthy and powerful remain an under-punished and costly problem within society. The FBI reported that victims of burglary, larceny, and motor vehicle theft lost a total of $15.3 billion dollars in 2009. In comparison, when former advisor and financier Bernie Madoff was arrested in 2008, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission reported that the estimated losses of his financial Ponzi scheme fraud were close to $50 billion.
This imbalance based on class and power is also found within U.S. criminal law. In the 1980s, the use of crack cocaine (the most addictive and cheapest form of cocaine) quickly became an epidemic that swept the country’s poorest urban communities. Its pricier counterpart, powder cocaine, was associated with white, upscale users and was a drug of choice for the wealthy. The legal implications of being caught by authorities with crack versus cocaine were starkly different.
In 1986, federal law mandated that being caught in possession of 50 grams of crack was punishable by a ten-year prison sentence. An equivalent prison sentence for cocaine possession, however, required possession of 5,000 grams. In other words, the sentencing disparity was 1 to 100.
This inequality in the severity of punishment for crack versus cocaine paralleled the unequal social class and race of respective users. A conflict theorist would note that those in society who hold the power are also the ones who make the laws concerning crime. In doing so, they make laws that will benefit them, while the powerless classes who lack the resources to make such decisions suffer the consequences. The crack-cocaine punishment disparity remained until 2010, when President Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act, which decreased the disparity to 1 to 18.
Symbolic interactionism is a theoretical approach that can be used to explain how societies and/or social groups come to view behaviors as deviant or conventional. Labeling theory, differential association, social disorganization theory, and control theory fall within the realm of symbolic interactionism.
Although all of us violate norms from time to time, few people would consider themselves deviant. Those who do, however, have often been labeled “deviant” by society and have gradually come to believe it themselves. Labeling theory examines the ascribing of a deviant behavior to another person by members of society. Thus, what is considered deviant is determined not so much by the behaviors themselves or the people who commit them, but by the reactions of others to these behaviors. As a result, what is considered deviant changes over time and can vary significantly across cultures.
Sociologist Edwin Lemert expanded on the concepts of labeling theory and identified two types of deviance that affect identity formation. Primary deviance is a violation of norms that does not result in any long-term effects on the individual’s self-image or interactions with others. Individuals who engage in primary deviance still maintain a feeling of belonging in society and are likely to continue to conform to norms in the future.
EXAMPLE
Speeding is a deviant act, but receiving a speeding ticket generally does not make others view you as a bad person, nor does it alter your own self-concept.Sometimes, in more extreme cases, primary deviance can morph into secondary deviance. Secondary deviance occurs when a person’s self-concept and behavior begin to change after their actions are labeled as deviant by members of society. The person may begin to take on and fulfill the role of a “deviant” as an act of rebellion against the society that has labeled that individual as such.
EXAMPLE
Consider a high school student who often cuts class and gets into fights. The student is reprimanded frequently by teachers and school staff, and soon enough, he develops a reputation as a “troublemaker.” As a result, the student starts acting out even more and breaking more rules; he has adopted the “troublemaker” label and embraced this deviant identity.Secondary deviance can be so strong that it bestows a master status on an individual. A master status is a label that describes the chief characteristic of an individual. Some people see themselves primarily as doctors, artists, or grandfathers. Others see themselves as gang members or master burglars.
IN CONTEXT
Before she lost her job as an administrative assistant, Leola Strickland postdated and mailed a handful of checks for amounts ranging from $90 to $500. By the time she was able to find a new job, the checks had bounced, and she was convicted of fraud under Mississippi law. Strickland pleaded guilty to a felony charge and repaid her debts; in return, she was spared from serving prison time.
Strickland appeared in court in 2001. More than ten years later, she is still feeling the sting of her sentencing. Why? Because Mississippi is one of twelve states in the United States that bans convicted felons from voting. To Strickland, who said she had always voted, the news came as a great shock.
She isn’t alone. Some 5.3 million people in the United States are currently barred from voting because of felony convictions. These individuals include inmates, parolees, probationers, and even people who have never been jailed, such as Leola Strickland.
Under the Fourteenth Amendment, states are allowed to deny voting privileges to individuals who have participated in “rebellion or other crime.” Although there are no federally mandated laws on the matter, most states practice at least one form of felony disenfranchisement. At present, it’s estimated that approximately 2.4 percent of the possible voting population is disfranchised, that is, lacking the right to vote.
Is it fair to prevent citizens from participating in such an important process? Proponents of disenfranchisement laws argue that felons have a debt to pay to society. Being stripped of their right to vote is part of the punishment for criminal deeds. Such proponents point out that voting isn’t the only instance in which ex-felons are denied rights; state laws also ban released criminals from holding public office, obtaining professional licenses, and sometimes even inheriting property.
Opponents of felony disenfranchisement in the United States argue that voting is a basic human right and should be available to all citizens regardless of past deeds. Many point out that felony disenfranchisement has its roots in the post-Reconstruction era, when it was used primarily to block Black citizens from voting. Even nowadays, these laws disproportionately target poor minority members, denying them a chance to participate in a system that, as a social conflict theorist would point out, is already constructed to their disadvantage. Those who cite labeling theory worry that denying deviants the right to vote will only further encourage deviant behavior. If ex-criminals are disenfranchised from voting, are they being disenfranchised from society?
In the early 1900s, sociologist Edwin Sutherland sought to understand how deviant behavior developed among people. Since criminology was a young field, he drew on other aspects of sociology including social interactions and group learning. His conclusions established differential association theory, which suggested that individuals learn deviant behavior from those close to them who provide models of and opportunities for deviance. According to Sutherland, deviance is less a personal choice and more a result of differential socialization processes.
EXAMPLE
A tween whose friends are sexually active is more likely to view sexual activity as acceptable.Sutherland’s theory may explain why crime is multigenerational. A longitudinal study beginning in the 1960s found that the best predictor of antisocial and criminal behavior in children was whether their parents had been convicted of a crime. Children who were younger than ten years old when their parents were convicted were more likely than other children to engage in spousal abuse and criminal behavior by their early thirties. Even when taking socioeconomic factors such as dangerous neighborhoods, poor school systems, and overcrowded housing into consideration, researchers found that parents were the main influence on the behavior of their offspring.
Continuing with an examination of large social factors, control theory states that social control is directly affected by the strength of social bonds and that deviance results from a feeling of disconnection from society. Individuals who believe they are a part of society are less likely to commit crimes against it.
Travis Hirschi (1969) identified four types of social bonds that connect people to society:
The three major sociological paradigms offer different explanations for the motivation behind deviance and crime. Functionalists point out that deviance is a social necessity since it reinforces norms by reminding people of the consequences of violating them. Violating norms can open society’s eyes to injustice in the system. Conflict theorists argue that crime stems from a system of inequality that keeps those with power at the top and those without power at the bottom. Symbolic interactionists focus attention on the socially constructed nature of the labels related to deviance. Crime and deviance are learned from the environment and enforced or discouraged by those around us.
| Functionalism | Associated Theorist | Deviance arises from: |
|---|---|---|
| Strain Theory | Robert Merton | A lack of ways to reach socially accepted goals by accepted methods |
| Social Disorganization Theory | University of Chicago researchers | Weak social ties and a lack of social control; society has lost the ability to enforce norms with some groups |
| Cultural Deviance Theory | Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay | Conformity to the cultural norms of lower-class society |
| Conflict Theory | Associated Theorist | Deviance arises from: |
| Unequal System | Karl Marx | Inequalities in wealth and power that arise from the economic system |
| Power Elite | C. Wright Mills | Ability of those in power to define deviance in ways that maintain the status quo |
| Symbolic Interactionism | Associated Theorist | Deviance arises from: |
| Labeling Theory | Edwin Lemert | The reactions of others, particularly those in power who are able to determine labels |
| Differential Association Theory | Edwin Sutherland | Learning and modeling deviant behavior seen in other people close to the individual |
| Control Theory | Travis Hirschi | Feelings of disconnection from society |
Source: THIS TUTORIAL HAS BEEN ADAPTED FROM (1) "INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY" BY LUMEN LEARNING. ACCESS FOR FREE AT LUMEN LEARNING. (2) "INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY 2E" BY OPENSTAX. ACCESS FOR FREE AT OPENSTAX. LICENSE (1 & 2) CREATIVE COMMONS ATTRIBUTION 4.0 INTERNATIONAL.
