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Social Work Review Notes
Human Behavior and Social Environment
DEVIANCE / DEVIANT BEHAVIOR
Deviant – is the person involved in deviance
Deviance – differing from a norm or form
accepted
Standards of society.
Deviant behavior – behavior which does not
conform to social expectation.
Deviant Behavior- behavior that is regarded as
wrongdoings that generate negative reactions
in persons who witness or hear about it.
Social Deviance /Deviance – disapproved
behavior and traits, characteristics or conditions
that generate a similar condemnatory, rejection
reaction in others.
- Is an action that is likely to generate, or has
generated reactions to the actor by or from
certain audiences.
Cognitive Deviance – holding deviant beliefs, this
category includes unacceptable, religious, political
and scientific belief.
But the question is not as simple as it
sounds. We ask, what are the accepted
standards and social expectation? You
personally know what is accepted and
expected within your circle of family and
friends but what about within other social
circumstances? Is it possible that some of your
behaviors are unacceptable to someone and
that you are deviant?
Deviance is in the eye of the beholder. In
other words, that which is deviant to me may
not be considered deviant by you!
Although, there is a wide agreement that
some behaviors are deviant. Many other
behaviors are considered deviant by smaller
number of people.
Yet, it is scarcely enlightening simply to
say that deviance is RELATIVE and LET
THE MATTER REST.
Since, we will probably found highly
subjective conceptions of deviant behavior; we
can find also a generally agreed yardstick
against which to measure deviant and non-
deviant behavior.
It is simply easier to define behavior as
deviant if you have some of commonly-agreed
standard against which to compare of
behavior.
Most theorist have sidestepped the issue by
assuming that the agreed upon norms of
society can be found in the CRIMINAL LAW.
The theorists’ position is that the criminal law
concerns the well being of all and reflects the
conscience of the total society regardless of
the diverse interests of various individual or
groups.
Criminal - person whose behaviors are
formally forbidden by legislation and
punishable by the state.
Some things/types of person regarded as
deviant?
Homosexuals, prostitute/prostituted
women, drug addicts, radicals, criminals, liars,
atheists, card players, bearded men, perverts,
obesity, etc.
Babies born with deformity were defined
as monster and were thought to be predictors
of disastrous epidemics in Early Eras. Babies
born with deformities were killed in ancient
time. Plato believed that deformed and infirm
children should be hidden away in a secret
place. Today in modern contemporary times,
those possess the stigma of being physically
disabled or handicap requires the attention of
social agencies.
2 Important Ideas to consider in Deviance
 An act can be criminal and deviant
 An act can be deviant but not criminal.
Characteristics of Deviance
 Deviance is Universal, but there are no
universal forms or deviance.
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 Deviance is a social definition . It is not a
quality of the act; it is how we define it. It
is not the act; it is how we label it.
 Social groups make rules and enforce
them, rules are socially constructed, and
social groups utilize social control
mechanism to ensure they are adhered to.
 Deviance is contextual.
Humans are evaluative creatures. We continually
make judgments about the behavior and the
characteristics of others and ourselves. Societies
everywhere have rules governing what we may
and may not do, and how we should look.
Key Defining Elements in Deciding Deviant
 behavior or conditions that harm others
 Something offends God, or is a violation of
certain religious principles that makes it
deviant.
 It deviates criminal code.
Five Naïve, Misleading Definitions of Deviance
1.) Absolutist Definition
 Argues that defining a quality or
characteristics of deviance can be
found in the very nature of the act
or the condition itself.
 It says that deviance is intrinsic to
certain phenomenon, it dwells or
resides within them. (I.e. an Error
in Zimbabwe will also be an error
in Brazil, in Australia and in the
moon.
 According to the absolutist
definition, what is deviance is
defined not by norms, customs or
social rules. Right and wrong exist
prior to and independent of the
artificial, socially and humanly
created creatures.
 The absolutist definition of
deviance is accompanied by strong
emotional reactions towards those
considered deviants sees them as
different as the law abiding
individuals.
2.) Statistical Definition
 Is that which is rare, unusual,
uncommon that which departs from a
statistical norm. Rare, uncommon
phenomena are deviant; those that are
common and frequent are not deviant.
(i.e. takes 3 showers a day, owning
3,000 books, possessing 3 doctoral
degrees, attending 4 different
undergraduate institutions before
receiving one.
3.) Social and Individual Harm
 There are however simply too many
harmless but deviant actions (i.e. an
instructor on his class takes off all of
his clothes does not cause physical
harm.) And too many harmful but not
deviant actions (i.e. warfare has
destroyed 100 million lives, yet the
parties responsible are rarely
condemned or labeled as deviants. In
facts, most often, they are regarded as
heroes.
4.) An act’s criminal Status
 Once again, there are many deviants
but not criminal actions. (i.e. no one
will be arrested for picking one’s nose,
being obese is not a crime, mentally ill
or disordered is not a crime.
5.) Positive Deviance
 Deviance is always and by a definition
negative in nature. There is no such
thing as positive deviance. We cannot
refer to behavior or conditions that
generate positive reactions as deviance.
 Certain behavior and conditions
generate negative reactions from some
people or groups and positive reactions
from others; this does not demonstrate
the viability of the concept of positive
deviance but the relativity of deviance.
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Two Fruitful definitions of Deviance
1.) The Normative Definition-
deviance can take place in secret;
an act or conditions that nobody
knows about except the violator.
This definition presumes that this
observers capable of seeing any
and all actions, even if they are
secret, and making accurate
judgment about their deviant status
in a given society. To the
normative sociologist, deviance is a
formal violation of the norms. (i.e.
in American society, a woman who
weighs 250 pounds has violated
weight norm. Women are expected
to weigh 110 lbs to 140 lbs.. It is
the norm of a married couple to
have children; it violates the norm
and is thought deviance for a
married couple not to have
children., In a society where
mainstream religion are the norms,
membership in cult is deviance.
When physically and mentally
abled is the norm, disability
represents a form of deviance. ]
- The normative definition implies relativity.
An action or condition that may be in
conformity with the norm in one place or
time may violate it in another.
- We know what the norms are, and we can
decide in advance whether they are
violated by a given action.
- We know even before it happens that the
behavior of a man walking down a street
completely naked will qualify as an
instance of deviance. If we know in a
certain society that engaging in sexual
activity with a partner of the same sex is
regarded as wrong; when this happens, it is
automatically an instance of deviance.
- Compliments relative deviance by making
the grounds for which deviants can be
labeled upon. In other words it sees
deviation as a violation of norms of a
society , in which certain actions , beliefs
or words are to be used or not used
depending on context.
3 serious problems of Normative Definition
 The normative definition of deviance
underplays exceptions.
 Does not adequately allow contingencies
or extenuating circumstances that alter
observer’s judgment as to whether a given
individual or act will in fact be regarded as
deviant.
 The normative definition ignores the
distinctions between violations of norms
that generate no special attention or alarm
and ones that cause audiences to punish or
condemn the actor.
2.) The Reactive Definitions
 It argues that the key characteristics of
deviance may be found in actual, concrete
instances of a negative reaction to
behavior. To qualify as deviance, the
action must be observed and generate
condemnation (disapproval) or punishment
for the actor or individual.
 Someone who engages in some little action
in a closet somewhere, whose behavior is
never detected by anyone else, has not
engaged in deviance at all. What counts to
the reactivist is the action not the action. .
 Reactivist argue that behavior and
conditions are not deviant unless and until
they have been condemned. There is no
such thing as deviant in advance or in
general. If there is no condemnation, no
deviance has taken place.
Problems with Reactive Definition
 It ignores secret behavior or conditions
that would be reacted to as deviance,
were they known to the community.
 Ignores secret behavior and conditions
that would be reacted to as deviant,
even when the actor or the possessor
knows that it would be condemned by
the community at large.
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 Denies the possibility that there is any
predictability in the reactive process
 Ignores the reality of victimization
Indirect or Symbolic Deviants – they know that
they would be labeled as deviants when their
identity or activities discovered.
THEORIES ON DEVIANT BEHAVIOR
I. The Rational Deviant –
The Classical
This theory was patterned from the thought
of Beccaria about a plea for reform of the
judicial and penal system of the time, which
was characterized by secret accusations,
extensive use of tortures, harsh penalties for
trivial offenses.
In the 15th century, the death penalty and
serious mutilation were used only in extreme
cases to supplement the complicated and
carefully differentiated system of fine, but
now, they become the most common
measures. Judges resorted to them whenever
they were convinced that the offender was a
danger to society.
The point was, it was no longer the
extreme penalty for serious offenses but a
means of putting allegedly dangerous
individuals out of the way. In this kind of
procedure, little attention was paid to the guilt
or innocence of a suspect.
According to Beccaria, humans are
fundamentally rational and hedonistic. They
possess free will and make deliberate decisions
to behave based upon a calculation of the pain
and pleasure involved. To avoid continual
chaos resulting from total individual freedom,
humans eventually enter a contract in which
they submit to a wide authority in exchange
for security under laws of a state. Humans are
basically self-serving; however, given the
opportunity they will enhance their own
position at the expense of other humans. Thus,
the role of the state is to prevent crime.
It is better to prevent crimes than to punish
them. This is the ultimate end of every good
legislation, which to use the general terms for
assessing the good and evils of life.
To this end, Beccaria argued that the law
should be clear and simple and directed
against only those behaviors clearly
endangering society and individuals in it.
Because of their rationality, all human where
seen as equal before the law. He accepted
literally the notion that punishment should fit
the crime.
The Neo Classical -
Recognized as a practical matter that not
all persons are equally rational, particularly the
young, the mentally disturbed, and those
confronted with other unusual circumstances.
Despite their considerable influence on
Western Legal System, the classical and neo
classical schools failed to produce a variable
theory of deviance. Their pre-occupation with the
rationality of humans resulted in overlooking how
society can adversely affect behavior.
II. POSITIVE SCHOOL OF
CRIMINOLOGY.
2 TERMS
POSITIVISM – a philosophical approach, theory,
or system based on the view that in the social as
well as in the natural sciences, sense experiences
are all the exclusive source of all worthwhile
information.
- does not concern itself with the abstract
and unprovable but rather with the tangible and
quantifiable. It involves investigating the world by
objective data that can be counted or measured. In
short, if you can’t hear it, feel it, see it, or smell it
forget it.
Positivists do not advise punishment as a remedy
because deviant behavior is not a matter of choice.
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DETERMINISM - refers to the principle that all
events, including human behavior have sufficient
causes.
Obviously, the recommended procedure for
halting deviant behavior depends upon the brand
of determinism favored. Thus if the cause is
located in the body, the body must be “treated; if it
is in social factors, anything from the family,
neighborhood or entire economic system may
need renovation.
MAJOR THEORITICAL POSITIONS
(Positivist Approaches to the Explanation of
Deviance)
I. Physical Characteristics of Deviance
- Of all the positivist approaches to the
explanation of deviance, the investigation of a
possible relationship between anatomical
attributes and behavior is not only the oldest but
also the most persistent. Today, scarcely year goes
by without some revelations concerns the possible
connection between a biological characteristics
and human behavior.
The influence of biology on human
behavior is early overestimated and
oversimplified.
In 1966, Charles Whitman after killing his
mother /wife climbed with 6 guns to the top of a
tower in the University of Texas campus. He shot
46 persons, killing 16. His behavior was puzzling.
Whitman requested an autopsy to determine
whether he had a mental disorder. The autopsy
revealed a brain tumor. Some medical experts
doubted the explanatory value of the tumor. But
others thought that his physical condition could
somehow account for his behavior.
II.Phrenology – The Beginning of the Scientific
Study of Deviant
Phrenology – the determination of the mental
facilities and character traits from the shape of the
skull.
- Franz Gall – an Austrian anatomist who
spent 20 years touring insane asylums and
prisons to measure head shapes. Gall
believed that the brain was the center of
the thought, specific brain areas controlled
different behavioral activities and brain
areas of greater importance were greater in
size and area.
- The notion that there maybe a link between
protuberance on the head and criminal
behavior was widely circulated throughout
Europe and USA.
- A phrenologist in USA made a theory
dividing the brain into 34 areas, 3 of which
were related to criminal behavior:
 Philoprogenitiveness (love for
offspring)- it was noted that a number
of guilty females committed
infanticide had defective
philoprogenitiveness area.
 Destructiveness – this area if properly
not balanced will lead to murder
 Cohesiveness – unless restrained and
properly directed will lead to great
selfishness and even theft.
Up to the end of the 19th century,
phrenology provided the basis for a
moderate amount of theory and research on
the nature of criminal beings, but in the
final analysis, it makes no contributions to
the understanding of deviant behavior.
One cannot detect the subtle shape
of the brain by examining the exterior of
the skull, and no single sections of the
brain one completely responsible for the
complex behaviors attributed to them by
the phrenologist.
“Concept of Born Criminal “
The notion that biology plays a significant,
if not paramount, role in causing deviant behavior
is usually associated with the writings of Cesare
Lombroso (founder of the Positivist School of
Criminology).
ATAVISM – criminals were seen as
distinct types of humans who would be
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distinguished from non-criminals by certain
physical traits. These traits did not cause criminal
behavior but, rather, served to identify persons
who were out of step with evolutionary scheme.
- Such persons were considered to be closer
to apes or to early primitive humans than
were most modern individuals; they were
throwbacks (atavists) to an earlier stage in
human development.
FIVE TYPES OF CRIMINALS
 INSANE Criminals – who act from
epilepsy, imbecility, paranoia (delusions of
being persecutes) and other forms of
mental infirmity.
 Born Criminals – whose anti-human
conduct is the inevitable effect of an
indefinite series of hereditary influences
which accumulate in the course of
generations.”
 Habitual Criminal – who show in an
indistinct way, if at all, the marks of the
born criminal and act through moral
weakness as influenced by a corrupt
environment.
 Criminals of Passion – who act under the
impulse of uncontrolled emotion on
occasion during otherwise moral lives.
 Occasional Criminals- who have not
received from nature an active tendency
towards crime but have fallen into it,
goaded by the temptation incident to their
personal condition or physical and social
environment
III. Heredity and Mental Deficiencies
- Heredity concerns the process of passing
characteristics from one generation to
another: Mental deficiencies are specific
characteristics that may or may not be seen
by the theorists as inherited.
- Theorist believed in this idea that
criminality was inherited and also the
mental defectiveness which played an
important role in criminal behavior.
- Every feeble minded person is a potential
criminal. This is necessarily true since the
feeble-minded lacks one or other of the
factors essential to moral life- an
understanding of right and wrong, and the
power of control.
EUGENICS – a science concerned with improving
the quality of human offspring through the
manipulation of heredity by such means of
selection of parents.
- what was scientifically found as a cause
could be scientifically eliminated.
- i. e. Nazi german during the World War I.
a textbook on Social problem reported on a
proposal whereby “defective and
confirmed criminals would be placed in
air-tight chambers and put to death by
poisonous but not unpleasant gas.
- Another suggestion involved less drastic:
STERILIZATION or CASTRATION.
- Sterilization , destroys all microorganism
0n the surface of an article or in a fluid to
prevent disease transmission associated
with the use of that item
- Castration, the procedure stops most
production of the hormone testosterone.
Castration after sexual maturity makes the
sex organs shrink and stop functioning,
ending sperm formation and sexual interest
and behavior.
- The latter was advocated by those who felt
that mere sterilization would not curtail
lustful behavior or the spread of venereal
disease. Decades ago, 34 states in USA
permitted /enacted this law without the
consent of the concern. Even before 1907
secret sterilization had been performed in
inmates of state institution for many years.
These laws were applicable to 3 classes of
individuals, “the mentally ill, the mentally
deficient and epileptics.
- It was considered before that all persons,
who are feebleminded, insane, epileptic,
habitual criminals, incurable syphilis, etc.
will likely become a Menace of the
Society.
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- The fruits of positivism in the USA was

able to come up with 70,000 individuals Endomorphic Body
were involuntary sterilized and many more Type:
were confined because their behavior,  soft body
intellects or backgrounds were judged by  underdevelope
state bureaucrats to be below standards. d muscles
- In Virginia USA, state hospitals  round shaped
approximately 8, 000 individuals were  over-
sterilized between 1924 and 1972. developed
Everything was very routine, men on digestive
Tuesday, women on Thursday. system
- Those are sobering reminders of how a
scientific theory of human behavior, Associated
whether correct or erroneous, proven or personality traits:
unproven can justify the degradation of  love of food
whole classes of people. Such of course is  tolerant
envisioned for the good of everyone  evenness of
concerned. But however, benevolent emotions
program of scientific treatment or  love of
scientific prevention may appear they comfort
maybe not only ineffectual but a threat to  sociable
human freedom  good humored
 relaxed
 need for
SOMATOLOGY affection
- refers to the science of classifying human
physical characteristics by examining the
relationship between body type or
physique and particular patterns of mental
and behavioral characteristics or
temperaments.

Mesomorphic Body
Type:
 hard,
muscular body
 overly mature
appearance
 rectangular
shaped
 thick skin
 upright
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posture

Associated
personality traits:
 adventurous
 desire for
power and
dominance
 courageous
 indifference to
what others
think or want
 assertive, bold
 zest for
physical
activity
 competitive

 love of risk
and chance

Ectomorphic Body Type:

 thin
 flat chest
 delicate build
 young appearance
 tall
 lightly muscled
 stoop-shouldered
 large brain

Associated personality traits: XYY CHROMOSOMES SYNDROME

 self-conscious
 preference for privacy
 46 chromosomes arranged in 23 pairs –
 introverted
 inhibited
human cells each parents having donated
 socially anxious one of each pair.
 artistic  Every normal cell in a woman’s body
 mentally intense contains two X chromosomes, and each
 emotionally restrained cell in a male has one X and one Y.
 However exception to this genetic pattern
does occur. Of interest in here is the
estimated 1 percent (1 out of 1, 000) of the
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males who possess an extra Y
chromosomes, a condition first reported in
1961. In 1968, this genetic anomaly
received much public attention when in
France a defense attorney in a murder trial
claimed that his client possessed an extra
Y chromosomes and he is not responsible
for his offense. This claim was based on a
very limited research indicating that some
chromosomally abnormal men had
histories of anti social behavior.
 The most publicized case was that of
Richard Speck, who murdered eight
Chicago student nurses. In 1968, Specks
attorney claims to the press that Speck had
XYY chromosomes, a contention that
made front page headlines. As it
developed, Speck was simply XY, but
findings received very little publicity.
BRAIN MALFUNCTION
1935 – Systematic manipulation of the brain for
the purpose of altering behavior was initiated
Antonio Moniz introduced the prefrontal
lobotomy. In this operation, Moniz destroyed large
sections of the frontal lobes of the brain. His
subjects were 20 mental patients who had been
unaffected by other treatments. Accordingly 15
showed some degree of improvements as the
result of the operation. One lobotomied patient
was later to pump five bullets into Dr. Moniz.
Lobotomy – is the beginning of what is known
today as Psychosurgery.
Frontal lobes are involved in motor function,
problem solving, spontaneity, memory, language,
initiation, judgment, impulse control and social
and sexual behavior. The area is associated with
reasoning, planning, emotions and problem
solving. Frontal area is the most common region
of injury following mild to moderate traumatic
brain injury. Patients with frontal damage exhibit
little spontaneous facial expression or difficulty in
speaking.
Psychosurgery – the surgical removal or
destruction of the brain tissue to disconnect one
part of the brain from another with the intent of
altering behavior. However there are mentioned
few effects for such, some of these are the loss of
ability to fantasize, to think abstractly and to
become creative.
- there is still exist considerable controversy
over whether the stimulation or destruction
of certain areas of the human brain results
in predictable changes in behavior. It is
argued that no specific and consistent
human behavior result from
psychosurgery.
- The idea of brain surgery as a means of
improving mental health got started around
1890 when Friedrich Golz, a German
research, removed portions of his dog’s
temporal lobe and found them to be
calmer, less aggressive. It was swiftly
followed by a doctor of SWISS Mental
institution, who attempted similar surgeries
on 6 of his schizophrenic patients. Some
were indeed calmer and two died.
- Because some of his patients became
calmer, some did not. Moniz advised
extreme caution in using lobotomy, and
felt it should only be used in cases where
everything else has been used.
- Between 1939 and 1951, over 18,000
lobotomies were performed in the US, and
many more in other countries. It was often
used on convicts and in Japan it was
recommended for use on “difficult
children”. There are still Western countries
that permit the use of the lobotomy,
although its use has decreased dramatically
worldwide. Curiously, the old USSR
banned it back in the 1940’s on moral
grounds.
- In the 1950’s, people began upset about the
prevalence of lobotomies. Protests began
and serious research supported the
protesters.
- There have been a few famous cases over
the years. For example, Rosemary
Kennedy was given a lobotomy when her
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father complained to doctors about the
mildly retarded girl having interest in boys.
Her father never informed the rest of the
family bout what he had done. She lived
out her life in Wisconsin institution and
died on January 7, 2005. This operation
was one of the famous failures. Leaving
Rosemary Kennedy inert and unable to
speak more than a few words. After
lobotomy, she was sent to Wisconsin
institution where she remained until her
death in 2005
2 Fundamental Approaches to the Explanation of
Deviance
 The cause is within the deviant; the goal
was to discover individual characteristics
contributing to becoming involved in
deviant behavior. In short, this first
approach concerned explaining the deviant
by means of biological and psychological
positivism.
 The other approach stressed the
importance of social factors as a cause of
deviance. The goal was to explain both the
existence of deviant behaviors and its
distribution in society. This in short
concerns explaining the varying amounts
of deviance between groups by means of
social determinism.
Theorists Guerry and Quetelet labeled as “Moral
Statisticians” noted 2 phenomena in relation to
deviance.
 That the types and amount of deviance
vary according to geographical region.
 That annual deviance within a specific area
varies little from one year to another.
SOCIAL INTERPETATION OF DEVIANCE
ECONOMIC INFLUENCE
An economic interpretation of deviance
was an aspect of the work of Quetelet when he, for
example, considered the price of grain to be a
crucial variable in the operation of society.
- This influence is an attempt to find
relationship between crime and a variety of
economic factors such as the prices of
various grains, business cycles and income
levels of convicted persons.
Karl Marx
- Marx developed an economic
interpretation of societies. He claimed that
all social phenomena-legal codes, political
institutions, religion, ethics, the arts, the
family are products of society’s economy
in the form of its means of production.
- In a capitalistic economy, there is a private
ownership of the means of production,
distribution and exchange of wealth; as a
consequence, there exist an intense
competition resulting in the exploitation of
proletariat (working class) by the
bourgeoisie (owners and controllers of
means of production).
- According to Marx, the continual
competition requires that minimal wages
be paid for labor; the bourgeoisie becomes
richer and richer and the proletariat
becomes poorer and miserable. The
condition of poverty and continued
exploitation produce all forms of social
problems. Only by destroying the
economic system, ultimately accomplished
by the proletariat in a violent revolution,
will a classless society emerge of
economic exploitation and its evils.
- Marx never actually spelled out a theory of
deviance, but inferences can be made and
his writings have been influential to the
explanation of deviance.
1st.) Marx writings provides basis for
viewing deviance as a product of social
conflict. Accordingly, deviance cannot be
eliminated by adjustments within capitalist
society; deviance is inherent in
capitalism and only the total destruction
of economic sub structure will provide a
remedy.
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Marx saw capitalistic society as
composed of one sided conflict between
groups. From his perspective, deviance
was an expression of a struggle in which
the economically powerless attempt to
cope with the exploitation and poverty
imposed upon them.
He portrayed deviant as
demoralized and brutalized by the day to
day experience of employment (and
unemployment), but still able to grasp at
the necessities of life through theft and
graft.
His conceptions of society as
consisting of conflicting economic groups
remain an important contribution to social
theory. Political, military, economic and
legislative actions are not the product of
harmonious decision making by concerned
and affected parties. Often such actions
are, at best, matters of compromise; at
worst they represent only the opinions of
the powerful and maybe detrimental to, or
against the wishes of a sizeable segment of
the population.
2nd.) with touch of sarcasm, he points out
how deviance serves many purposes in
support of the existing society. Without
deviance, police, judges and law
professions would have no jobs; the
mechanical inventions derived from the
innovations in the torture would be
undiscovered, engineering of monetary
instruments and chemical methods to
detect illegal adulteration of products
would all remain unadvanced.
To this extent, Marx appropriately can be regarded
as an economic determinist. In short, the enduring
legacy of Marx lies in his theory that society’s
foundation is its economic structure.
ANOMIE
- simply defined , a state where norms
(expectations on behavior) are confused ,
unclear or not present
- normlessness
- A breakdown in the cultural structure,
occurring particularly when there is an
acute disjunction between cultural norms
and goals and the societies structural
capacities of members of the groups to act
in accord with them.
- The premium placed on financial success
in the absence of opportunities creates a
disjunction between the goal and the
capacities or means of individuals to attain
it.
- Accordingly, societies evolved from a
simple, non-specialized form called
mechanical towards a highly complex
specialized form called organic.
- In the former society, people behave and
think alike and more or less perform the
same work tasks and have the same group
oriented goals. When societies become
more complex or organic, work also
becomes complex. In the society, people
are no longer tied to one another and social
bonds are impersonal.
- Changing of condition as well as
adjustment of life leads to dissatisfaction,
conflict and deviance. He observed that
social periods of disruptions (economic
depression for example) brought greater
anomie and high rates of crime, suicide
and deviance.
Durkheim’s Anomie
Emile Durkheim, a French sociologist
wrote his major works during a time when the
study of deviant behavior was dominated by those
who viewed deviants as the products of defective
biology.
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-he argued that a society without deviance
is impossible. Thus it is impossible to have a
collection of human so inflexible in their behavior
that none will diverge to some degree from the
ideal. He further claims that deviance is not only
inevitable but also necessary for the health and
progress of society. Without deviance society
would be static. The inevitability and desirability
of deviance led him to conduct that deviance is
“normal” in society. This did not mean that he
necessarily regarded the individual deviant as
normal. From the standpoint of society, deviance
is an expression of individual freedom and one of
the prices to be paid for social change.
-Durkheim first used the concept of
anomie in division of labor in society. Here it
played a minor role; it’s purpose was to signify a
lack of integration and adjustment that threatens
the cohesiveness of contemporary society, which
unlike hunting and agricultural society are
characterized by a complex variety of occupation
and interest.
- Durkheim felt that sudden change caused
a state of anomie. The system breaks down, either
during a great prosperity or great depression,
anomie is the same result.
Anomic suicide – was one of the 4 types
and was considered to stem from a state of
‘normlessness” or “deregulation” in society. Such
suicide occurs because society allows its members
to have unlimited aspirations, and there is no
discipline imposed on notions of what may be
realistically achieved. These suicides arise
particularly during periods of sudden economic
prosperity. Thus Durkheim was convinced that
humans are susceptible to limitless ambition.
Unless society imposes regulations upon
aspirations, unless there is some check upon the
passions aroused by perceived undiminishing
prosperity, personal crises will develop and result
to suicide.
Merton’s Anomie
Merton’s theory involves the interaction of 2
social components:
 Culture goals – the aspirations and aims
that define success in society.
 Institutionalized means – the socially
acceptable methods and ways available for
achieving goals.
- It is believed that in America before, it was
not the mere lack opportunity or the excessive
emphasis on the accumulation of wealth that
create anomie; it is when both exist in the
situation where all or most members of a
society believed that the opportunities are
available to them that anomie results.
Merton’s important contribution is the provision
of alternative behaviors that may result from the
disjunction between goals and means.
There are 4 adaptations apart from conformity that
can be defined as deviant:
 INNOVATION – is the adaptation in
which most property crimes would be
found. It occurs when persons accept
without qualification the importance of
attaining the goals and will use any means
regardless of their prosperity, morality, or
legality to achieve those goals.
- In short, their philosophy can be described
in the words of Vince Lombardi when he
said “Winning isn’t everything; it is the
only thing”.
 RITUALISM – is a behavioral alternative
in which great aspirations are abandoned in
favor of careful adherence to the available
means. Early morning classes often
considered ritualists. Attendance is not a
means for them to attain success; they are
there simply because they should be.
Merton uses the example of persons in
factories and other bureaucracies who
staunchly perform their duties, but who
have neither the intention nor the
inclination to advance themselves. They
carefully avoid rocking the boat and prefer
to play it safe.
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There maybe some argument - Society or neighborhood is able to invest

whether such behavior is really deviant,
but the lack of ambition certainly is not in
keeping with the idealized American way.
 RETREATISM – is the category
containing the mentally disordered, drug
addicts, alcoholics and any other groups
that has apparently withdrawn from the
competitive struggle. Thus persons do not
strive for the goals that society encourages,
nor do they obey rules of how to act. They
seek their own private rewards and live by
rules peculiar to their style of living.
 REBELLION – involves not only a
rejection of the goals and means, but the
intention of replacing those goals and
means by altering the social structure.
Comments /Criticism:
 Middle class Bias
 Irrelevance of anomie from more forms of
deviation
 Absence of value consensus
CONTROL THEORY
- according to this theory , the social
environment does not push one toward
deviant behavior; rather, it fails to restrain
one from so behaving
- Deviance is not caused by the present
values, beliefs or other motivating factors,
but by the absence of values and beliefs
that normally forbid delinquency
- While most theorists ask, why do they do
it? That is what processes encourage
deviant behavior, Control theory turns the
question around and ask Why don’t they
do it?
- Most of us do not engage in deviant or
criminal acts because of strong bonds with
or ties to conventional, mainstream social
institutions. If these bonds are weak or
broken, we will be released from society’s
rules and will be free to deviate.
its citizens or residents with a stake worth
protecting, it will have lower rates of crime
vs. society where strong bond is not
present or relatively low.
DIFFERENTIAL ASSOCIATION THEORY
 The explanation of crime lay not in
biology but in the social world and that
crime is transmitted through intimate
personal groups.
 Some groups are organized fro criminal
activities and some are organized against
these activities.
Propositions of the Theory
 Crime is learned
 Criminal Behavior is learned in interaction
with other persons in a process of
communication.
 The principal part of learning criminal
behavior occurs within intimate personal
groups. Impersonal communication such as
television, magazines and the like play
only a secondary role in the learning of
crime.
 When criminal behavior is learned, the
learning includes techniques of crime,
which are sometimes complicated, simple,
the motives and drives.
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