2 KINDS OF DEVIANCE ACCORDING TO HAGAN

Who is Hagan?
John L. Hagan is an American sociologist focusing on criminology. He is currently the John D.
MacArthur Professor of Sociology and Law at Northwestern University and University Professor Emeritus
of Law and Sociology at University of Toronto and also formerly the Dahlstrom Distinguished Professor of
Sociology and Law at University of North Carolina (1994-96).

Types of Deviance and Crime:

•Sociologist John Hagan(1994) usefully classifies various types of deviance and crime along three
dimensions.
•Severity of social response
•Harmfulness of deviant or criminal act
•Degree of public agreement on if the act is deviant

John Hagen (1994) provides a typology to classify deviant acts in terms of their perceived harmfulness,
the degree of consensus concerning the norms violated, and the severity of the response to them. The
most serious acts of deviance are:

1. Crime (criminal deviance)

a. Consensus Crimes illegal acts that nearly all people agree are bad and harm society greatly. They
state inflicts severe punishment for consensus crimes. Power and the social construction of crime and
deviance. Also about which there is near-unanimous public agreement. Acts like murder and sexual
assault are generally regarded as morally intolerable, injurious, and subject to harsh penalties.
ex: rape, murder, domestic violence, robbery, assault, assault, arson, vandalism, fraud, drug abuse, and
animal cruelty.

b. Conflict Crimes illegal deviant acts that many people consider harmful to society. However many
people think they are not harmful. They are punishable by the state. Conflict crimes are acts like
prostitution or smoking marijuana, which may be illegal but about which there is considerable public
disagreement concerning their seriousness.
 2. Deviance (non-criminal deviance)
a. Social Deviations noncriminal departures from norms that are nonetheless subject to official control.
Some members of the public regard them s somewhat harmful, whereas other members of the public do
not. Social deviations are acts like abusing serving staff or behaviours arising from mental illness and
addiction, which are not illegal in themselves but are widely regarded as serious or harmful. People
agree that they call for institutional intervention.

b. Social Diversions minor acts of deviance that is generally perceived as relatively harmless and that
evokes at most, a mild societal reaction such as amusement or disdain. social diversions like riding
skateboards on sidewalks, overly tight leggings, or facial piercings that violate norms in a provocative
way but are generally regarded as distasteful but harmless, or for some, cool.