SOCIETIES CREATE

DEVIANCE….How?
 Deviant Act
 Society creates deviance in a few ways:
• societal arrangements create conditions for deviant acts

• Societies create rules and sanctions for rule violation

 Self-Concept/labeling
 Formed in relation to other people because we identify with
institutions in society and significant others
 Internalize subtle cues and overt cues
 Power to deflect a deviant label is unequally distributed
 Differential Social Power
 Power to apply or deflect a deviant label is
not equally available
 Saints and roughnecks article
 Police & the black male article
Homicide victims by race:
49% are white
49% are African American
2% other
 Perspectives
 FUNCTIONALISM
 Socialization is the primary mechanism for
integrating people into society
 Much socialization is successful; sometimes it
does not work properly, which leads to
deviance
 Deviance is result of role and value conflicts,
societal dysfunction
• We need conformity for society to function
• We need social control to function
 Conflict Perspective
 Harm is the injustice done to large groups
of marginalized people
 Socialization & laws support the interests of
the dominant order or class
 Socialization can be coercive or subtle (mass
media)
 Socialization is a way to ensure that the
unequal divisions in society remain
 Symbolic Interactionist
 Socialization is how we get our self-concepts
 We learn who we are through our interactions
with others
 We learn to be deviant or learn our deviant
identities from others
 Much deviant behavior is learned in a social process
(learning theory)
 Deviant labels effect our self-concepts (labeling
theory)
 LABELING THEORY
 Howard Becker and Edwin Lemert (1960s)
 Combines Conflict and Symbolic Interaction
 How so?

 Deviance is not something in the act itself but in the labeling of

the act and the actor
• Labels involve social power

 Deviance is dependent upon audience interpretation

 Most deviance undetected (so does that deviance even exist?)
 Deviant labels have consequences for individual self-identity
• Self-fulfilling prophecy
• Labeling Theory says:
 Everyone deviates

• So “why” is not important question

 The categories of deviant/non-deviant are

socially constructed (i.e. made up by people,

not intrinsically real)
 Labeling theory argues that a negative
label will enhance one’s deviance by
 Exacting consequences that affect life
chances
 Changing self-concept in such a way as to
make deviant status one’s “master status”
• Primary deviance
• Secondary deviance
 Labeling creates a self-fulfilling prophecy
Assumptions of Labeling Theory
 Variety of causes or influences lead to
initial (primary) deviance
 Official label after detection
 Labeling changes self-concept/identity
 Continued involvement in deviance
 Amplification of deviance (secondary
deviance)
 Becker’s Typology
NOT LABELED
LABELED

RULE Conforming Falsely

ABIDING Citizen Accused

RULE Secret “Pure”

BREAKING Deviant Deviant
 Evidence?
 What does labeling theory explain?
 Those formally processed

 What does it not explain?

 Lots!
 Deviant careers can develop without labeling
• embezzlement, secret sexual lives, white collar crime
• Applies mostly to lower income crimes
• Tertiary deviance= social movement formation, political
activism, resistance
 Evidence re: juveniles
 Question…
Which do you think is true? If there are two kids who get
picked up by police for knocking over a mailbox. Kid A
gets released to his parents; Kid B gets processed in
juvenile court.
1.Kid A is more likely to become an adult
criminal
2. Kid B is more likely to become an adult
criminal
 Learning theory
 Differential Association Theory
 Deviance is learned
• Face to face interaction with others
• “excess of definitions favorable to committing
crimes”
 Opposes biological models
• Opposes idea that deviance caused by mental
illness