Deviance Crime And Social Control Assesment

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INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY – 1ST CANADIAN EDITION
CONTENTS
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Main Body
CHAPTER 7. DEVIANCE, CRIME, AND SOCIAL
CONTROL
Figure 7.1. Psychopaths and
sociopaths are some of the star
deviants in contemporary popular
culture. What makes them so
appealing asctional characters?Previous: Chapter 6. Groups and Organizations
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(Photo courtesy of Christian
Weber/Flickr)
Learning Objectives
7.1. Deviance and Control
De ne deviance and categorize dierent types of deviant behaviour
Determine why certain behaviours are dened as deviant while others are not
Di erentiate between methods of social control
Describe the characteristics of disciplinary social control and their relationship
to normalizing societies
7.2. Theoretical Perspectives on Deviance
Describe the functionalist view of deviance in society and compare Durkheim’
views with social disorganization theory, control theory, and strain theory
Explain how critical sociology understands deviance and crime in society
Understand feminist theory’s unique contributions to the critical perspective o
crime and deviance
Describe the symbolic interactionist approach to deviance, including labelling
and other theories
7.3. Crime and the Law
Identify and dierentiate between dierent types of crimes
Evaluate Canadian crime statistics
Understand the nature of the corrections system in Canada
INTRODUCTION TO DEVIANCE, CRIME, AN
SOCIAL CONTROL
Psychopaths and sociopaths are some of the favourite “deviants” in contemporary
popular culture. From Patrick Bateman inAmerican Psycho, to Dr. Hannibal Lecter in
The Silence of the Lambs, to Dexter Morgan inDexter, to Sherlock Holmes in
Sherlockand Elementary, the gure of the dangerous individual who lives among us
provides a fascinating ctional gure.Psychopathyand sociopathyboth refer to
personality disorders that involve anti-social behaviour, diminished empathy, and
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of inhibitions. In clinical analysis, these analytical categories should be distinguish
from psychosis, which is a condition involving a debilitating break with reality.
Psychopaths and sociopaths are o en able to manage their condition and pass as
“normal” citizens, although their capacity for manipulation and cruelty can have
devastating consequences for people around them. The term psychopathy is o e
used to emphasize that the source of the disorder is internal, based on psychologi
biological, or genetic factors, whereas sociopathy is used to emphasize predomin
social factors in the disorder: the social or familial sources of its development and
inability to be social or abide by societal rules (Hare 1999). In this sense sociopath
would be the sociological disease par excellence. It entails an incapacity for
companionship (socius), yet many accounts of sociopaths describe them as being
charming, attractively con dent, and outgoing (Hare 1999).
In a modern society characterized by the predominance of secondary rather than
primary relationships, the sociopath or psychopath functions, in popular culture at
least, as a prime index of contemporary social unease. The sociopath is like the ni
neighbour next door who one day “goes o” or is revealed to have had a sinister
second life. In many ways the sociopath is a cypher for many of the anxieties we h
about the loss of community and living among people we do not know. In this sens
the sociopath is a very modern sort of deviant. Contemporary approaches to
psychopathy and sociopathy have focused on biological and genetic causes. This i
tradition that goes back to 19th century positivist approaches to deviance, which
attempted to nd a biological cause for criminality and other types of deviant
behaviour.
The Italian professor of legal psychiatry Cesare Lombroso (1835–1909) was a key
gure in positivist criminology who thought he had isolated specic physiological
characteristics of “degeneracy” that could distinguish “born criminals” from norma
individuals (Rimke 2011). In a much more sophisticated way, this was also the pre
of Dr. James Fallon, a neuroscientist at the University of California. His research
involved analyzing brain scans of serial killers. He found that areas of the frontal a
temporal lobes associated with empathy, morality, and self-control are “shut o” in
serial killers. In turn, this lack of brain activity has been linked with specic genetic
markers suggesting that psychopathy or sociopathy was passed down genetically.
Fallon’s premise was that psychopathy is genetically determined. An individual’s
genes determine whether they are psychopathic or not (Fallon 2013).Previous: Chapter 6. Groups and Organizations
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Figure 7.2. Lizzie Borden
(1860–1927) was tried but not
convicted of the axe murders
of her father and stepmother
in 1892. The popular rhyme of
the time went, “Lizzie Borden
took an axe, and gave her
mother 40 whacks.When she
saw what she had done, she
gave her father 41. ” (Photo
courtesy of Wikimedia
Commons).
However, at the same time that he was conducting research on psychopaths, he w
studying the brain scans of Alzheimer’s patients. In the Alzheimer’s study, he
discovered a brain scan from a control subject that indicated the symptoms of
psychopathy he had seen in the brain scans of serial killers. The scan was taken fr
member of his own family. He broke the seal that protected the identity of the sub
and discovered it was his own brain scan.
Fallon was a successfully married man, who had raised children and held down a
demanding career as a successful scientist and yet the brain scan indicated he wa
psychopath. When he researched his own genetic history, he realized that his fam
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tree contained seven alleged murderers including the famous Lizzie Borden, who
allegedly killed her father and stepmother in 1892. He began to notice some of his
own behaviour patterns as being manipulative, obnoxiously competitive, egocentr
and aggressive, just not in a criminal manner.He decided that he was a “pro-socia
psychopath”—an individual who lacks true empathy for others but keeps his or he
behaviour within acceptable social norms—due to the loving and nurturing family
grew up in. He had to acknowledge that environment, and not just genes, played a
signi cant role in the expression of genetic tendencies (Fallon 2013).
What can we learn from Fallon’s example from a sociological point of view? Firstly
psychopathy and sociopathy are recognized as problematic forms of deviance bec
of prevalent social anxieties about serial killers as types of criminal who “live next
door” or blend in. This is partly because we live in a type of society where we do n
know our neighbours well and partly because we are concerned to discover their
identi able traits as these are otherwise concealed. Secondly, Fallon acknowledge
that there is no purely biological or genetic explanation for psychopathy and
sociopathy.
Many individuals with the biological and genetic markers of psychopathy are not
dangers to society—key to pathological expressions of psychopathy are elements
individual’s social environment and social upbringing (i.e., nurture). Finally, in
Fallon’s own account, it is dicult to separate the discovery of the aberrant brain
scan and the discovery and acknowledgement of his personal traits of psychopath
it clear which came rst? He only recognizes the psychopatholoy in himself aer
seeing the brain scan. This is the problem of what Ian Hacking (2006) calls the
“looping e ect” that aects the sociological study of deviance (see discussion below)
In summary, what Fallon’s example illustrates is the complexity of the study of soc
deviance.
7.1. DEVIANCE AND CONTROL
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Figure 7.3. Much of the appeal of watching
entertainers perform in drag comes from the
humour inherent in seeing everyday norms
violated. (Photo courtesy of
Cassiopeija/Wikimedia Commons)
What, exactly, is deviance? And what is the relationship between deviance and cri
According to sociologist William Graham Sumner, deviance is a violation of
established contextual, cultural, or social norms, whether folkways, mores, or codied
law (1906). Folkways are norms based on everyday cultural customs concerning
practical matters like how to hold a fork, what type of clothes are appropriate for
di erent situations, or how to greet someone politely. Mores are more serious mo
injunctions or taboos that are broadly recognized in a society, like the incest taboo
Codi ed laws are norms that are specied in explicit codes and enforced by
government bodies. A crime is therefore an act of deviance that breaks not only a
norm, but a law. Deviance can be as minor as picking one’s nose in public or as m
as committing murder.
John Hagen (1994) provides a typology to classify deviant acts in terms of their
perceived harmfulness, the degree of consensus concerning the norms violated, a
the severity of the response to them. The most serious acts of deviance are conse
crimes about which there is near-unanimous public agreement. Acts like murder a
sexual assault are generally regarded as morally intolerable, injurious, and subject
harsh penalties. Con ict crimes are acts like prostitution or smoking marijuana,
which may be illegal but about which there is considerable public disagreement
concerning their seriousness. Social deviations are acts like abusing serving staor
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
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for institutional intervention. Finally there are social diversions like riding
skateboards on sidewalks, overly tight leggings, or facial piercings that violate nor
in a provocative way but are generally regarded as distasteful but harmless, or for
some, cool.
The point is that the question, “What is deviant behaviour?” cannot be answered i
straightforward manner. This follows from two key insights of the sociological
approach to deviance (which distinguish it from moral and legalistic approaches).
Firstly, deviance is dened by its social context. To understand why some acts are
deviant and some are not, it is necessary to understand what the context is, what
existing rules are, and how these rules came to be established. If the rules change
what counts as deviant also changes. As rules and norms vary across cultures and
time, it makes sense that notions of deviance also change.
Fi y years ago, public schools in Canada had strict dress codes that, among other
stipulations, o en banned women from wearing pants to class. Today, it is socially
acceptable for women to wear pants, but less so for men to wear skirts. In a time o
war, acts usually considered morally reprehensible, such as taking the life of anoth
may actually be rewarded. Much of the confusion and ambiguity regarding the use
violence in hockey has to do with the dierent sets of rules that apply inside and
outside the arena. Acts that are acceptable and even encouraged on the ice would
punished with jail time if they occurred on the street.
Whether an act is deviant or not depends on society’s denition of that act. Acts are
not deviant in themselves. The second sociological insight is that deviance is not a
intrinsic (biological or psychological) attribute of individuals, nor of the acts
themselves, but a product ofsocial processes. The norms themselves, or the social
contexts that determine which acts are deviant or not, are continually dened and
rede ned through ongoing social processes—political, legal, cultural, etc. One way
which certain activities or people come to be understood and dened as deviant is
through the intervention of moral entrepreneurs.
Becker (1963) dened moral entrepreneurs as individuals or groups who, in the
service of their own interests, publicize and problematize “wrongdoing” and have
power to create and enforce rules to penalize wrongdoing. Judge Emily Murphy,
commonly known today as one of the “Famous Five” feminist su ragists who fough
to have women legally recognized as “persons” (and thereby qualied to hold a
position in the Canadian Senate), was a moral entrepreneur instrumental in chang
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Canada’s drug laws. In 1922 she wroteThe Black Candle, in which she demonized the
use of marijuana:
[Marijuana] has the eect of driving the [user] completely insane. The addict loses al
sense of moral responsibility. Addicts to this drug, while under its in uence, are
immune to pain, and could be severely injured without having any realization of th
condition. While in this condition they become raving maniacs and are liable to kill
indulge in any form of violence to other persons, using the most savage methods o
cruelty without, as said before, any sense of moral responsibility…. They are
dispossessed of their natural and normal will power, and their mentality is that of
idiots. If this drug is indulged in to any great extent, it ends in the untimely death
its addict (Murphy 1922).
One of the tactics used by moral entrepreneurs is to create a moral panic about
activities, like marijuana use, that they deem deviant. A moral panic occurs when
media-fuelled public fear and overreaction lead authorities to label and repress
deviants, which in turn creates a cycle in which more acts of deviance are discove
more fear is generated, and more suppression enacted. The key insight is that
individuals’ deviant status is ascribed to them through social processes. Individual
are not born deviant, but become deviant through their interaction with reference
groups, institutions, and authorities.
Through social interaction, individuals are labelled deviant or come to recognize
themselves as deviant. For example, in ancient Greece, homosexual relationships
between older men and young acolytes were a normal component of the teacher-
student relationship. Up until the 19th century, the question of who slept with who
was a matter of indierence to the law or customs, except where it related to family
alliances through marriage and the transfer of property through inheritance.
However, in the 19th century sexuality became a matter of moral, legal, and
psychological concern. The homosexual, or “sexual invert,” was dened by the
emerging psychiatric and biological disciplines as a psychological deviant whose
instincts were contrary to nature.
Homosexuality was dened as not simply a matter of sexual desire or the act of sex,
but as a dangerous quality that dened the entire personality and moral being of an
individual (Foucault 1980). From that point until the late 1960s, homosexuality wa
regarded as a deviant, closeted activity that, if exposed, could result in legal
prosecution, moral condemnation, ostracism, violent assault, and loss of career. S
then, the gay rights movement and constitutional protections of civil liberties have
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reversed many of the attitudes and legal structures that led to the prosecution of
lesbians, and transgendered people. The point is that to whatever degree
homosexuality has a natural or inborn biological cause, its deviance is the outco
of a social process.
It is not simply a matter of the events that lead authorities to dene an activity or
category of persons deviant, but of the processes by which individuals come to
recognize themselves as deviant. In the process of socialization, there is a “loopin
e ect” (Hacking 2006). Once a category of deviance has been established and ap
to a person, that person begins to dene himself or herself in terms of this category
and behave accordingly. This in uence makes it dicult to dene criminals as kinds
of person in terms of pre-existing, innate predispositions or individual
psychopathologies. As we will see later in the chapter, it is a central tenet of symb
interactionist labelling theory, that individuals become criminalized through con
with the criminal justice system (Becker 1963). When we add to this insight the
sociological research into the social characteristics of those who have been arreste
processed by the criminal justice system—variables such as gender, age, race,
class— it is evident that social variables and power structures are key to
understanding who chooses a criminal career path.
One of the principle outcomes of these two sociological insights is that a focus on
social constructionof di erent social experiences and problems leads to alternative
ways of understanding them and responding to them. In the study of crime and
deviance, the sociologist o en confronts a legacy of entrenched beliefs concerning
either the innate biological disposition or the individual psychopathology of person
considered abnormal: the criminal personality, the sexual or gender “deviant,” the
disabled or ill person, the addict, or the mentally unstable individual. However, as
Hacking observes, even when these beliefs about kinds of persons are products of
objective scientic classi cation, the institutional context of science and expert
knowledge is not independent of societal norms, beliefs, and practices (2006).
The process of classifying kinds of people is a social process that Hacking calls
“making up people” and Howard Becker calls “labelling” (1963). Crime and devian
are social constructs that vary according to the denitions of crime, the forms and
e ectiveness of policing, the social characteristics of criminals, and the relations o
power that structure society. Part of the problem of deviance is that the social pro
of labelling some kinds of persons or activities as abnormal or deviant limits the ty
of social responses available. The major issue is not that labels are arbitrary or tha
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is possible not to use labels at all, but that the choice of label has consequences. W
gets labelled by whom and the way social labels are applied have powerful social
repercussions.
MAKING CONNECTIONS: CAREERS IN SOCIOL
Why I Drive a Hearse
When Neil Young le Canada in 1966 to seek his fortune in California as a musician,
he was driving his famous 1953 Pontiac hearse “Mort 2.” He and Bruce Palmer we
driving the hearse in Hollywood when they happened to see Stephen Stills and Ric
Furray driving the other way, a fortuitous encounter that led to the formation of th
band Bu alo Spring eld (McDonough 2002). Later Young wrote “Long May You Run
as an elegy to his rst hearse “Mort,” which he performed at the closing ceremonie
of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Rock musicians are o en noted for thei
eccentricities, but is driving a hearse deviant behaviour? When sociologist Todd
Schoep in ran into his childhood friend Bill who drove a hearse, he wondered what
e ect driving a hearse had on his friend and what eect it might have on others on
the road. Would using such a vehicle for everyday errands be considered deviant b
most people? Schoep in interviewed Bill, curious rst to know why he drove such an
unconventional car. Bill had simply been on the lookout for a reliable winter car; o
tight budget, he searched used car ads and stumbled on one for the hearse. The c
ran well and the price was right, so he bought it. Bill admitted that others’ reaction
to the car had been mixed. His parents were appalled and he received odd stares
his coworkers. A mechanic once refused to work on it, stating that it was “a dead
person machine.” On the whole, however, Bill received mostly positive reactions.
Strangers gave him a thumbs-up on the highway and stopped him in parking lots t
chat about his car. His girlfriend loved it, his friends wanted to take it tailgating, an
people o ered to buy it. Could it be that driving a hearse isn’t really so deviant aer
all? Schoep in theorized that, although viewed as outside conventional norms,
driving a hearse is such a mild form of deviance that it actually becomes a mark o
distinction. Conformists nd the choice of vehicle intriguing or appealing, while
nonconformists see a fellow oddball to whom they can relate. As one of Bill’s frien
remarked, “Every guy wants to own a unique car like this andyoucan certainly pull it
o .” Such anecdotes remind us that although deviance is o en viewed as a violation
norms, it’s not always viewed in a negative light (Schoep in 2011).
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Figure 7.4. A hearse with the license
plate “LASTRYD.” How would you
view the owner of this car? (Photo
courtesy of Brian Teutsch/ickr)
Social Control
When a person violates a social norm, what happens? A driver caught speeding ca
receive a speeding ticket. A student who texts in class gets a warning from a profe
An adult belching loudly is avoided. All societies practise social control, the
regulation and enforcement of norms. Social control can be dened broadly as an
organized action intended to change people’s behaviour (Innes 2003). The underly
goal of social control is to maintain social order, an arrangement of practices and
behaviours on which society’s members base their daily lives. Think of social order
an employee handbook and social control as the incentives and disincentives used
encourage or oblige employees to follow those rules. When a worker violates a
workplace guideline, the manager steps in to enforce the rules. One means of
enforcing rules are through sanctions. Sanctions can be positive as well as negat
Positive sanctions are rewards given for conforming to norms. A promotion at w
is a positive sanction for working hard. Negative sanctions are punishments for
violating norms. Being arrested is a punishment for shopliing. Both types of
sanctions play a role in social control.
Sociologists also classify sanctions as formal or informal. Although shopliing, a form
of social deviance, may be illegal, there are no laws dictating the proper way to
scratch one’s nose. That doesn’t mean picking your nose in public won’t be punish
instead, you will encounter informal sanctions. Informal sanctions emerge in fac
face social interactions. For example, wearing ip-ops to an opera or swearing
loudly in church may draw disapproving looks or even verbal reprimands, whereas
behaviour that is seen as positive—such as helping an old man carry grocery bags
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across the street—may receive positive informal reactions, such as a smile or pat
the back.
Formal sanctions, on the other hand, are ways to ocially recognize and enforce
norm violations. If a student plagiarizes the work of others or cheats on an exam,
example, he or she might be expelled. Someone who speaks inappropriately to the
boss could be red. Someone who commits a crime may be arrested or imprisoned.
On the positive side, a soldier who saves a life may receive an ocial commendation,
or a CEO might receive a bonus for increasing the pro ts of his or her corporation.
Not all forms of social control are adequately understood through the use of
sanctions, however. Black (1976) identies four key styles of social control, each of
which de nes deviance and the appropriate response to it in a dierent manner.
Penal social control functions by prohibiting certain social behaviours and
responding to violations with punishment. Compensatory social control obliges
o ender to pay a victim to compensate for a harm committed. Therapeutic socia
control involves the use of therapy to return individuals to a normal state.
Conciliatory social control aims to reconcile the parties of a dispute and mutua
restore harmony to a social relationship that has been damaged. While penal and
compensatory social controls emphasize the use of sanctions, therapeutic and
conciliatory social controls emphasize processes of restoration and healing.
Social Control as Government and
Discipline
Michel Foucault notes that from a period of early modernity onward, European
society became increasingly concerned with social control as a practice of
government (Foucault 2007). In this sense of the term, government does not simp
refer to the activities of the state, but to all the practices by which individuals or
organizations seek to govern the behaviour of others or themselves. Government
refers to the strategies by which one seeks to direct or guide the conduct of anoth
others. In the 15th and 16th centuries, numerous treatises were written on how to
govern and educate children, how to govern the poor and beggars, how to govern
family or an estate, how to govern an army or a city, how to govern a state and ru
economy, and how to govern one’s own conscience and conduct. These treatises
described the burgeoning arts of government, which dened the dierent ways in
which the conduct of individuals or groups might be directed. Niccolo Machiavelli’s
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The Prince(1532), which o ers advice to the prince on how best to conduct his
relationship with his subjects, is the most famous of these treatises.
Figure 7.5. Machiavelli:
“If an injury has to be
done to a man it should
be so severe that his
vengeance need not be
feared.” The ruthlessness
with which Machiavelli
advised the prince to
govern his relationships
with subjects and rivals
has earned its own
adjective in common
usage: Machiavellian.
(Image courtesy of
Wikipedia Commons)
The common theme in the various arts of governing proposed in early modernity w
the extension of Christian monastic practices involving the detailed and continuou
government and salvation of souls. The principles of monastic government were
applied to a variety of non-monastic areas. People needed to be governed in all as
of their lives. It was not, however, until the 19th century and the invention of mod
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hospital, and the factory, that the means for extending government and social con
widely through the population were developed.
Foucault (1979) describes these modern forms of government as disciplinary soc
control because they each rely on the detailed continuous training, control, and
observation of individuals to improve their capabilities: to transform criminals into
law abiding citizens, children into educated and productive adults, recruits into
disciplined soldiers, patients into healthy people, etc. Foucault argues that the ide
discipline as a means of social control is to render individuals docile. That does no
mean that they become passive or sheep-like, but that disciplinary
training simultaneously increases their abilities, skills, and usefulness while makin
them more compliant and manipulable.
Figure 7.6. The Presidio Modelo Prison, Cuba,
built between 1926 and 1928 was based on
Bentham’s panopticon design. (Photo courtesy
of Friman/Wikimedia Commons)
The chief components of disciplinary social control in modern institutions like the
prison and the school are surveillance, normalization, and examination (Foucault
1979). Surveillance refers to the various means used to make the lives and activ
individuals visible to authorities. In 1791, Jeremy Bentham published his book on t
ideal prison, the panopticon or “seeing machine.” Prisoners’ cells would be arran
in a circle around a central observation tower where they could be both separated
from each other and continually exposed to the view of prison guards. In this way,
Bentham proposed, social control could become automatic because prisoners wou
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Similarly, in a school classroom, students sit in rows of desks immediately visible t
the teacher at the front of the room. In a store, shoppers can be observed through
way glass or video monitors. Contemporary surveillance expands the capacity for
observation using video or electronic forms of surveillance to render the activities
population visible. London, England, holds the dubious honour of being the most
surveilled city in the world. The city’s “ring of steel” is a security cordon in which o
half a million surveillance cameras are used to monitor and record trac moving in
and out of the city centre.
The practice of normalization refers to the way in which norms, such as the leve
math ability expected from a grade 2 student, are rst established and then used to
assess, dierentiate, and rank individuals according to their abilities (an A student,
student, C student, etc.). Individuals’ progress in developing their abilities, whethe
math skills, good prison behaviour, health outcomes, or other areas, is established
through constant comparisons with others and with natural and observable norms
Minor sanctions are used to continuously modify behaviour that does not comply w
correct conduct: rewards are applied for good behaviour and penalties for bad.
Periodic examinations through the use of tests in schools, medical examinations
hospitals, inspections in prisons, year-end reviews in the workplace, etc. bring
together surveillance and normalization in a way that enables each individual and
each individual’s abilities to be assessed, documented, and known by authorities.
the basis of examinations, individuals can be subjected to dierent disciplinary
procedures more suited to them. Gied children might receive an enriched
educational program, whereas poorer students might receive remedial lessons.
Foucault describes disciplinary social control as a key mechanism in creating a
normalizing society. The establishment of norms and the development of discip
procedures to correct deviance from norms become increasingly central to the
organization and operation of institutions from the 19th century onward. To the
degree that “natural” or sociological norms are used to govern our lives more than
laws and legal mechanisms, society can be said to be controlled
through normalization and disciplinary procedures. Whereas the use of formal law
courts, and the police come into play only when laws are broken, disciplinary
techniques enable the continuous and ongoing social control of an expanding rang
activities in our lives through surveillance, normalization, and examination. While
may never encounter the police for breaking a law, if we work, go to school, or end
in hospital, we are routinely subject to disciplinary control through most of the day
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7.2. THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ON DEVIA
Figure 7.7. Functionalists believe that deviance
plays an important role in society and can be
used to challenge people’s views. Protesters,
such as these PETA members, o en use this
method to draw attention to their cause. (Photo
courtesy of David Shankbone/ickr)
Why does deviance occur? How does it aect a society? Since the early days of
sociology, scholars have developed theories attempting to explain what deviance
crime mean to society. These theories can be grouped according to the three majo
sociological paradigms: functionalism, symbolic interactionism, and con ict theory.
Functionalism
Sociologists who follow the functionalist approach are concerned with how the
di erent elements of a society contribute to the whole. They view deviance as a ke
component of a functioning society. Social disorganization theory, strain theory, an
cultural deviance theory represent three functionalist perspectives on deviance
society.
Émile Durkheim: The Essential Nature of
Deviance
Émile Durkheim believed that deviance is a necessary part of a successful society.
way deviance is functional, he argued, is that it challenges people’s present views
(1893). For instance, when black students across the United States participated in
ins” during the civil rights movement, they challenged society’s notions of
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segregation. Moreover, Durkheim noted, when deviance is punished, it rearms
currently held social norms, which also contributes to society (1893). Seeing a stu
given a detention for skipping class reminds other high schoolers that playing hoo
isn’t allowed and that they, too, could get a detention.
Social Disorganization Theory
Developed by researchers at the University of Chicago in the 1920s and 1930s, so
disorganization theory asserts that crime is most likely to occur in communities
weak social ties and the absence of social control. In a certain way, this is the opp
of Durkheim’s thesis. Rather than deviance being a force that reinforces moral and
social solidarity, it is the absence of moral and social solidarity that provides the
conditions for social deviance to emerge.
Early Chicago School sociologists used an ecological model to map the zones in
Chicago where high levels of social problem were concentrated. During this period
Chicago was experiencing a long period of economic growth, urban expansion, and
foreign immigration. They were particularly interested in thezones of transition
between established working class neighbourhoods and the manufacturing
district. The city’s poorest residents tended to live in these transitional zones, whe
there was a mixture of races, immigrant ethnic groups, and non-English languages
and a high rate of in ux as people moved in and out. They proposed that these zon
were particularly prone to social disorder because the residents had not yet
assimilated to the American way of life. When they did assimilate they moved out,
making it di cult for a stable social ecology to become established there.
Figure 7.8. Proponents of social
disorganization theory believe that
individuals who grow up in
impoverished areas are more likely
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to participate in deviant or criminal
behaviours. (Photo courtesy of
Apollo 1758/Wikimedia Commons)
Social disorganization theory points to broad social factors as the cause of devianc
person is not born a criminal, but becomes one over time, o en based on factors in
or her social environment. This theme was taken up by Travis Hirschi’s control
theory (1969). According to Hirschi, social control is directly aected by the strength
of social bonds. Many people would be willing to break laws or act in deviant ways
reap the rewards of pleasure, excitement, and pro t, etc. if they had the opportuni
Those who do have the opportunity are those who are only weakly controlled by so
restrictions. Similar to Durkheim’s theory of anomie, deviance is seen to result wh
feelings of disconnection from society predominate. Individuals who believe they a
a part of society are less likely to commit crimes against it. Hirschi (1969) identied
four types of social bonds that connect people to society:
1. Attachmentmeasures our connections to others. When we are closely attache
to people, we worry about their opinions of us. People conform to society’s
norms in order to gain approval (and prevent disapproval) from family, friends
and romantic partners.
2. Commitmentrefers to the investments we make in conforming to conventional
behaviour. A well-respected local businesswoman who volunteers at her
synagogue and is a member of the neighbourhood block organization has mor
to lose from committing a crime than a woman who does not have a career or
ties to the community. There is a cost/benet calculation in the decision to
commit a crime in which the costs of being caught are much higher for some
than others.
3. Similarly, levels ofinvolvement, or participation in socially legitimate activities,
lessen a person’s likelihood of deviance. Children who are members of Little
League baseball teams have fewer family crises.
4. The nal bond, belief, is an agreement on common values in society. If a person
views social values as beliefs, he or she will conform to them. An
environmentalist is more likely to pick up trash in a park because a clean
environment is a social value to that person.
An individual who grows up in a poor neighbourhood with high rates of drug use,
violence, teenage delinquency, and deprived parenting is more likely to become a
criminal than an individual from a wealthy neighbourhood with a good school syste
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and families who are involved positively in the community. The mutual dependenc
and complex relationships that form the basis of a healthy “ecosystem” or social
control do not get established. Research into social disorganization theory can gre
in uence public policy. For instance, studies have found that children from
disadvantaged communities who attend preschool programs that teach basic socia
skills are signicantly less likely to engage in criminal activity. In the same way, the
Chicago School sociologists focused their eorts on community programs designed to
help assimilate new immigrants into North American culture. However, in proposin
that social disorganization is essentially a moral problem—that it is shared moral
values that hold communities together and prevent crime and social disorder—
questions about economic inequality, racism, and power dynamics do not get aske
Robert Merton: Strain Theory
Sociologist Robert Merton agreed that deviance is, in a sense, anormalbehaviour in 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. From birth, we are encourage
achieve the goal of nancial success. A woman who attends business school, receiv
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 nancial success but lack a socially
acceptable way to reach that goal. According to Merton’s theory, an entrepreneur
can not aord to launch his own company may be tempted to embezzle from his
employer for start-up funds. The discrepancy between the reality of structural
inequality and the high cultural value of economic success creates a strain that ha
be resolved by some means. Merton dened ve ways that people adapt to this gap
between having a socially accepted goal but no socially accepted way to pursue it
1. Conformity: The majority of people in society choose to conform and not to
deviate. They pursue their society’s valued goals to the extent that they can
through socially accepted means.
2. Innovation: Those who innovate pursue goals they cannot reach through
legitimate means by instead using criminal or deviant means.
3. Ritualism: People who ritualize lower their goals until they can reach them
through socially acceptable ways. These “social ritualists” focus on conformit
to the accepted means of goal attainment while abandoning the distant,
unobtainable dream of success.
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4. Retreatism: Others retreat from the role strain and reject both society’s goals a
accepted means. Some beggars and street people have withdrawn from socie
goal of nancial success. They drop out.
5. Rebellion: A handful of people rebel, replacing a society’s goals and means wit
their own. Rebels seek to create a greatly modied social structure in which
provision would be made for closer correspondence between merit, eort, and
reward.
As many youth from poor backgrounds are exposed to the high value placed on
material success in capitalist society but face insurmountable odds to achieving it,
turning to illegal means to achieve success is a rational, if deviant, solution.
Critical Sociology
Critical sociology looks to social and economic factors as the causes of crime an
deviance. Unlike functionalists, con ict theorists don’t see these factors as necessa
functions of society, but as evidence of inequality in the system. As a result of
inequality, many crimes can be understood as crimes of accommodation, or wa
which individuals cope with conditions of oppression (Quinney 1977).Predatory
crimeslike break and enters, robbery, and drug dealing are o en simply economic
survival strategies.Personal crimeslike murder, assault, and sexual assault are
products of the stresses and strains of living under stressful conditions of scarcity
deprivation.Defensive crimeslike economic sabotage, illegal strikes, civil
disobedience, and eco-terrorism are direct challenges to social injustice. The analy
of critical sociologists is not meant to excuse or rationalize crime, but to locate its
underlying sources at the appropriate level so that they can be addressed eectively.
Critical sociologists do not see the normative order and the criminal justice system
simply neutral or “functional” with regard to the collective interests of society.
Institutions of normalization and the criminal justice system have to be seen in
context as mechanisms that actively maintain the power structure of the political-
economic order. The rich, the powerful, and the privileged have unequal in uence
who and what gets labelled deviant or criminal, particularly in instances when thei
privilege is being challenged. As capitalist society is based on the institution of
private property, for example, it is not surprising that theis a major category of
crime. By the same token, when street people, addicts, or hippies drop out of socie
they are labelled deviant and are subject to police harassment because they have
refused to participate in productive labour.
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On the other hand, the ruthless and sometimes sociopathic behaviour of many
business people and politicians, otherwise regarded as deviant according to the
normative codes of society, is o en rewarded or regarded with respect. In his book
The Power Elite(1956), sociologist C. Wright Mills described the existence of what h
dubbed the power elite, a small group of wealthy and in uential people at the top
society who hold the power and resources. Wealthy executives, politicians, celebri
and military leaders o en have access to national and international power, and in
some cases, their decisions aect everyone in society. Because of this, the rules of
society are stacked in favour of a privileged few who manipulate them to stay on t
It is these people who decide what is criminal and what is not, and the eects are
o en felt most by those who have little power. Mills’s theories explain why celebrit
such as Chris Brown and Paris Hilton, or once-powerful politicians such as Eliot
Spitzer and Tom DeLay, can commit crimes with little or no legal retribution.
Crime and Social Class
While functionalist theories o en emphasize crime and deviance associated with th
underprivileged, there is in fact no clear evidence that crimes are committed
disproportionately by the poor or lower classes. There is an established association
between the underprivileged and serious street crimes like armed robbery and ass
but these do not constitute the majority of crimes in society, nor the most serious
crimes in terms of their overall social, personal, and environmental eects. On the
other hand, crimes committed by the wealthy and powerful remain an underpunis
and costly problem within society. White-collar or corporate crime refers to crim
committed by corporate employees or owners in the pursuit of pro t or other
organization goals. They are more dicult to detect because the transactions take
place in private and are more dicult to prosecute because the criminals can secure
expert legal advice on how to bend the rules.
In the United States it has been estimated that the yearly value of all street crime
roughly 5 percent of the value of corporate crime or “suite crime” (Snider 1994).
Comparable data is not compiled in Canada; however, the Canadian Department o
Justice reported that the total value of property stolen or damaged due to property
crime in 2008 was an estimated $5.8 billion (Zhang 2008), which would put the co
corporate crime at $116 billion (if the ratio holds in Canada). For example, Canadia
for Tax Fairness estimates that wealthy Canadians have a combined total of $170
billion concealed in untaxed o shore tax havens (Tencer 2013). “Tax haven use ha
robbed at least $7.8 billion in tax revenues from Canada” (Howlett 2013).
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PricewaterhouseCoopers reports that 36 percent of Canadian companies were sub
to white-collar crime in 2013 (the, fraud, embezzlement, cybercrime). One in ten lost
$5 million or more (McKenna 2014). Recent high-pro le Ponzi scheme and investm
frauds run into tens of millions of dollars each, destroying investors retirement
savings. Vincent Lacroix was sentenced to 13 years in prison in 2009 for defraudin
investors of $115 million; Earl Jones was sentenced to 11 years in prison in 2010 fo
defrauding investors of $50 million; Weizhen Tang was sentenced to 6 years in pri
in 2013 for defrauding investors of $52 million. These were highly publicized cases
which jail time was demanded by the public (although as nonviolent o enders the
perpetrators are eligible for parole aer serving one-sixth of their sentence). However,
in 2011–2012 prison sentences were nearly twice as likely for the typically lower-c
perpetrators of break and enters (59 percent) as they were for typically middle- an
upper-class perpetrators of fraud (35 percent) (Boyce 2013).
This imbalance based on class power can also be put into perspective with respect
homicide rates (Samuelson 2000). In 2005, there were 658 homicides in Canada
recorded by police, an average of 1.8 a day. This is an extremely serious crime, wh
merits the attention given to it by the criminal justice system. However, in 2005 th
were also 1,097 workplace deaths that were, in principle, preventable. Canadians
on average 230 days a year, meaning that there were on average ve workplace de
a day for every working day in 2005 (Sharpe and Hardt 2006). Estimates from the
United States suggest that only one-third of on-the-job deaths and injuries can be
attributed to worker carelessness (Samuelson 2000).
In 2005, 51 percent of the workplace deaths in Canada were due to occupational
diseases like cancers from exposure to asbestos (Sharpe and Hardt 2006). TheOcean
Rangeroil-rig collapse that killed 84 workers o Newfoundland in 1982 and the
Westray mine explosion that killed 26 workers in Nova Scotia in 1992 were due to
design aws and unsafe working conditions that were known to the owners. Howev
whereas corporations are prosecuted for regulatory violations governing health an
safety, it is rare for corporations or corporate ocials to be prosecuted for the
consequences of those violations. “For example, a company would be ned for not
installing safety bolts in a construction crane, but not prosecuted for the death of
several workers who were below the crane when it collapsed (as in a recent case i
Western Canada)” (Samuelson 2000).
Corporate crime is arguably a more serious type of crime than street crime, and ye
white-collar criminals are treated relatively leniently. Fines, when they are impose
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are typically absorbed as a cost of doing business and passed on to consumers, an
many crimes, from investment fraud to insider trading and price xing, are simply n
prosecuted. From a critical sociology point of view, this is because white-collar crim
is committed by elites who are able to use their power and nancial resources to
evade punishment. Here are some examples:
1. In the United States, not a single criminal charge was led against a corporate
executive aer the nancial mismanagement of the 2008 nancial crisis. The
American Security and Exchange Commission levied a total of $2.73 billion in
nes and out-of-court settlements, but the total cost of the nancial crisis was
estimated to be between $6 and $14 trillion (Pyke 2013).
2. In Canada, three Nortel executives were charged by the RCMP’s Integrated
Market Enforcement Team (IMET) with fraudulently altering accounting
procedures in 2002–2003 to make it appear that Nortel was running a pro t
(thereby triggering salary bonuses for themselves totalling $12 million), but w
acquitted in 2013. The accounting procedures were found to in ate the value o
the company, but the intent to defraud could not be proven. The RCMP’s IMET
implemented in 2003 to ght white-collar crime, managed only 11 convictions
over the rst nine years of its existence (McFarland and Blackwell 2013).
3. Enbridge’s 20,000 barrel spill of bitumen (tar sands) oil into the Kalamazoo R
Michigan, in 2010 was allowed to continue for 17 hours and involved twice re-
pumping bitumen into the pipeline. The U.S. National Transportation Safety
Board report noted that the spill was the result of “pervasive organizational
failures,” and documents revealed that the pipeline operators were more
concerned about getting home for the weekend than solving the problem
(Rusnell 2012). No criminal charges were laid.
Figure 7.9. From 1986 until 2010, the
punishment for possessing crack, a
“poor person’s drug,” was 100 times
stricter than the punishment for
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cocaine use, a drug favoured by the
wealthy. (Photo courtesy of
Wikimedia Commons)
Feminist Contributions
Women who are regarded as criminally deviant are o en seen as being doubly
deviant. They have broken the laws but they have also broken gender norms abo
appropriate female behaviour, whereas men’s criminal behaviour is seen as consis
with their aggressive, self-assertive character. This double standard also explains
tendency tomedicalizewomen’s deviance, to see it as the product of physiological o
psychiatric pathology. For example, in the late 19th century, kleptomania was a
diagnosis used in legal defences that linked an extreme desire for department sto
commodities with various forms of female physiological or psychiatric illness. The
fact that “good” middle- and upper-class women, who were at that time coinciden
beginning to experience the benets of independence from men, would turn to
stealing in department stores to obtain the new feminine consumer items on displ
there, could not be explained without resorting to diagnosing the activity as an illn
of the “weaker” sex (Kramar 2011).
Feminist analysis focuses on the way gender inequality in uences the opportunitie
commit crime and the denition, detection, and prosecution of crime. In part the
gender dierence revolves around patriarchal attitudes toward women and the
disregard for matters considered to be of a private or domestic nature. For examp
until 1969, abortion was illegal in Canada, meaning that hundreds of women died
were injured each year when they received illegal abortions (McLaren and McLaren
1997). It was not until the Supreme Court ruling in 1988 that struck down the law
it was acknowledged that women are capable of making their own choice, in
consultation with a doctor, about the procedure. Similarly, until the 1970s, two ma
types of criminal deviance were largely ignored or were dicult to prosecute as
crimes: sexual assault and spousal assault.
Through the 1970s, women worked to change the criminal justice system and
establish rape crisis centres and battered women’s shelters, bringing attention to
domestic violence. In 1983 the Criminal Code was amended to replace the crimes
rape and indecent assault with a three-tier structure of sexual assault (ranging fro
unwanted sexual touching that violates the integrity of the victim to sexual assaul
with a weapon or threats or causing bodily harm to aggravated sexual assault that
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results in wounding, maiming, disguring, or endangering the life of the victim)
(Kong et al. 2003). Johnson (1996) reported that in the mid-1990s, when violence
against women began to be surveyed systematically in Canada, 51 percent of Can
women had been the subject to at least one sexual or physical assault since the ag
16.
The goal of the amendments was to emphasize that sexual assault is an act of
violence, not a sexual act. Previously, rape had been dened as an act that involved
penetration and was perpetrated against a woman who was not the wife of the
accused. This had excluded spousal sexual assault as a crime and had also expose
women to secondary victimization by the criminal justice system when they trie
bring charges. Secondary victimization occurs when the women’s own sexual histo
and her willingness to consent are questioned in the process of laying charges and
reaching a conviction, which as feminists pointed out, increased victims’ reluctanc
lay charges.
In particular feminists challenged the twin myths of rape that were o en the sub
of criminal justice proceedings presided over largely by men (Kramar 2011). The r
myth is that women are untrustworthy and tend to lie about assault out of malice
toward men, as a way of getting back at them for personal grievances. The second
myth, is that women will say “no” to sexual relations when they really mean “yes.
Typical of these types of issues was the judge’s comment in a Manitoba Court of
Appeal case in which a man plead guilty to sexually assaulting his twelve- or thirte
year-old babysitter:
The girl, of course, could not consent in the legal sense, but nonetheless was a wil
participant. She was apparently more sophisticated than many her age and was
performing many household tasks including babysitting the accused’s children. Th
accused and his wife were somewhat estranged (cited in Kramar 2011).
Because the girl was willing to perform household chores in place of the man’s
estranged wife, the judge assumed she was also willing to engage in sexual relatio
In order to address these types of issue, feminists successfully pressed the Suprem
Court to deliver rulings that restricted a defence attorney’s access to a victim’s
medical and counselling records and rules of evidence were changed to prevent a
woman’s past sexual history being used against her. Consent to sexual discourse w
rede ned as what a woman actually says or does, not what the man believes to be
consent. Feminists also argued that spousal assault was a key component of
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patriarchal power. Typically it was hidden in the household and largely regarded a
private, domestic matter in which police were reluctant to get involved.
Interestingly women and men report similar rates of spousal violence—in 2009, 6
percent had experienced spousal violence in the previous ve years—but women ar
more likely to experience more severe forms of violence including multiple
victimizations and violence leading to physical injury (Sinha 2013). In order to
empower women, feminists pressed lawmakers to develop zero-tolerance policies
would support aggressive policing and prosecution of o enders. These policies obli
police to lay charges in cases of domestic violence when a complaint is made, whe
or not the victim wished to proceed with charges (Kramar 2011).
In 2009, 84 percent of violent spousal incidents reported by women to police resul
in charges being laid. However, according to victimization surveys only 30 percent
actual incidents were reported to police. The majority of women who did not repor
incidents to the police stated that they dealt with them in another way, felt they w
a private matter, or did not think the incidents were important enough to report. A
signi cant proportion, however, did not want anyone to nd out (44 percent), did no
want their spouse to be arrested (40 percent), or were too afraid of their spouse (1
percent) (Sinha 2013).
Symbolic Interactionism
Symbolic interactionismis a theoretical approach that can be used to explain how
societies and/or social groups come to view behaviours as deviant or conventional
The key component of this approach is to emphasize the social processes through
which deviant activities and identities are socially dened and then “lived” as deviant.
Social groups and authorities create deviance by rst making the rules and then
applying them to people who are thereby labelled as outsiders (Becker 1963). Dev
is not an intrinsic quality of individuals but is created through the social interaction
of individuals and various authorities. Deviance is something that, in essence, is
learned.
Deviance as Learned Behaviour
In the early 1900s, sociologist Edwin Sutherland sought to understand how devian
behaviour developed among people. Since criminology was a young eld, he drew o
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other aspects of sociology including social interactions and group learning (Laub
2006). His conclusions established dierential association theory, stating that
individuals learn deviant behaviour from those close to them who provide models
and opportunities for deviance. According to Sutherland, deviance is less a person
choice and more a result of dierential socialization processes. A tween whose friends
are sexually active is more likely to view sexual activity as acceptable.
A classic study of dierential association is Howard Becker’s study of marijuana user
in the jazz club scene of Chicago in the 1950s (Becker 1953). Becker paid his way
through graduate studies by performing as a jazz pianist and took the opportunity
study his fellow musicians. He conducted 50 interviews and noted that becoming a
marijuana user involved a social process of initiation into a deviant role that could
be accounted for by either the physiological properties of marijuana or the
psychological needs (for escape, fantasy, etc.) of the individual. Rather the “caree
the marijuana user involved a sequence of changes in attitude and experience lea
through social interactions with experienced users before marijuana could be
regularly smoked for pleasure.
Regular marijuana use was a social achievement that required the individual to pa
through three distinct stages. Failure to do so meant that the individual would not
assume the deviant role as a regular user of marijuana. Firstly, individuals had to l
to smoke marijuana in a way that would produce real eects. Many rst-time users do
not feel the eects. If they are not shown how to inhale the smoke or how much to
smoke, they might not feel the drug had any eect on them. Their “career” might end
there if they are not encouraged by others to persist. Secondly, they had to learn t
recognize the eects of “being high” and connect them with drug use.
Although people might display dierent symptoms of intoxication—feeling hungry,
elated, rubbery, etc.—they might not recognize them as qualities associated with
marijuana or even recognize them as dierent at all. Through listening to experienced
users talk about their experiences, novices are able to locate the same type of
sensations in their own experience and notice something qualitatively dierent going
on. Thirdly, they had to learn how to enjoy the sensations: they had to learn how t
de ne the situation of getting high as pleasurable. Smoking marijuana is not
necessarily pleasurable and o en involves uncomfortable experiences like loss of
control, impaired judgment, distorted perception, and paranoia. Unless the
experiences can be redened as pleasurable the individual will not become a regular
user. O en experienced users are able to coach novices through diculties and
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encourage them by telling them they will learn to like it. It is through dierential
association with a specic set of individuals that a person learns and assumes a
deviant role. The role needs to be learned and its value recognized before it can
become routine or normal for the individual.
Labelling Theory
Although all of us violate norms from time to time, few people would consider
themselves deviant. O en, those who do, however, have gradually come to believe
they are deviant because they been labelled “deviant” by society.Labelling theory
examines the ascribing of a deviant behaviour to another person by members of
society. Thus, what is considered deviant is determined not so much by the
behaviours themselves or the people who commit them, but by the reactions of ot
to these behaviours. As a result, what is considered deviant changes over time an
vary signicantly across cultures. As Becker put it, “deviance is not a quality of the
the person commits, but rather a consequence of the application by others of rule
and sanctions to the o ender. The deviant is one to whom the label has successful
been applied; deviant behaviour is behaviour people so label” (1963).
It is important to note that labelling theory does not address the initial motives or
reasons for the rule-breaking behaviour, which might be unknowable, but the
importance of its social consequences. It does not attempt to answer the question
people break the rules or why they are deviant so much as why particular acts or
particular individuals are labelled deviant while others are not. How do certain act
get labelled deviant and what are the consequences?
Sociologist Edwin Lemert expanded on the concepts of labelling theory, identifying
two types of deviance that aect identity formation. Primary deviance is a violation
of norms that does not result in any long-term eects on the individual’s self-image or
interactions with others. 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 ow
self-concept. Individuals who engage in primary deviance still maintain a feeling o
belonging in society and are likely to continue to conform to norms in the future.
Sometimes, in more extreme cases, primary deviance can morph into secondary
deviance. Secondary deviance occurs when a person’s self-concept and behavio
begin to change aer his or her actions are labelled as deviant by members of societ
The person may begin to take on and fulll the role of a “deviant” as an act of
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rebellion against the society that has labelled that individual as such. For example
consider a high school student who o en cuts class and gets into ghts. The student
is reprimanded frequently by teachers and school sta, and soon enough, develops a
reputation as a “troublemaker.” As a result, the student starts acting out even mo
and breaking more rules, adopting the “troublemaker” label and embracing this
deviant identity.
Secondary deviance can be so strong that it bestows a master status on an indiv
A master status is a label that describes the chief characteristic of an individual. S
people see themselves primarily as doctors, artists, or grandfathers. Others see
themselves as beggars, convicts, or addicts. The criminal justice system is ironical
one of the primary agencies of socialization into the criminal “career path.” The la
“juvenile delinquent” or “criminal” are not automatically applied to individuals who
break the law. A teenager who is picked up by the police for a minor misdemeanou
might be labelled as a “good kid” who made a mistake and then released aer a stern
talking to, or he or she might be labelled a juvenile delinquent and processed as a
young o ender. In the rst case, the incident may not make any impression on the
teenager’s personality or on the way others react to him or her. In the second case
being labelled a juvenile delinquent sets up a set of responses to the teenager by
police and authorities that lead to criminal charges, more severe penalties, and a
process of socialization into the criminal identity.
In detention in particular, individuals learn how to assume the identity of serious
o enders as they interact with hardened, long-term inmates within the prison cultu
(Wheeler 1961). The act of imprisonment itself modies behaviour, to make
individuals more criminal. Aaron Cicourel’s research in the 1960s showed how poli
used their discretionary powers to label rule-breaking teenagers who came from
homes where the parents were divorced as juvenile delinquents and to arrest them
more frequently than teenagers from intact homes (Cicourel 1968). Judges were a
found to be more likely to impose harsher penalties on teenagers from divorced
families.
Unsurprisingly, Cicourel noted that subsequent research conducted on the social
characteristics of teenagers who were charged and processed as juvenile delinque
found that children from divorced families were more likely to be charged and
processed. Divorced families were seen as a cause of youth crime. This set up a vi
circle in which the research con rmed the prejudices of police and judges who
continued to label, arrest, and convict the children of divorced families
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disproportionately. The labelling process acted as a self-fullling prophecy in which
police found what they expected to see.
7.3. CRIME AND THE LAW
Figure 7.10. How is a crime
di erent from other types of
deviance? (Photo courtesy of Fox
Features Syndicate/Wikimedia
Commons.)
The sociological study of crime, deviance, and social control is especially importan
with respect to public policy debates. In 2012 the Conservative government passe
Safe Streets and Communities Act, a controversial piece of legislation because it
introduced mandatory minimum sentences for certain drug and sex-related o ence
restricted the use of conditional sentencing (i.e., non-prison punishments), impose
harsher sentences on certain categories of young o ender, reduced the ability for
Canadians with a criminal record to receive a pardon, and made it more dicult for
Canadians imprisoned abroad to transfer back to a Canadian prison to be near fam
and support networks. The legislation imposes a mandatory six-month sentence fo
cultivating six marijuana plants, for example. This followed the Tackling Violent
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Crime Act passed in 2008, which among other provisions, imposed a mandatory th
year sentence for rst-time gun-related o ences.
This government policy represents a shitoward a punitive approach to crime
control and away from preventive strategies such as drug rehabilitation, prison
diversion, and social reintegration programs. Despite the evidence that rates of
serious and violent crime have been falling in Canada, and while even some of the
most conservative politicians in the United States have begun to reject the punitiv
approach as an expensive failure, the government pushed the legislation through
Parliament. In response to evidence that puts into question the need for more
punitive measures of crime control, the Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said, “Unlike
the Opposition, we do not use statistics as an excuse not to get tough on criminals
far as our Government is concerned, one victim of crime is still one too many”
(Galloway 2011). What accounts for the appeal of “get tough on criminals” policies
time when rates of crime, and violent crime in particular, are falling and are curren
at their lowest level since 1972 (Perreault 2013)? One reason is that violent crime
form of deviance that lends itself to spectacular media coverage that distorts its a
threat to the public.
Television news broadcasts frequently begin with “chaos news”—crime, accidents
natural disasters—that present an image of society as a dangerous and unpredicta
place. However, the image of crime presented in the headlines does not accuratel
represent the types of crime that actually occur. Whereas the news typically repor
the worst sorts of violent crime, violent crime made up only 21 percent of all polic
reported crime in 2012 (down 17 percent from 2002), and homicides made up only
tenth of 1 percent of all violent crimes in 2012 (down 16 percent from 2002). In 20
the homicide rate fell to its lowest level since 1966 (Perreault 2013). Moreover, an
analysis of television news reporting on murders in 2000 showed that while 44 per
of CBC news coverage and 48 percent of CTV news coverage focused on murders
committed by strangers, only 12 percent of murders in Canada are committed by
strangers. Similarly, while 24 percent of the CBC reports and 22 percent of the CTV
reports referred to murders in which a gun had been used, only 3.3 percent of all
violent crime involved the use of a gun in 1999.In 1999, 71 percent of violent crim
Canada did not involve any weapon (Miljan 2001).
This distortion creates the conditions formoral panicsaround crime. As we noted
earlier, a moral panic occurs when a relatively minor or atypical situation of devian
arises that is amplied and distorted by the media, police, or members of the public.
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It thereby comes to be dened as a general threat to the civility or moral bre of
society (Cohen 1972). As public attention is brought to the situation, more instanc
are discovered, the deviants are rebranded as “folk devils,” and authorities react b
taking social control measures disproportionate to the original acts of deviance tha
began the cycle. For example, the implementation of mandatory minimum senten
for the cultivation of marijuana is framed in the Safe Streets and Communities
legislation as a response to the in ltration of organized crime into Canada. For yea
newspapers have uncritically published police messaging on grow-ops and the
marijuana trade that characterizes the activities as widespread, gang-related, and
linked to the cross-border trade in guns and more serious drugs like heroin and
cocaine.
Television news coverage o en shows police in white, disposable hazardous-waste
out ts removing marijuana plants from suburban houses, and presenting exaggera
estimates of the street value of the drugs. However a Justice Department study in
revealed that out of a random sample of 500 grow-ops, only 5 percent had connec
to organized crime. Moreover, an RCMP-funded study from 2005 noted that “rearms
or other hazards” were found in only 6 percent of grow-op cases examined (Boyd
Carter 2014). While 76 percent of Canadians believe that marijuana should be lega
available (Stockwell et al. 2006), and several jurisdictions (Washington State, Colo
and Uruguay) have legalized marijuana, the Safe Streets and Communities Act
appears to be an attempt to reinvigorate the punitive messaging of the “war on dr
based on disinformation and moral panic around marijuana use and cultivation.
The political controversies that surround the question of how best to respond to
crime are di cult to resolve at the level of political rhetoric. O en, in the news and
public discourse, the issue is framed in moral terms and therefore, for example, th
policy alternatives get narrowed to the option of either being “tough” on crime or
“so ” on crime. “Tough” and “so ” are moral categories that reect a moral
characterization of the issue. A question framed by these types of moral categorie
cannot be resolved by using evidence-based procedures. Posing the debate in the
moral terms narrows the range of options available and undermines the ability to
raise questions about what responses to crime actually work.
What Is Crime?
Although deviance is a violation of social norms, it is not always punishable, and it
not necessarily bad.Crime, on the other hand, is a behaviour that violates ocial law
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and is punishable through formal sanctions. Walking to class backwards is a devia
behaviour. Driving with a blood alcohol percentage over the province’s limit is a
crime. Like other forms of deviance, however, ambiguity exists concerning what
constitutes a crime and whether all crimes are, in fact, “bad” and deserve punishm
For example, in 1946 Viola Desmond refused to sit in the balcony designated for
blacks at a cinema in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, where she was unable to see the
screen. She was dragged from the cinema by two men who injured her knee, and
was then arrested, obliged to stay overnight in the male cell block, tried without
counsel, and ned.
The courts ignored the issue of racial segregation in Canada. Instead her crime wa
determined to be tax evasion because she had not paid the 1 cent dierence in tax
between a balcony ticket and a main oor ticket. She took her case to the Supreme
Court of Nova Scotia where she lost. In hindsight, and long aer her death, she was
posthumously pardoned, because the application of the law was clearly in violation
norms of social equality. As you learned previously, all societies have informal and
formal ways of maintaining social control. Within these systems of norms, societie
have legal codes that maintain formal social control through laws, which are rule
adopted and enforced by a political authority. Those who violate these rules incur
negative formal sanctions. Normally, punishments are relative to the degree of the
crime and the importance to society of the value underlying the law. As we will see
however, there are other factors that in uence criminal sentencing.
Types of Crimes
Not all crimes are given equal weight. Society generally socializes its members to
certain crimes as more severe than others. For example, most people would consi
murdering someone to be far worse than stealing a wallet and would expect a
murderer to be punished more severely than a thief. In modern North American
society, crimes are classied as one of two types based on their severity. Violent
crimes (also known as “crimes against a person”) are based on the use of force o
threat of force. Rape, murder, and armed robbery fall under this category. Nonvio
crimes involve the destruction or theof property, but do not use force or the threat
of force. Because of this, they are also sometimes called “property crimes.” Larcen
car the , and vandalism are all types of nonviolent crimes. If you use a crowbar to
break into a car, you are committing a nonviolent crime; if you mug someone with
crowbar, you are committing a violent crime.
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As we noted earlier in the section on critical sociological approaches, when we thin
of crime, we o en picture street crime, or o ences committed by ordinary people
against other people or organizations, usually in public spaces. An o en overlooked
category iscorporate crime(“suite crime”), or crime committed by white-collar
workers in a business environment. Embezzlement, insider trading, and identity th
are all types of corporate crime. Although these types of o ences rarely receive the
same amount of media coverage as street crimes, they can be far more damaging
current economic recession in the United States is the ultimate result of a nancial
collapse triggered by corporate crime. An o en-debated third type of crime is
victimless crime. These are called victimless because the perpetrator is not expl
harming another person. As opposed to battery or the, which clearly has a victim, a
crime like drinking a beer at age 17 or selling a sexual act do not result in injury to
anyone other than the individual who engages in them, although they are illegal.
While some claim acts like these are victimless, others argue that they actually do
harm society. Prostitution may foster abuse toward women by clients or pimps. Dr
use may increase the likelihood of employee absences. Such debates highlight how
deviant and criminal nature of actions develops through ongoing public discussion
MAKING CONNECTIONS: THE BIG PICTURE
Hate Crimes
In the early morning of January 4, 1998, a 65-year-old Sikh caretaker in Surrey, B.C
was beaten to death in the parking lot of the Guru Nanak Sikh temple by ve white-
supremacist skinheads, aged 17 to 25, as he was about to open the temple for ear
morning worship. The skinheads were part of a group that called itself White Powe
They had been to an all-night drinking party when they decided they were going to
vandalize some cars in the temple parking lot. They encountered the caretaker Nir
Singh Gill and took turns attacking him. In trial it came out that the eldest of the
skinheads had recently been released from the military because of his racist belief
Another had a large Nazi ag pinned to the wall of his apartment. In an intercepted
telephone call from the investigation leading to the skinheads’ arrest, one was
recorded as saying, “Can’t go wrong with a Hindu death cause it always sends a f’
message” (R. v. Miloszewski1999). Attacks motivated by hate based on a person’s ra
religion, or other characteristics are known as hate crimes. The category of hate
crimes grew out of the provisions in the Criminal Code that prohibit hate propagan
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(sections 318 and 319) including advocating genocide, public incitement of hatred
the willful promotion of hatred against an identiable group.
In 1996, section 718.2 of the Criminal Code was amended to introduce hate
motivation as an aggravating factor in crime that needed to be considered in
sentencing (Silver et al. 2004). In 2009 Statistics Canada’sGeneral Social Survey on
Victimizationreported that 5 percent of the o ences experienced by victims of crim
in Canada were believed by the victims to be motivated by hate (approximately
399,000 incidents in total) (Perreault and Brennan, 2010). However, police reporte
hate crimes totalled only 1,473 incidents in 2009. About one-third of theGeneral
Social Surveyrespondents said they reported the hate-motivated incidents to the
police. In 2011 police-reported hate crimes had dropped to 1,322 incidents. The
majority of these were racially or ethnically motivated, but many were based on
religious (especially anti-Semitic) prejudice or sexual orientation. A signicant
portion of the hate-motivated crimes (50 percent) involved mischief (vandalism,
gra ti, and other destruction of property). This gure increased to 75 percent for
religious-motivated hate crimes. Violent hate crimes constituted 39 percent of all h
crimes (22 percent accounted for by violent assault specically). Sexual-orientation-
motivated hate crimes were the most likely to be violent (65 percent) (Allen and B
2013).
Figure 7.11. In Canada, there were 1,332
reported victims of hate crimes in 2011. The
General Social Surveysuggests that only one-
third of hate motivated incidences are reported
to police. (Source: Allen and Boyce 2013) Source:
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Crime Statistics
What crimes are people in Canada most likely to commit, and who is most likely to
commit them? To understand criminal statistics, you must rst understand how the
statistics are collected. Since 1962, Statistics Canada has been collecting and
publishing an archive of crime statistics known as theUniform Crime Reports
Survey(UCR). These annual publications contain data from all the police agencies i
Canada. Although the UCR contains comprehensive data on police reports, it fails
take into account the fact that many crimes go unreported due to the victims’
unwillingness to report them, largely based on fear, shame, or distrust of the polic
The accuracy of the data collected by the UCR also varies greatly. Because police
other authorities decide which criminal acts they are going to focus on, the data
re ects the priorities of the police rather than actual levels of crime per se. For
example, if police decide to focus on gun-related crimes chances are that more gu
related crimes will be discovered and counted.
Similarly, changes in legislation that introduce new crimes or change the categorie
under which crimes are recorded will also alter the statistics. To address some of
these problems, in 1985, Statistics Canada began to publish a separate report kno
as theGeneral Social Survey on Victimization(GSS). The GSS is a self-report study. A
self-report study is a collection of data acquired using voluntary response metho
based on telephone interviews. In 2014, for example, survey data were gathered f
79,770 households across Canada on the frequency and type of crime they experi
in their daily lives. The surveys are thorough, providing a wider scope of informatio
than was previously available. This allows researchers to examine crime from mor
detailed perspectives and to analyze the data based on factors such as the relatio
between victims and o enders, the consequences of the crimes, and substance ab
involved in the crimes. Demographics are also analyzed, such as age, ethnicity, ge
location, and income level.
The GSS reports a higher rate of crime than the UCR. In the 2009GSS on
Victimization, only 31 percent of criminal incidents experienced by respondents we
reported to police (Perreault and Brennan 2010). Though the GSS is a critical sour
of statistical information, disadvantages exist. “Non-response,” or a victim’s failure
participate in the survey or a particular question, is among them. Inability to conta
important demographics, such as those who do not have access to phones or who
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frequently relocate, also skews the data. For those who participate, memory issue
be problematic for the data sets. Some victims’ recollection of the crimes can be
inaccurate or simply forgotten over time. While neither of these publications can t
into account all of the crimes committed in the country, some general trends may
noted. Crime rates were on the rise aer 1960, but following an all-time high in the
1980s and 1990s, rates of violent and nonviolent crimes started to decline. In 201
they reached their lowest level since 1972 (Perreault 2013).
Figure 7.12. The crime rates for all types of
crime in Canada, including violent crime, have
been declining since 1992. Why? (Source:
Perreault, 2013). Source:
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-002-
x/2013001/article/11854-eng.pdf
In 2012, approximately 2 million crimes occurred in Canada. Of those, 415,000 we
classi ed as violent crimes, the majority being assault and robbery. The rate of vio
crime reached its lowest level since 1987, led by decreases in sexual assault, com
assault, and robbery. The homicide rate fell to its lowest level since 1966. An
estimated 1.58 million nonviolent crimes also took place, the most common being
the under $5,000 and mischief. The major contribution to the declining crime rate
has been decreases in nonviolent crime, especially decreases in mischief, break-in
disturbing the peace, theof a motor vehicle, and possession of stolen property.
As noted above however, only 31 percent of violent and nonviolent crimes were
reported to the police. What accounts for the decreases in the crime rate? Opinion
polls continue to show that a majority of Canadians believe that crime rates,
especially violent crime rates, are rising (Edmiston 2012), even though the statisti
show a steady decline since 1991. Where is the disconnect? There are three prima
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reasons for the decline in the crime rate. Firstly, it reects the demographic changes
to the Canadian population. Most crime is committed by people aged 15 to 24. Thi
age cohort has declined in size since 1991. Secondly, male unemployment is highl
correlated with the crime rate. Following the recession of 1990–1991, better econo
conditions improved male unemployment. Thirdly, police methods have arguably
improved since 1991, including having a more targeted approach to particular site
and types of crime. Whereas reporting on spectacular crime has not diminished, th
underlying social and policing conditions have. It is very dicult to get a feel for
statistical realities when you are sitting in front of a TV screen that shows a daily
litany of violent and frightening crime.
Figure 7.13. Kingston Penitentiary was opened
in 1835 and ocially closed in 2013. (Photo
courtesy of R. Orville Lyttle/ickr)
Corrections
The corrections system, more commonly known as the prison system, is tasked
supervising individuals who have been arrested, convicted, and sentenced for a
criminal o ence. At the end of 2011, approximately 38,000 adults were in prison in
Canada, while another 125,000 were under community supervision or probation
(Dauvergne 2012). By way of contrast, seven million Americans were behind bars
2010 (Bureau of Justice Statistics 2011). Canada’s rate of adult incarceration in 20
was 140 per 100,000 population. In the United States in 2008, the incarceration ra
was approximately 1,000 per 100,000 population. More than 1 in 100 U.S. adults w
in jail or prison, the highest benchmark in U.S. history. While Americans account f
5 percent of the global population, they have 25 percent of the world’s inmates, th
largest number of prisoners in the world (Liptak 2008). While Canada’s rate of
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incarceration is far lower than that of the United States, there are nevertheless so
disturbing features of the Canadian corrections system.
As we noted in Chapter 1, from 2010 to 2011, aboriginal Canadians were 10 times
more likely to be incarcerated than the non-aboriginal population. While aborigina
people accounted for about 4 percent of the Canadian population, in 2013, they m
up 23.2 percent of the federal penitentiary population. Aboriginal women made up
33.6 percent of incarcerated women in Canada. This problem of overrepresentatio
aboriginal people in the corrections system continues to grow appreciably despite
Supreme Court ruling in 1999 that the social history of aboriginal o enders should
considered in sentencing. Prison is supposed to be used only as a last resort. Betw
2003 and 2013, the aboriginal population in prison grew by 44 percent (Correction
Investigator Canada 2013).
Although black Canadians are a smaller minority of the Canadian population than
aboriginal people, they experience a similar problem of overrepresentation in the
prison system. Blacks represent approximately 2.9 percent of the Canadian
population, but accounted for 9.5 percent of the total prison population in 2013, u
from 6.3 percent in 2003–2004 (Correctional Investigator Canada 2013). A survey
revealed that blacks in Toronto are subject to racial pro ling by the police, which
might partially explain their higher incarceration rate (Wortley 2003). Racial pro
occurs when police single out a particular racial group for extra policing, including
disproportionate use of stop-and-search practices, undercover sting operations, po
patrols in racial minority neighbourhoods, and extra attention at border crossings
airports. Survey respondents revealed that blacks in Toronto were much more like
be stopped and searched by police than were whites and Asians. Moreover, in a
reverse of the situation for whites, older and more auent black males were more
likely to be stopped and searched than younger, lower-income blacks. As one surv
respondent put it: “If you are Black and drive a nice car, the police think you are a
drug dealer or that you stole the car. They always pull you over to check you out”
(Wortley 2003).
There are a number of alternatives to prison sentences used as criminal sanctions
Canada including nes, electronic monitoring, probation, and community service.
These alternatives divert o enders from forms of penal social control, largely on th
basis of principles drawn from labelling theory. They emphasize to varying degree
compensatory social control, which obliges an o ender to pay a victim to compens
for a harm committed; therapeutic social control, which involves the use of therap
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return individuals to a normal state; and conciliatory social control, which reconcile
the parties of a dispute to mutually restore harmony to a social relationship that h
been damaged. Many non-custodial sentences involve community-based senten
in which o enders serve a conditional sentence in the community, usually by
performing some sort of community service. The argument for these types of
programs is that rehabilitation is more eective if the o ender is in the community
rather than prison. A version of community-based sentencing is restorative justi
conferencing, which focuses on establishing a direct, face-to-face connection
between the o ender and the victim. The o ender is obliged to make restitution to
the victim, thus “restoring” a situation of justice. Part of the process of restorative
justice is to bring the o ender to a position in which he or she can fully acknowledg
responsibility for the o ence, express remorse, and make a meaningful apology to
victim (Department of Justice 2013).
In special cases where the parties agree, aboriginal sentencing circles involve
victims, the aboriginal community, and aboriginal elders in a process of deliberatio
with aboriginal o enders to determine the best way to nd healing for the harm don
to victims and communities. The emphasis is on forms of traditional aboriginal
justice, which centre on healing and building community rather than retribution.
These might involve specialized counselling or treatment programs, community
service under the supervision of elders, or the use of an aboriginal nation’s traditio
penalties (Aboriginal Justice Directorate 2005). It is dicult to nd data in Canada on
the e ectiveness of these types of programs. However, a large meta-analysis study
examined ten studies from Europe, North America, and Australia was able to
determine that restorative justice conferencing was eective in reducing rates of
recidivism—the likelihood for people to be arrested again aer an initial arrest—and
in reducing costs to the criminal justice system (Strang et al. 2013). The authors
suggest that recidivism was reduced between 7 and 45 percent from traditional pe
sentences by using restorative justice conferencing. Rehabilitation and recidivism
of course not the only goals of the corrections systems. Many people are skeptical
about the capacity of o enders to be rehabilitated and see criminal sanctions more
importantly as a means of deterrence to prevent crimes, retribution or revenge to
address harms to victims and communities, or incapacitation to remove dangerou
individuals from society.
Key Terms
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aboriginal sentencing circles the involvement of aboriginal communities in the
sentencing of aboriginal o enders
community-based sentencing o enders serve a conditional sentence in the
community, usually by performing some sort of community service
compensatory social control a means of social control that obliges an o ender t
a victim to compensate for a harm committed
conciliatory social control a means of social control that reconciles the parties o
dispute and mutually restores harmony to a social relationship that has been dam
consensus crimes serious acts of deviance about which there is near-unanimous
public agreement
con ict crimes acts of deviance that may be illegal but about which there is
considerable public disagreement concerning their seriousness
control theory theory that states social control is directly aected by the strength of
social bonds and that deviance results from a feeling of disconnection from society
corporate crime crime committed by white-collar workers in a business environm
corrections system the system tasked with supervising individuals who have be
arrested for, convicted of, or sentenced for criminal o ences
court a system that has the authority to make decisions based on law
crime a behaviour that violates ocial law and is punishable through formal
sanctions
crimes of accommodation crimes committed as ways in which individuals cope
conditions of oppression and inequality
criminal justice system an organization that exists to enforce a legal code
critical sociology looks to social and economic factors as the causes of crime an
deviance
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cultural deviance theory that suggests conformity to the prevailing cultural norm
lower-class society causes crime
deviance a violation of contextual, cultural, or social norms
di erential association theory theory that states individuals learn deviant beha
from those close to them who provide models of and opportunities for deviance
disciplinary social control detailed continuous training, control, and observatio
individuals to improve their capabilities
doubly deviant women (or other categories of individual) who break both laws an
gender (or other) norms
examination the use of tests by authorities to assess, document, and know indivi
folkways norms based on everyday cultural customs like etiquette
formal sanctions sanctions that are ocially recognized and enforced
government practices by which individuals or organizations seek to govern the
behaviour of others or themselves
hate crimes attacks based on a person’s race, religion, or other characteristics
informal sanctions sanctions that occur in face-to-face interactions
labelling theory the ascribing of a deviant behaviour to another person by memb
of society
law norms that are specied in explicit codes and enforced by government bodies
legal codes codes that maintain formal social control through laws
master status a label that describes the chief characteristic of an individual
moral entrepreneur an individual or group who, in the service of its own intere
publicizes and problematizes “wrongdoing” and has the power to create and enfor
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rules to penalize wrongdoing
moral panic an expanding cycle of deviance, media-generated public fears, and p
repression
mores serious moral injunctions or taboos that are broadly recognized in a societ
negative sanctions punishments for violating norms
nonviolent crimes crimes that involve the destruction or theof property, but do not
use force or the threat of force
normalization the process by which norms are used to dierentiate, rank, and
correct individual behaviour
normalizing society a society that uses continual observation, discipline, and
correction of its subjects to exercise social control
panopticon Jeremy Bentham’s “seeing machine” that became the model for the i
prison
penal social control a means of social control that prohibits certain social behav
and responds to violations with punishment
police a civil force in charge of regulating laws and public order at a federal, state
community level
positive sanctions rewards given for conforming to norms
power elite a small group of wealthy and in uential people at the top of society w
hold the power and resources
primary deviance a violation of norms that does not result in any long-term eects on
the individual’s self-image or interactions with others
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racial pro ling the singling out of a particular racial group for extra policing
recidivism the likelihood for people to be arrested again aer an initial arrest
restorative justice conferencing focuses on establishing a direct, face-to-face
connection between the o ender and the victim
sanctions the means of enforcing rules
secondary deviance a change in a person’s self-concept and behaviour aer his or her
actions are labelled as deviant by members of society
secondary victimization aer an initial victimization, secondary victimization is
incurred through criminal justice processes
self-report study collection of data acquired using voluntary response methods,
as questionnaires or telephone interviews
social control the regulation and enforcement of norms
social deviations deviant acts that are not illegal but are widely regarded as har
social disorganization theory theory that asserts crime occurs in communities
weak social ties and the absence of social control
social diversions acts that violate social norms but are generally regarded as ha
social order an arrangement of practices and behaviours on which society’s mem
base their daily lives
sociopathy a personality disorder characterized by anti-social behaviour, diminish
empathy, and lack of inhibitions
strain theory theory that addresses the relationship between having socially
acceptable goals and having socially acceptable means to reach those goals
street crime crime committed by average people against other people or
organizations, usually in public spaces
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surveillance various means used to make the lives and activities of individuals vi
to authorities
therapeutic social control a means of social control that uses therapy to return
individuals to a normal state
traditional aboriginal justice centres on healing and building community rather
retribution
twin myths of rape the notion that women lie about sexual assault out of malice
toward men and women will say “no” to sexual relations when they really mean “y
victimless crime activities against the law that do not result in injury to any
individual other than the person who engages in them
violent crimes (also known as “crimes against a person”) based on the use of for
the threat of force
white-collar crime crimes committed by high status or privileged members of so
SECTION SUMMARY
7.1. Deviance and Control
Deviance is a violation of norms. Whether or not something is deviant depends on
contextual denitions, the situation, and people’s response to the behaviour. Societ
seeks to limit deviance through the use of sanctions that help maintain a system o
social control. In modern normalizing societies, disciplinary social control is a
primary governmental strategy of social control.
7.2. Theoretical Perspectives on Deviance
The three major sociological paradigms o er dierent 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 consequence
violating them. Violating norms can open society’s eyes to injustice in the system.
Critical sociologists argue that crime stems from a system of inequality that keeps
those with power at the top and those without power at the bottom. Feminist
sociologists emphasize that gender inequalities play an important role in determin
what types of acts are actually regarded as criminal. Symbolic interactionists focus
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attention on the socially constructed nature of the labels related to deviance. Crim
and deviance are learned from the environment and enforced or discouraged by th
around us.
7.3. Crime and the Law
Crime is established by legal codes and upheld by the criminal justice system. The
corrections system is the dominant system of criminal punishment but a number o
community-based sentencing models o er alternatives that promise more eective
outcomes in terms of recidivism. Although crime rates increased throughout most
the 20th century, they have been dropping since their peak in 1991.
Section Quiz
7.1. Deviance and Control
1. Which of the following best describes how deviance is dened?
1. Deviance is dened by federal, provincial, and local laws.
2. Deviance’s denition is determined by one’s religion.
3. Deviance occurs whenever someone else is harmed by an action.
4. Deviance is socially dened.
2. In 1946, Viola Desmond was arrested for refusing to sit in the blacks-only sectio
the cinema in Nova Scotia. This is an example of______________.
1. A consensus crime
2. A con ict crime
3. A social deviation
4. A social diversion
3. A student has a habit of texting during class. One day, the professor stops his
lecture and asks her to respect the other students in the class by turning o her
phone. In this situation, the professor used __________ to maintain social control.
1. Informal positive sanctions
2. Formal negative sanction
3. Informal negative sanctions
4. Formal positive sanctions
4. Societies practise social control to maintain ________.
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1. Formal sanctions
2. Social order
3. Cultural deviance
4. Sanction labelling
5. School discipline obliges students to sit in rows and listen to lessons quietly in
order for them to learn. This strategy of education demonstrates_______.
1. Compensatory social control
2. Formal sanctions
3. Docility
4. Positive sanctions
7.2. Theoretical Perspectives on Deviance
6. A student wakes up late and realizes her sociology exam starts in ve minutes. S
jumps into her car and speeds down the road, where she is pulled over by a police
o cer. The student explains that she is running late, and the ocer lets her o with a
warning. The student’s actions are an example of _________.
1. Primary deviance
2. Positive deviance
3. Secondary deviance
4. Master deviance
7. According to critical sociology, which of the following people is most likely to
commit a crime of accommodation?
1. A student struggling to get better grades
2. An addict who sees a stack of CDs in an unlocked car
3. A professor who is tempted to publish someone else’s work as his own
4. A mechanic who dislikes a customer
8. According to social disorganization theory, where is crime most likely to occur?
1. A community where neighbours don’t know each other very well
2. A neighbourhood with mostly elderly citizens
3. A city with a large minority population
4. A college campus with students who are very competitive
9. Symbolic interactionists argue that crime is linked primarily to ________.
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1. Power
2. Master status
3. Family values
4. Wealth
10. According to the concept of the power elite, why would a celebrity such as Cha
Sheen commit a crime?
1. Because his parents committed similar crimes
2. Because his fame protects him from retribution
3. Because his fame disconnects him from society
4. Because he is challenging socially accepted norms
11. A convicted sexual o ender is released on parole and arrested two weeks later
repeated sexual crimes. How would labelling theory explain this?
1. The o ender has been labelled deviant by society and has accepted this mast
status.
2. The o ender has returned to his old neighbourhood and so re-established his
former habits.
3. The o ender has lost the social bonds he made in prison and feels disconnect
from society.
4. The o ender is poor and coping with conditions of oppression and inequality.
12. ______ deviance is a violation of norms that ______result in a person being
labelled a deviant.
1. Secondary; does not
2. Negative; does
3. Primary; does not
4. Primary; may or may not
7.3. Crime and the Law
13. Which of the following is an example of corporate crime?
1. Embezzlement
2. Larceny
3. Assault
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14. Spousal abuse is an example of a ________.
1. Street crime
2. Corporate crime
3. Violent crime
4. Nonviolent crime
15. Which of the following situations best describes crime trends in Canada?
1. Rates of violent and nonviolent crimes are decreasing.
2. Rates of violent crimes are decreasing, but there are more nonviolent crimes
than ever before.
3. Crime rates have skyrocketed since the 1970s due to lax court rulings.
4. Rates of street crime have gone up, but corporate crime has gone down.
16. What is a disadvantage of crime victimization surveys?
1. They do not include demographic data, such as age or gender.
2. They may be unable to reach important groups, such as those without phone
3. They do not address the relationship between the criminal and the victim.
4. They only include information collected by police ocers.
Short Answer
7.1. Deviance and Control
1. If given the choice, would you purchase an unusual car such as a hearse for
everyday use? How would your friends, family, or signicant other react? Since
deviance is culturally dened, most of the decisions we make are dependent on
the reactions of others. Is there anything the people in your life encourage yo
do that you don’t do? Why do you resist their encouragement?
2. Think of a recent time when you used informal negative sanctions. To what a
of deviance were you responding? How did your actions aect the deviant person
or persons? How did your reaction help maintain social control?
7.2. Theoretical Perspectives on Deviance
1. Pick a famous politician, business leader, or celebrity who has been arrested
recently. What crime did he or she allegedly commit? Who was the victim?
Explain his or her actions from the point of view of one of the major sociologic
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paradigms. What factors best explain how this person might be punished if
convicted of the crime?
2. If we assume that the power elite’s status is always passed down from genera
to generation, how would Edwin Sutherland explain these patterns of power
through di erential association theory? What crimes do these elite few get awa
with?
7.3. Crime and the Law
1. Recall the crime statistics presented in this section. Do they surprise you? Are
these statistics represented accurately in the media? Why is the public
perception that crime rates are increasing and that punishment should be
stricter when actual crime rates have been steadily decreasing?
FURTHER RESEARCH
7.1. Deviance and Control
Although we rarely think of it in this way, deviance can have a positive eect on
society. Check out the Positive Deviance Initiative, a program initiated by Tu s
University to promote social movements around the world that strive to improve
people’s lives, at http://openstaxcollege.org/l/Positive_Deviance.
7.2. Theoretical Perspectives on Deviance
The Vancouver safe injection site is a controversial strategy to address the public
health concerns associated with intravenous drug use. Read about the perspective
that promote and critique the safe injection site model at the following websites. C
you determine how the positions expressed by the dierent sides of the issue t
within the di erent sociological perspectives on deviance? What is the best way to
deal with the problems of addiction?
The Four Pillars Drug Strategy: http://vancouver.ca/people-programs/four-pilla
drug-strategy.aspx
Health O cers Council of British Columbia, “A Public Health Approach to
Drug Control in Canada:” http://www.cfdp.ca/bchoc.pdf
Drug Prevention Network of Canada: http://dpnoc.ca/
Centre for Addictions Research (CAR BC): http://www.carbc.ca/
7.3. Crime and the Law
How is crime data collected in Canada? Read about the victimization survey used
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Statistics Canada and take the survey yourself. Visit
http://www23.statcan.gc.ca/imdb/p2SV.pl?Function=getSurvey&SDDS=4504
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Perreault, Samuel and Shannon Brennan. 2010. Criminal victimization in Canada,
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Wortley, Scot. 2003. “Hidden Intersections: Research on Race, Crime, and Crimina
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SOLUTIONS TO SECTION QUIZ
1. D | 2. B | 3. A | 4. B | 5. C | 6. A | 7. B | 8. A | 9. D | 10. B | 11. A | 1
13. A | 14. C | 15. A | 16. B
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