4/4/2020 Chapter 7. Deviance, Crime, and Social Control – Introduction to Sociology – 1st Canadian Edition
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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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