Deviance Crime And Social Control Assesment

4/4/2020 Chapter 7. Deviance, Crime, and Social Control – Introduction to Sociology – 1st Canadian Edition
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INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY – 1ST CANADIAN EDITION
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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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