Chapter 8: Deviance and Social Control

     Deviance is behavior that violates social norms. It is normal to think that deviance is a pretty bad thing and that no one should do deviant acts and we see deviant people differently than we see other people who have committed the same acts, but we all commit deviant acts. We know it is bad to do things that are against social norms, yet we still do these things. Many sociologists have come to the question of why, knowing that what we are doing or about to do is bad, why do we do it anyways, how do we even learn this behavior of going against social norms? There are many theories that explain what might cause people to have a deviant behavior, sociologist’s theories depend on their perspective, so there are three different theories that will try to find an answer to this question.

     Functionalist sociologists, who view sociologists from the Functionalists perspective, believe in the strain theory. The strain theory, mainly developed by Robert K. Merton, views deviance as the natural outgrowth of the values, norms, and structure of society. What does this mean? Some societies view economic status as extremely important, so individuals in this society must meet the society’s expectations but simply can’t get there, this person will then be pressured by himself to do whatever possible to reach the economic status expected, and the norms will become unclear and inapplicable now because he must break them to accomplish his goal. When these norms become unclear or inapplicable, it is called a anomie.

    Conflict perspective sociologists believe that competition and social inequality are what lead to deviance. According to this theory deviance surges from the struggle between the people who have power in a society and those who don’t. those who have power will commit deviant acts in order to maintain their power and position while those who don’t have any power will commit deviant acts either because they want to get to the power or because their self-esteem is low and they feel powerless. People with power make more emphasis on crimes or deviant acts that people with less power are more likely to commit so then the rest of societies view the un-powerful as more deviant simply because their deviant acts are more recognizable than those of the more powerful.

  The interactions perspective is the third perspective. See deviance as a natural occurrence, and they created the control theory. According to the control theory, people that are very conformed with their society and have strong bonds with their societies are less likely to commit any deviant act than people who are less conformed and have weaker bonds with their societies. Interactionalists sociologists also believe that people learn deviance, they made the cultural transmission theory that states that deviance is a learned behavior we learn with the interaction of others. The main part of the cultural transmission theory is a term called differential association, if you hang out mainly with deviant people, then you are more likely to commit deviant acts than if you hanged out with non-deviant people. In the interaction perspective, there also exists a term called techniques of neutralization, this is what people do in order to leave aside all their moral and ethic beliefs and are able to commit deviant acts. Labeling theory says that deviant people are commonly label as such, people who commonly commit deviant acts will be labeled as deviant. 

   Population of people in prison in the United States has grown nearly 300 thousand more people in only 5 years. Three out of every hundred Americans are in jail. If I had to choose a perspective which I find more accurate, even though I usually go for the conflict perspective, would be the interactionist perspective, not the control theory but the cultural transmission theory. If we see our parents spanking the dog all the time, or shouting out unacceptable words constantly, you are going to think that this is a totally acceptable and normal behavior. I also find the differential association very accurate since I have personally experienced it before. If you are always around deviant people, you will adapt to the way they live, how they act, and incorporate their ways of thinking to yourself. But it is very important to me to understand that you always have the opportunity to choose whether you really want to do something before you do something, you always get your chance to think on what you are doing, even if you don’t use that chance to think about what you are doing, that opportunity will always be the same no matter whom you are with, the difference is that in an environment with deviant people, opportunities to commit deviant acts are more common, constant, and normal.

People who commit deviance acts, which are considered crimes, they are end to the prison.