What are the three perspectives on deviant behavior?
Positivist/absolutist
Contructionist/Relativist
Social Power
Describe Positivst/Absolutist
have three main assumptions, these are absolutism, objectivism, and determinism. According to this view it states that deviance itself is real and universally shared, they believe you can observe deviant behavior in an objective way, and that individuals
Describe Constructionist/Relativist
Also has 3 assumptions; Relativism, subjectivism, and voluntarism. This view is the complete opposite as the positivist they believe it does not in of itself have intrinsic characteristics, you cannot study deviance objectively, and that deviant behavior
Describe Social Power
those in power in a society are those that are able to create the definitions of deviance, society is characterized by diversity, conflict, coercion and change rather than consensus and stability.
Deviant behavior ranges on a continuum from ______________to______________?
Total Deviance to Total Conformity
How does deviance differ from crime?
Crime involves: Violating the Law, a violation of a formal law
Deviance usually involves: the violation of an informal norm, and there are more deviant acts than crimes, not all crimes are deviant, because notions of deviance can change as long as society
Explain Heckert and Heckert's deviance typology. Give an example for each type.
Positive Deviance: refers to behavior that surpasses or over conforms to normative expectations that are positively evaluated by a social group ex: genius
Negative Deviance: involves behaviors or conditions that are nonconforming to normative expectations
What does Moynihan mean by "defining deviance down"?
That sometimes society will chose not to notice behavior that would be otherwise be considered deviant in the past , because of negative impacts that have occurred in society we are redefining deviant behaviors that before we would look down on and raisin
What are the three categories of redefining he introduces? Provide an illustration for each type.
The three categories of redefining that he introduces are:
Alturistic
Opportunistic
Normalizing
What is Alturistic redefining and give an example
the example for this one is the deindustrialization of the mental hospitals, where many that were mentally ill were left to mend for themselves, instead of helping these mental patients they made it worse, shifting on the ideas of mental illness and devia
What is Opportunistic redefining and give an example
an example of this is the redefining of family structure, in which we began to accept alternate family structures to the nuclear one we used to accept as normal, there was a rise of single mothers, therefore the governmental reactions was to look the othe
What is Normalizing redefining and give an example
we normalized what before would make us worry, for example we are not as alarmed as we used to be about the amount of crime that occurs or when we hear about. Desentisizing this fact that a lot of crime is occuring, we are not recognizing that crime was a
Explain the main tenets of Merton's social strain (anomie) theory.
There is a disjuncture for people between cultural goals and institutional norms. And for some people they encounture problems in reaching the goals through legitimate means, and creates a blocked opportunity structure, and this causes strain
What are Merton's 5 ways that individuals adapt to their balance of means/ends? Provide an example for each type.
Conformity: accepts goals and institutional means ex:
Innovation: accepts goals and rejects institutional means ex: drug dealer
Ritualism: Rejects goals and accepts institutional means ex: teacher who no longer cares about students and teaches bad
Retreat
Messner and Rosenfeld (2002) created the Institutional Anomie Theory. Explain this theory.
This Theory centers around the American Dream. Society encourages everyone to pursue the American dream but places little value on the legitimate means to achieve it, They argue that the cultural emphasis on monetary success stresses that the economy perv
What is Agnew's contribution to strain theory?
Agnew argues that failure to achieve material goals is not the only reason for committing crime, criminal behavior may also be related to the anger and frustration that result when an individual is treated in an undesirable fashion in a social relationshi
Deviance provides several positive functions for society. What are they?
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What does the constructionist stance claim about deviance?
That deviance should be regarded as lodged in a process of definition rather than in some feature of an object person or act. Therefore it is a process by which society constructs definitions of deviance, and through which society applied definitions to s
Use the constructionist stance to explain how drugs became viewed as a deviant "social problem." Use historical examples whenever possible to discuss how laws were influenced by this phenomenon and how particular populations were targeted and scapegoated
Drugs: in America, there have been many drug scares, moral panics where used to identify certain drugs as the cause of public patterns. For example the opium scare in san fransisco in the late 1800s, it was associated with chinese people. Opium was being
Use the constructionist stance to explain how alcohol became viewed as a deviant "social problem." Use historical examples whenever possible to discuss how laws were influenced by this phenomenon and how particular populations were targeted and scapegoate
Alcohol: in the 19 and early 20th century Christian women targeted Italian and irish men/ immigrants, saying tat these drinkers were messing up society and they convinced enough people to get the prohibition act
Use the constructionist stance to explain how prostitution became viewed as a deviant "social problem." Use historical examples whenever possible to discuss how laws were influenced by this phenomenon and how particular populations were targeted and scape
Prostitution: selling sex was not always illegal in the US, laws against prostitution are fairly new about 100 years old, and emerged long after the sex trade took root in American cities, strong push against t during antivice and termperance movement in
Labeling theory built on what other sociological theory?
Symbolic Interaction, in which we as social actors in a society we give meanings to things and that's why we act in certain ways to certain interactions with those things or persons , the meaning that people attact to an act is more important than the act
______________________ must be present in order for labeling to occur.
Social interactions
Labeling theory claims deviance and labeling occurs in two steps. Describe each step and indicate whether it affects one's self-concept.
Primary Deviance: when you commit a deviance act and it gets a social response. But minimal to no involvement with the criminal justice system, but is not given a label because it was the first time and not likely to occur again, does not affect the perso
What are 3 ways outsiders ("deviants") can challenge labels? Provide an example for each one.
Some use communities to retain unique cultural customs, life styles, in group membership and solidarity, they collectively call for recognition, respect, rights and privileges. Ex: Gay and Lesbian exclusive communities
Outsider groups use political effort
Are all "outsider" communities' uniform? Explain your answer.
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What are moral entrepreneurs? List and describe the two types of moral entrepreneurs?
Moral Entrepreneurs are people whose high social position gives then the power to make and enforce the social rules by which members of society have to live.
The two types are:
Rule creators- crusading reformers, try to change the rules often based on mor
According to Becker, smoking pot (a form of deviant behavior) is a ______________?
Learned behavior
Any one can acquire deviant behavior it is learned, and that our defintions of deviance can change throughout time.
What are Becker's 4 types of deviance?
Conforming Behavior: exhibiting no deviant behaviors law abiding and not labeled
Falsely Accused: following the rules but accused of deviant behavior labeled
Secret Deviant: committing deviant acts but able to hide his or her actions not labeled
Pure Devi
Social control theory views deviance how?
The absence of social control causes deviance, and when the social control is ineffective. Focuses on why we conform, over deviance. We can measure this based on how integrated someone is in society.
What are the two types of social control?
Formal and Informal
Provide some examples of how informal social control is enacted.
Examples of how informal social control is enacted is through:
Rumors
Gossip
Shaming
Banishing
What is the most severe form of informal social control? Why?
Banishing is the most severe form of informal social control because it cuts off social and emotional ties, and is psychologically damaging and emotionally damaging, we are humans and because of social ties, therefore severing them makes us inhuman and ca
Formal social control is practiced via _____________________?
Legal Systems, Laws, and Law enforcement
Some scholars argue social control and crime can be understood based on________________.
The attachments/ bonds we make with others and in society.
Describe Hirschi's bond theory, and the four ways it happens.
Hirschi's bond Theory explains that we are all born with the ability to commit deviant acts, but most of us do not take advantage of this ability because of strong bonds in society we have
The four ways that people bond themselves into society are:
Attach
What are some weaknesses of control theory?
Does not account for how social control becomes ineffective over the time and space.
Conflict theory is also known as __________________perspective, where definitions of deviance are a reflection on those with the greatest social power.
social power
Summarize consensus theories' perspective on crime, laws, and deviance.
This model assumes that members of society largely agree on what is right or wrong.
Society is a stable entityin which laws are created for the general good. Deviant acts are pat of the normal functioning of society and are necessary: it allows for the re
Summarize conflict theories' perspective on crime, laws, and deviance.
A struggle for power is a basic feature of human existence, through such power struggles various interest groups manage to control law making and law enforcement, therefore the definitions of deviance are a reflection of those with the greatest social pow
According to conflict theorists, laws are first and foremost based on _____________.
The interests of those that hold the social power
Sum up the main contributions of each of the following early conflict theorist Vold
Vold: Individuals constantly clash as they try to advance the interests of their particular group over those of all others, the entire process of lawmaking and crime control is a direct reflection of conflict between interest groups. All groups try to get
Sum up the main contributions of each of the following early conflict theorist Dahrendorf
Darendorf: social change is constant, social conflicts are ever present, dis integration and change are ongoing, all societies are characterized by coercion of some people by others, conflict can either be destructive it constructive depending on the outc
Sum up the main contributions of each of the following early conflict theorist Turk
Turk: criminality is a social status which is imposed on the subjects who then become the subordinate class. Conflict arises when people refuse to go along and challenge authorities.
What does Dahrendorf mean when he states conflict can be either destructive or constructive?
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According to Quinney's social reality of crime, what 4 factors produce high crime rates and consolidate legal order with dominant class?
The four factors that produce high crime rates and consolidate legal order with dominant class are:
-The dominant class defines as criminal those behaviors that threaten its interests
-Dominant class applies those laws to ensure the protection of its inte
Marxist Radical theory, a particular type of conflict theory, emphasizes what as the most important factor in determining crime?
Marxists argue that the ruling classes use the law to impose its will on others in order to protect its property and squash any behavior that threatens the status quo, his is based on classes, the Bourgeoisie who hold the power, and the Proletariate the p
How does the marxist theory explain why crime occurs?
Marxist theorist use this to say that the lower class due to this blockage from the upperclass rebel by committing crime to fulfill certain needs.
Radical Feminist theory explains why women commit crimes. What explanations do they provide?
That there are two opposing groups, males and females. The group with the most power are the males, because they hold more influence over many different things, and females have less power than men. Therefore the source of crime, is that when women resist
Radical feminist theory created changes within criminology research. What are some of these contributions?
The changes they have provided are:
-Reframing understanding rape
-Challenging assumptions that violence is only committed by males
-Brining into the spotlight the relationships between male power, female economic dependency and battery