Deviance and Social Control Final (pitt fall 2024)

He has 9 propositions:
1. Criminal behavior is learned
2.Criminal behavior - learning in communicational interaction with others
3. Learning occurs within intimate personal groups
4. Learning includes; a) techniques of committing crime and b) direction of motives, drives, rationalizations, attitudes
5. Direction of motives and drives - learned from definitions of legal code as favorable or unfavorable
6. Person becomes delinquent because excess of definitions favorable to violation of law over definitions unfavorable to violation
7. Differential associations differ in frequency, duration, priority, and intensity
8. Learning criminal behavior just like any other learning
9. Criminal behavior may be expression of general needs and values but not explained by these needs and values

A person becomes delinquent because of an excess of definitions favorable to violation of law over definitions unfavorable to violation of law

They revised the theory to argue that an individual is more likely to commit a violating when he/she differentially associates with others who commit, model, and support law violation

Social learning: introduces psychological concept of operant conditioning to differential association. Learning is enhanced by social and non-social reinforcement, which strengthens or encourages a behavior
1. Differential association
2. Definitions - attitudes, beliefs, rationalizations that define behavior as good or bad, right or wrong, appropriate or inappropriate
3. Differential reinforcement - the balance of anticipated and actual rewards and punishments that follow or are the consequences of behavior
4. Imitation - observing modeled behavior

They argue that we can silence our internalized norms and external norms by using these techniques of neutralization

1. Denial of responsibility (ex; "Its not my fault")
2. Denial of injury (ex; "nobody's getting hurt")
3. Denial of victim (ex; "the victim deserved it or brought it upon themselves")
4. Condemnation of the condemners (ex; "calling something a witchhunt")
5. Appeal to higher loyalties

-We can link patriarchy or class oppression to social learning
-The theory offers fertile ground for thinking about the social structural variables that may affect the social learning of deviant behavior and there are now several empirical tests of Aker's expanded version of his original theory

-Differential social organization
-Differential location in social structure
-Theoretically defined structural variables
-Differential social location in groups

Deviant behavior may be attributed to prevailing attitudes and beliefs of the group to which an individual belongs

Social interactions with deviant as opposed to conventional others

An act or thing that strengthens or encourages a behavior

The balance of rewards and punishments (anticipated and/or actual) that follow from deviant behaviors

Organization of society, often hierarchical, that affects how and why people interact and the outcomes of these interactions

The crime of a group or society is determined by the extent to which that group or society is organized against crime versus organized in favor of crime

Social and demographic characteristics of individuals that define or influence their position or role in the larger social structure

Measures based on social theories of deviance such as anomie or strain, social disorganization or patriarchy, among others

One's position or role in the social groups he or she is part of

Produced by socialization and ties to people and institutions - family, friends, community, schools, jobs, etc.

When individual's bonds to society are weak or broken

Established Classical School of criminology, believed "man was a calculating animal" (rational and can choose), so to make the right choices individuals need controls

1. Internal social control (rules and norms internalized in form of conscience)
2. Parent (convey rules and norms to children- alsom indirect control in form of disapproval
3. Restrictions or punishments imposed by informal groups or society
4. Alternative means of need satisfaction (incentive is stronger to pursue these means over deviant means

Believes we have social bonds that keep us from engaging in unacceptable activities

1. Attachment - emotional component of bond, we care about what conforming others think about us
2. Commitment - rational component of bond, strong commitment to conventional society = less likely to engage in deviance
3. Involvement - more time spent engaging in conforming activities = less time available for deviance
4. Belief - stronger awareness, understanding, agreement with rules and norms of society

People engage in what is pleasurable to them

Rules and norms exercised through our conscience

Bonds to conformity that keep individuals from engaging in socially unacceptable activities

Formal controls that society places on an individual to keep him or her from engaging in crime or deviance

The inability of an individual to refrain from impulsive behavior design to increase immediate gratification

-Social meaning of deviant labels
-How those labels are understood
-How they affect individuals to whom that are applied
-How others view us, or how we believe others view us

Negative reaction of others to a particular behavior is what causes that behavior to be labeled as deviant

Can shape expectations that are set for other people which can create stereotypes

Defining deviance is a relational process

Because it focuses primarily on the small-scale interactional processes through which individuals are labeled and punished as deviants

-Primary deviance; individuals violate norms without viewing themselves as being involved in deviant social roles, may trigger a labeling process
-Secondary deviance; individual comes to more or less accept the label, altering his self-conception

Conducted to determine the validity of psychiatric diagnosis

-This study speaks to the impact of labels and how difficult it can be for those with less power to resist them
-Suggests that being "mentally ill" becomes a social role / demonstration of power of labeling

The factors included the communities view on the individuals and what they considered them to be (bad or good), and the attention the individuals received

-Offender can be viewed as a good person who has done a bad deed
-An accused individual is expected to admit his or her offense, essentially accepting responsibility for the act and labeling the act as deviant

Process of pushing students out of classroom and into juvenile and/or criminial justice system

Labeling could play a role in criminalization

Exclusionary discipline significantly increases a student's likelihood of becoming involved in the juvenile justice system rather than mitigating delinquent behavior

Black students and low performing students

May contribute to stubborn racial disparities in education

A micro-level, relativist sociological perspective that is focused on individuals and the meanings they attach to objects, people, and interactions around them

Concept from Charles Horton Cooler, who suggests that individuals define themselves at least in part based on social interactions and the perceptions of others

Common instances where individuals violate norms without viewing themselves as being involved in a deviant social role

When an individual engages in deviant behavior as a means of defense, attack, or adjustment to the problems created by reactions to him or her

Once an individual is labeled, that individual's self-conception may be altered, causing him or her to deviate and live up to the negative label

Deviance for which there exists no clear category - acts that are not crimes yet draw attention and make the societal audience uncomfortable

A status that proves to be more important than most others

The policies and practices that are directly and indirectly pushing students of color out of school and on a pathway to prison

Form of bias that occurs automatically and unintentionally, that nevertheless affects judgments, decisions, and behaviors

Capitalism is a mode of production, a "way of producing"

Capitalism necessities division of society into two unequal groups (or classes)
-Capitalists: own and thus control the means of production (resources)
-Workers: who don't, works "own" one thing, their labor

Laws, values, norms support interests in dominant groups

Problem is not amount of absolute poverty of wealth in society but amount of inequality

-"Problem populations": Social control through categories of deviance
-"Social junk": Individuals who have refused, are unable, or failed to participate in cap system
-"Social dynamite": Not fully integrated into cap system, potential challenge to legitimacy of system

Law has two functions:
-Instrumental function; Proscription of certain behaviors
-Symbolic function;
Invites consideration of what is defined as moral in society
Laws that support beliefs/values of particular group over other groups lend normative power to former's beliefs/values

-Historical changes posed threat to status of -Protestant middle-class
Sought to preserve privileged status as moral standard-bearers
-Not just about morality but protecting status of dominant groups from perceived threat of new immigrants (esp. Irish at that time)

Moral panic:
-Exaggerated, widespread concern that particular group is responsible for harm or threat to society
-Ex. critical race theory, book bans, "parents' rights"

Mode of production and relations of production

Institutions (state, legal, educational, cultural, religious, family) and ideas which serve to protect the interests of the ruling class and reproduction of the base

Exaggerated, widespread concern that particular group is responsible for harm or a threat to society

It is a humorous imitation inflicted on peers

-The word is used to base someones level of masculinity
-Its used as an insult

-The "f**" is a position or specter constituting adolescent masculinity
-The f word is what masculinity is not

-Butler's theory challenges assumptions about the priority of normative gender identities
-Usually we think the norm exists prior to what deviates from it
-Butlers argues that the norm is produced (is secondary) in the process of defining what contradicts it
-Thus the interactional accomplishment of a "normal" gender identity requires continual iteration and repudiation of abject identity

Homophobic insults only applied to boys, not girls - "I don't like gay people... Lesbians, okay that's good"

Humor is most likely trying to achieve

-Lesbians were a type of pornography for men so that made it okay/interesting for them
-"f**" is a weakening word meaning they're not masculine, men don't think women are masculine to being with

-Most boys claim they would never direct the slur to homosexual boys
-"f**" does not mean gay, it means the opposite of masculine
-A gay man could be masculine, but by definition a "f**" cannot

Pascoe viewed it more as a judgment that serves to call the target to account for something

Deflecting stigma onto others to protect oneself

Not necessarily, "slut shaming" has little or nothing to do with actual sexual activies of women labeled. "Slut" functions as a threat exchanged to remind all women of what not to be

High-status women employ shut discourse to define their styles of femininity and approaches to sexuality
-Low-status women invoke slut discourse as expression of class resentment directed at "rich, bitchy sluts"
-High-status definitions of femininity (and sexuality) prevail; they assume normative precedence and enables sexual experimentation

-Deflecting stigma onto others to protect oneself
-Assumes stable relations between oppressors and subordinates (targets of stigma)
-Assumes stable classifications based on clear qualifying criteria

-Belief that white people constitute a superior race which justifies a social order in which they dominate non-whites
-The social, economic, and political systems that collectively enable white people to maintain power over people of other races
-Slavery existed as part of a well-established social, economic, and political order

-The 13th amendment banned slavery (except in case of criminals)
-Black codes, laws passed by S legislatures, marks the beginning of criminalization of blackness

-"Law & order" was first used by southern officials to discredit the civil rights movement
-Was used to intimidate black Americans, limit voting rights, and hobble the influence of minority religions
-Social control: protect law-abiding (white) citizens from racialized threat

Exclusion of black people from all spheres of white society (segregation, disenfranchisement, terror)

The civil rights movement

-Great society programs- one solution to inequality, poverty, racial segregation, etc.
-Conservatives rejected structural explanations of poverty and crime- claimed society's ills due to irresponsible and immoral individuals

-Crime was prominent theme in the racially-coded language of conservative rhetoric
-Strategy → stoke the racial animus and fears of white voters

Deterrence, incapacitation, rehabilitation, retribution, and restitution

-Social controls do not end once released from prison
-Informal and formal social controls have increased along with increase in incarceration
-Former inmates face lots of challenges when trying to rebuild their lives

They are subject to a broad range of rules and controls once they are on parole:
-Mandatory meetings w/ officers
-Regular surveillance and monitoring by police
-Restrictions on travel and behavior
-Drug testing
-Mandatory employment
-Payment of court fines and fees

Damages, losses, or hardships to individuals, families, and communities due to incarceration of some members

The loss of the right to vote in local and national elections after conviction for a felony offense; laws vary by state