Chapter 7 Conformity, Deviance and Crime

Lecture Outline
The study of deviant behavior Biological and psychological theories of crime and deviance Society and crime: sociological theories Gender, race, class and crime

Study of Deviant Behavior

Deviance - nonconformity to a given set of norms that are accepted by a significant number of people in a community or society. Most people deviate or conform depending on the situation. Deviance can occur in the behavior of groups as well as individuals.

Study of Deviant Behavior

Laws are norms that are defined by governments, and sanctions are used to enforce these laws. Crime - any behavior that breaks a law.

Norms and Sanctions

Sanction- formal/informal, positive or negative, seeks to control behavior Shaming- maintain community ties of offender (historic way of controlling behavior)

Biological Theories of Crime & Deviance

1. 2.

Biology Skull type, body shape etc. are indicators of deviance. However, biology has been unable to clearly demonstrate that heredity outweighs environment in its influence.

Biological & Psychological Theories of Crime & Deviance

Psychology Personality leads to crime, such as a psychopath, who is withdrawn, emotionless & delights in violence.

Society & Crime: Sociological Theories

Differential association theory (Sutherland, 1949) Criminal activities are learned via association with others. (not media) Learn lawbreaking attitude Anomie - the lack of norms or clear standards of behavior

Society & Crime: Sociological Theories

Labeling theory - Howard S. Becker Once a person is labeled a criminal after a primary deviation, he or she will accept the label, which will result in a secondary deviation. Interactionist theories - focus on deviance as a socially constructed phenomenon. New criminology theory - analysis of crime and deviance that is framed in terms of structure of society and the preservation of power among the ruling class.
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Society & Crime: Sociological Theories

The theory of broken windows argues that any small sign of social disorder will encourage more serious crime.

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Society & Crime: Sociological Theories

New Left realism argues that criminology needed to engage more with the actual issues of crime control and social policy, rather than to debate them abstractly. The theory also maintains that crime is a serious problem, particularly in impoverished inner cities. Control theory posits that crime occurs as a result of an imbalance between impulses toward criminal activity and the social or physical controls that deter it.

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Society & Crime: Sociological Theories

William Chamblisss (1973) "The Saints" and "The Roughnecks" study shows the importance of linking the macro and micro factors together. The Saints were from upper-middle-class families, whereas the Roughnecks were from a lower socioeconomic background. Chambliss found that neither group was more delinquent than the other. But the Roughnecks always had problems with the police.
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Crime & Crime Statistics

1. 2.

Many crimes are never reported to the police. Some criminologists think that about of all serious crimes, such as robbery with violence, are not reported.

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Crime & Crime Statistics: Crime Against Women

43% of sexual assaults are committed by relatives, friends, former partners, or recent acquaintances. Q: Why are women unwilling to report rape? A: The process of medical examination, police interrogation, and long courtroom cross-examination may make women feel they are the ones on trial, particularly if their own sexual histories are examined publicly. Susan Brownmiller argues that rape is part of a system of male intimidation that keeps all women in fear.

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Crime & Crime Statistics: Crime Against Homosexuals

Because homosexuals remain stigmatized and marginalized in many societies, they tend to be treated as deserving of crime, rather than as innocent victims.

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Crime & Crime Statistics: Crime & Youth

1. 2. 3.

Official statistics reveal high rates of offence among young people. War on drugs policy tends to criminalize large segments of the law-abiding youth population. Youth criminality often associates with activities that may not be crimes. (Skateboarding)

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The victimless crime? White collar crime

1.

2.

White-collar crimes are often carried out by the affluent. E.g., tax fraud, embezzlement, and illegal sales practices White-collar crimes that are often under- or unpunished.

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White Collar Crime

Those who are disadvantaged by other types of socioeconomic inequalities tend to suffer disproportionately from corporate crime. The consequences of corporate crime can be more serious than those of violent crimes. For example, deaths from hazards at work far outnumber murders.

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Organized Crime- the mob

Organized crime - forms of activity that have some of the characteristics of orthodox business but that are illegal. Manuel Castells (1998) argues that the international narcotics trade, weapons trafficking, sale of nuclear material, and money laundering have all become linked across borders and crime groups.

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Crime as Structured Action

Messerschmidt

Men commit or dominate crime Little research on how gender impacts crime To understand crime, we must comprehend how gender, race and class relations are a part of all social existence- rather than viewing each relation as extrinsic to the others (3)

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Crime as Structured Action

Messerschmidt

Race, class and gender are structured action

What

people do under specific social structural constraints

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Power

Power is not absolute and, at times, may actually shift in relation to different axes of power and powerlessness. That is, in one situation a man may exercise power (i.e., as a patriarchal husband) whereas in another he may experience powerlessness (i.e., as a factory worker). Accordingly, masculinity and femininity can be understood only as a fluid, relational, and situational constructs. (9)

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Hegemonic masculinity

Western Industrialized societies

Race

(specifically whiteness) Work in the paid labor market (gendered division of labor) Subordination of girls and women (gender relations of power) Professional-managerial (class) Heterosexism (sexuality)

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Emphasized Femininity

Race Class Sexual orientation Sociability (not technical) Fragility Compliance with mens desire

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Heteronormativity

Heterosexuality becomes a fundamental indication of maleness and femaleness

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Hegemony

"It can be argued that Gramsci's theory suggests that subordinated groups accept the ideas, values and leadership of the dominant group not because they are physically or mentally induced to do so, nor because they are ideologically indoctrinated, but because they have reason of their own." (Strinati, 1995: 166)
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Hegemony

Gramsci used the term hegemony to denote the predominance of one social class over others. This represents not only political and economic control, but also the ability of the dominant class to project its own way of seeing the world so that those who are subordinated by it accept it as 'common sense' and 'natural'

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Case Study Lynching during the Reconstruction period

Lynching
Unlawful

assault, killing or both of an accused person by mob action)

Systematic event from 1865-1900 Response to perceived erosion of white male supremacy Lynching enforced white supremacy and gendered hierarchies

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Legacy of Slavery
Slavery bound all blacks to the patriarchal white father Slaves had no legal rights or recognition White master as the representative of hegemonic masculinity

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Hierarchy
Savage races had not evolved the proper gender differentiation Slaves as genderless (women participate in hard/heavy labor, men help with house and children)

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Slavery and Gender roles

Black men less than men and black females less than females woman=housewife Man=provider Slaves were not allowed to perform these functions could not conform to hegemonic gender identities

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Hierarchy

The Master
Highest

level of manhood most manly creature ever evolved

Firm of character Self control Head of household Protects his women and children from the outside world Political power

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Hierarchy

The Mistress
Highest

level of womanhood

Delicate Spiritual Exempt from heavy labor Place is in the home

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Upholding gender roles

Slavery heightened planter insistence on protecting white women and their family line, from the specter of interracial union Regulate womens sexuality Men allowed to have relations with slaves and poor women
Sexual outlet Means of maintaining racial domination

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Sexuality
White men=access to black and poor women White woman=Pure/chaste African-American Men= sexual predator African-American Women= sexually available

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Sexuality

Preservation of white masculine supremacy was refigured as protection of white females for white males (34)

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Rape
Can only rape a white woman of good character Few lynching were based on rape Control womens sexuality

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lynching
As a punishment from deviating from subordinate masculinity African-American mens sexuality as a threat to white women Maintain the hierarchy Doing difference

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lynching

Physical enactment of white masculine hegemony

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The Farm Life Inside Angola Prison

Impact of Class, Race and Gender on Crime and criminality Racial and gender hierarchies Incidents of hegemonic masculinity How and in what ways is this film related to the material on Crime and Deviance

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