Ajdin Osmanovic
Deviance, Crime and The Three Micro Level Theories
Deviance is a word that immediately conjures the negative. It even sounds like devious. Social deviance takes many different forms and is sometimes the best change agent for society. Deviance is any violations of norms, whether minor or serious. Deviance by society’s individuals threatens normalcy and predictability. “What is deviant to sum isn’t deviant to others”. For example a girl has a piercing on her tongue and got in school suspension for violating the schools dress code policy. Crime is a violation of the social norms that have been written into law. Every society has its own written laws, so the behaviors that are considered criminal depend on a society’s legal standards. The basic principles of differential theory are that criminal behavior is learned, learning is a byproduct of interaction, learning occurs within intimate groups, criminal techniques are learned, perceptions of legal code influences motives and drives, differential associations may vary in frequency, duration, priority and intensity, the process of learning criminal behavior by association with criminal with anti-criminal and criminal
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Sutherland's research was focused on white-collar crime, professional theft and intelligence and disputed the notion that crime was a function of people's inadequacy in the lower classes. He did not consider crime to stem from individual traits or from socioeconomic positions but to be a function of a learning process that could affect any individual regardless of culture. The acquisition of behavior is a social learning process rather than a political or legal process. Consequently the skills and motives that are conducive to crime are learned as a result of contact with pro-crime attitudes, values, definitions and other related pattern of criminal
Differential association theory was founded by Edwin H. Sutherland (Lilly, 2012, p. 43). This theory states that “any person will inevitably come into contact with definitions favorable to violation of the law and with definitions unfavorable to violation of the law” (Lilly, 2012, p. 44). Whichever definition is more prominent in a person’s mind, will lead to their decision of “whether the person embraces crime as an acceptable way of life” (Lilly, 2012, p. 44). Sutherland composed nine propositions that explained the theory. He explained that “crime is learned through the process of differential association” (Lilly, 2012, p. 45). The nine propositions explained that “criminal behavior is learned” (Lilly, 2012, p. 45). He explained that by communicating with others, especially those that are close to them they are more likely to pick up behaviors from those people. Differential association theory also explains that learning criminal behaviors “involves all the mechanisms that are involved in any other learning” (Lilly, 2012, p. 45). While learning a criminal behavior one not only learns “the techniques of committing the crime” but also the “specific direction of motives, drives, rationalizations, and attitudes” involved with crime (Lilly, 2012, p. 45). This is theory is shown throughout the book when the young Mr. Moore was influenced by the life of crime that was present in his
Secondly, differential association varies based on the intensity, duration, frequency, priority, and timing of one’s process of learning. Through this notion, the individual’s self is disregarded and more emphasis is placed on the extrinsic factors. Furthermore, “it is an individual’s experiences and the ways in which the individual defines those experiences which constitute to the learning of criminality”. (Gongenvare & Dotter, 2007,
Before the 1950’s theorists focused on what the difference was between deviants and criminals from “normal” citizens. In the 1950’s researchers were more involved exploring meaning and reasons behind deviant acts. This led to the most dominant question in the field of deviance, “what is the structural and culture factors that lead to deviant behavior?” This question is important when studying deviance because there is no clear answer, everyone sees deviance in different ways, and how deviance is created. Short and Meier states that in the 1960’s there was another shift in focus on the subject of deviance. The focus was what causes deviance, the study of reactions to deviance, and the study of rule breaking and rule making. In the 1960’s society was starting to speak out on what they believed should be a rule and what should not; this movement create chaos in the streets. However, it gave us a glimpse into what makes people become deviant, in the case it was the Vietnam War and the government. Short and Meier also write about the three levels that might help us understand were deviance comes from and how people interact to deviance. The first is the micro level, which emphasizes individual characteristics by biological, psychological, and social sciences. The second level is macrosociological that explains culture and
Differential association theory best explains the burglary deviance. There are many principles associated with this type of learning theory. Edwin Sutherland’s theory discusses how crime is a learned behavior where one’s family, peers, and environment are of great influence. Differential association theory seeks to prove that criminal behavior is learned and this paper will evaluate the connection between the two.
Deviant behavior is sociologically defined as, when someone departs from the “norms”. Most of the time when someone says deviance they think against the law or acting out in a negative behavior. To sociologists it can be both positive and negative. While most crimes are deviant, they are not always. Norms can be classified into two categories, mores and folkways. Mores are informal rules that are not written; when mores are broken, they can have serious punishments and sanctions. Folkways are informal rules that are just expected to be followed, but have no real repercussions.
Societies are founded on various social norms. Norms can best be defined as a set of acceptable attitudes and practices by a given society. These norms however are found to vary from one society or cultural setting o the other. Deviance on the other hand is simply when one does something that goes against the set societal norms. Deviance is gauged on a scale of attitudes and behavior contradicting to acceptable social standards (Samuels, 2012).
Differential associations vary in frequency, duration, priority, and intensity. Referring to the contact an individual must have with proponents of criminal behavior; this principle suggests that there is a varying, but direct, relationship that affects how often, for what length of time, how important, and how intense deviant behavior
In sociology, the term deviance refers to all violations of social rules, regardless of their seriousness (Essentials of Sociology 136). Deviance is an individual or organizational behavior that violates societal norms and is usually accompanied by negative reactions from others. According to a sociologist S. Becker, he stated that it is not the act itself that makes an action deviant, but rather how society reacts to it.
Social deviancy is the violation of social norms. A deviant is someone who rejects folkways and mores. Any action that violates the values or rules of a social group is deviant behavior. In order to actually be characterized as a deviant, the individual must be detected committing a deviant act and be stigmatized by society. A stigma is a mark of social disgrace, setting the deviant apart from the group. Criminality is healthy for society. Deviance affirms our cultural values and norms. Responding to deviance clarifies moral boundaries and brings people together. There will always be people who break society’s rules and that’s important.
Crime is an irrelevant concept as it is tied to the formal social control mechanism of the State; deviance is a concept that is owned by sociology thus our study should be the sociology of deviance, rather than criminology
In society, authoritative figures tend to push conformity on others in both negative and positive ways. Sometimes these figures use the media to influence us or to establish standards. With the media people tend to label norms through whether they’re right or wrong. In labeling right or wrong we came up with the word deviance which is a person or thing departing from the norms. There is also social deviance which is “any transgression of socially established norms” (Conley, 2013, p. 189). There are two different sides of violating norms which could go from public nudity to murder. From deviance it can escalade further into what we call a crime. A crime is also the breaking of a norm but it also goes into the breaking of a law. Even with some norms being broken, they tend to not be as serious but there is still an impression of wrong. After the action, that person will be charged through their community by what they feel is right or wrong. Since there is differences the
Deviance is the violation of cultural norms. Deviance falls into two forms: formal and informal. Formal deviance is the violation of laws in a society, resulting in crime. Informal deviance is the violation of a social norm. This is an action not acceptable by society, but cannot be punishable by law. In order to understand deviance, one must examine why individuals are deviant and what function deviance serves in society. However, there is not a definite answer for either, rather multiple theories.
Deviance is defined as actions or behaviors that violate socials norms. In turn the concept of deviance is dependent on the social observation and perception. “By it’s very nature, the constructionism through which people define and interpret actions or appearances is always “social.” ”(Henry, 2009 , p. 6) One’s perception of a situation may be completely different from another depending on cultural and social factors. The way someone talks, walks, dresses, and holds themselves are all factors that attribute to how someone perceives another. In some cases what is socially or normally acceptable to one person is deviant in another’s eyes. For this reason there is a lot of gray area involving the topic of deviance because actions and behaviors are so diversely interpreted.
When most of us think of deviant behavior, we think of someone who is breaking the law or acting out in a negative manner. ‘Different’ or ‘unexpected’ are words often used to describe deviance from a sociological perspective (Adler, 2000). Generally, deviant means departing from the norm but for a sociologist, that can be biased towards the positive or the negative (Kendall, 2003). While there are crimes that are certainly deviant because they are outside the norm, such as murder and rape, there are also crimes that are not deviant. Taking speeding for example, Adler (2000) argues that, it isn’t at all unexpected to see someone speeding. Interestingly, from a sociologist perspective, speeding would not be considered deviant in most cities in a country like the United States of America.
Deviance is reflected in social control system, medicalization of deviance, and white collar crime. Social control system can be defined as a group’s formal and informal means ...