We’re using our understanding of the three schools of sociological theory to breakdown deviance and crime this week. What is deviance? What is crime? How are they different? How does society create the definitions of what is a deviant behavior and what is a criminal act? We discuss power and inequality, as well as look at deviance and crime through the lens of the three schools of sociological thought – structural functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism. Check out our previous episode on the three schools of thought, SOC207, if you haven’t already so you understand our discussion today! Thanks for listening and please give us a rating, too!
Deviance, Crime, Criminology, Social Construction
Sources
- Listen to SOC207 – Three Schools of Thought where we introduce sociological theory so you understand how we break down deviance and crime!
- The Three Steps (or Stages) of Deviance
- 1) Expectation of a norm (or “mores” i.e., thou shall not murder, thou shall not steal for personal gain, intended or unintended violence towards children etc.)
- 2) Violation of a norm
- 3) Personal and/or societal reaction to the norm being broken (informal and/or formal sanctions)
- Deviance is a socially defined construct and refers to any action, belief, or human characteristic that members of a society or a social group consider a violation of group norms for which the violator is likely to be censured or punished.
- Laws and gum in Singapore
- “How Lefties First Gained Acceptance” (Time)
- A quick video bio from The School of Life on the Structural Functionalist that we cited this episode, Emile Durkheim
- Quick intro to Symbolic Interactionism
- Prohibition is a great example of the criminalization and decriminalization of a behavior because it wasn’t accepted by most of American society as deviant. Here’s a summary of prohibition from Ohio State University.
- “Flying While Muslim (Quartz), an article on racial profiling
- We quote Howard Becker (1963), saying, “Deviance is not a consequence of the act the person commits, but rather a consequence of the [creation and] application by others of rules and sanctions to an ‘offender’ ” This comes from his book, Outsiders.
- Intro to Labeling Theory
- We also cited these older episodes of ours, so check them out if you haven’t already!