Chapter 5 – Conformity, Deviance and Crime

Key Concepts

• Norms
  • Rules of conduct that specify appropriate behavior in a given range of social situations. 
  • We all follow norms. 
  • That is to say, we have norms that prescribe all of our behavior throughout our days.  When we don’t follow these norms, we committing deviance. 
• Deviance
  • Modes of action that do not conform to the norms or values held by most members of a group of society. 
  • Some forms of deviance are considered small and tolerable. 
  • Not saying “thanks” when someone does you a favor is rude, but you won’t be thrown in jail for it. 
  • Some forms of deviance are considered highly problematic and could have very serious consequences.  
• Sanctions
  • The rewards or punishments that reinforce social norms.  – sanctions can be large or small. 
  • In the form of punishments, sanctions could be as simple as giving someone a bad look when they bump into you as you walk to class. 
  • Positive sanctions (rewards) can also be large or small.  
• Laws
  • When norms become codified and enforced by a political authority, they become laws. 
  • These are everywhere, such as speeding and traffic laws, tax laws, criminal laws, etc.
• Crime
  • Acts that directly contravene the laws already in place. 
  • Not paying taxes could be a crime, or not stopping at a red light, driving drunk, etc.

Norms and Laws

• It’s important to understand that norms and laws are socially constructed and constantly in flux. 
• They are always changing, and they can be complicated. 
• It is absolutely possible to follow a norm and break a law at the same time.  Think about what the speed limit is in the freeway (usually 65 miles per hour).  Although that is the law, if you’re driving on the fast lane (most to the left), people expect you to drive faster than 65 miles per hour, and you might drive faster in that lane to avoid people honking at you and giving you nasty looks (these are sanctions). 
• Thus, although you might break the law, you simultaneously might be following a norm. 

Labeling Theory

• Labeling theory -argues that people become deviant because certain labels are attached to their behavior by political authorities and others.
• Labeling theory is an interactionist theory. 
  • By that, we mean that this theory focuses on how we make sense of our actions and behaviors by interpreting the meaning of those symbols and behaviors. 
  • For example, if a person commits a crime, then we make sense of such action by labeling it a crime. 
  • This allows us to interpret the act as something negative and shameful. 
  • However, if that same act is performed in a different context, it might be considered perfectly OK. 
  • With this, labeling theorists are telling us that to truly understand crime, we must not look at the person who is being labeled, but rather, we must look at the persons doing the labeling. 
  • By looking at crime from this perspective, there is a person committing the act, and there’s another person labeling such act as criminal.  It is by paying attention and studying the people who are doing the labeling that we might get a better understanding of the crime. 
  • Think about vagrancy laws that put unemployed blacks in prison soon after the Civil War freed the slaves in the Southern states.  These former slaves were not “criminal” in that they weren’t trying to create problems, they simply couldn’t find a job. 
  • In this example, it makes more sense to look at the white southern politicians who created the vagrancy laws.  They did this to control and exploit former slaves by putting them in prison for the crime of “being unemployed”. 
  • Furthermore, labeling theory also addresses the situations in which those who are given a label eventually end up adopting the label and the behaviors attached with it. 
  • Imagine a child who from a very young age is labeled a rascal.  The child is probably as mischievous as any other child, but for whatever reason, the parents and family call him a rascal.
  • Edwin Lemert referred to these deviations that result in the adoption as the labels are primary and secondary deviation. 
  • Primary deviation are the actions that cause others to label one as deviant. 
  • Then Secondary deviation occurs when an individual accepts the label of deviant and acts accordingly.  Thus, if a young person is caught shoplifting, that primary deviance won’t necessarily result in the young person adopting the label of criminal. 
  • However, if everybody finds out about this, and everybody begins to treat this person as a criminal, this young shoplifter may begin to adopt such a label and start committing even more serious criminal acts. 

Control Theory

• Control theory -views crime as the outcome of an imbalance between impulses toward criminal activity and controls that deter it. 
• Control theory sees individuals as selfish, and as beings who will act to help themselves if they have an opportunity. 
• From this perspective, if individuals are not controlled, they will break the law for their own benefit as much as possible. 
• Travis Hirschi, one of the best known control theorists, argues that people are calculating individuals.  When they find themselves in a situation where they contemplate committing a crime, they will weigh the costs against the benefits.  The costs include how likely they are to get caught committing the crime, and how harsh the punishment would be if they are caught. 
• If those are too harsh, then the person won’t commit the crime, according to control theory. 
• Because of this, control theories emphasize high tech surveillance and hiring more police on the one hand; this would prevent crime.  On the other hand, they stress harsh sentences known as zero-tolerance policies to punish those who commit crimes. 
• The logic behind this is that if the potential criminal sees a high likelihood of getting caught and a harsh punishment, then they won’t commit the crime. 
• Travis Hirschi argued that there are many reasons that keep people from committing crime.  These factors control a person’s criminality. 
• At the very core of the matter are 4 important factors:
  • attachment
    • a person’s bond with other people who are conventionally law-abiding.  If you have strong ties to law-abiding people, then you’re less likely to break the law.
  • commitment
    • a person’s commitment to conventional norms is also likely to lessen criminality. For example, a student who is committed to finishing school (a conventional norm) is less likely to commit a crime; a person who is committed to Church and religious life, may be less likely to commit deviant acts as well.
  • involvement
    • a person who is involved in conventional activities has little time to commit crimes. 
    • This follows the idea that people with a lot of free time are more likely to be deviant.  This is very similar to “commitment” above, but the main difference is that involvement has more to do with time, whereas commitment has more to do with an “investment” that is made in other areas of life (school, church, etc.)
  • belief.
    • holding morals and values that are consistent with conventional tentes of society.  Thus, if one believes that it is important to be honest and hardworking, they won’t steal, for example. 

Theory of Broken Windows

• Broken windows theory emerges from a study by Philip Zimbardo (1969) in which he left abandoned cars with the hood up in a nice neighborhood in Los Angeles, and the other in a bad neighborhood in New York. In both cases, the cars were vandalized. 
• Broken windows theory argues that when signs of disorder are detected, they invite more deviance and crime. 
• Thus, an abandoned car sends the signal that nobody cares about this car, and that is an invitation for crime. 
• Zimbardo argued that in any neighborhood, a sign or disorder, such as a broken window, sends the message to criminals that the neighborhood is not well-taken-care-of.  When criminals see this, they interpret that as an opportunity to commit crime without getting caught. 
• Broken windows theory sees these signs of disorder as a slippery slope. 
• This means that allowing small signs of disorder might somehow result in more serious crimes being committed in the neighborhood later on in time. 
• Anti-crime policy in the 80s and 90s in the U.S. followed Broken windows theory very closely.  However, it also created very serious problems.  Since broken windows theory argues that small deviance now can become serious crime in the future, there is a need to be vigilant by the neighborhood and police. 
• Thus, neighborhoods were quick to call 911 or the police as soon as any sign of disorder was observed.  This led to a lot of people and situations being labeled as criminals, when they in fact were not. 
• Think about Trayvon Martin, who was shot to death by a self-appointed neighborhood watch captain of the name Andrew Zimmerman.  Trayvon was young, black, and wearing a hoodie.  Zimmerman took into consideration that Trayvon was a young, black man and thought Trayvon was a criminal roaming the streets, .  He saw this as a sign or disorder in his neighborhood and acted out or proportion, killing Trayvon, who was only walking back to see his dad in a house down the street. 
• Broken windows theory has resulted in the profiling of many young people of color who are stereotyped as being criminals in our society.  Because broken windows theory takes a lot of vigilance, people who are afraid of crime are more likely to “see” crime when there is really nothing. 
• This results in the targeting of people of color who “fit” the profile of a criminal.

Racism and the Prison Industrial Complex

• Our approach to crime prevention and punishment since 80’s has led to an explosion of our prison population in the U.S.
• The United States has the largest prison population in the world.  We are 5% of the world’s population, yet we hold more than 20% of the world prisoner. 
• President Ronald Reagan launched the War on Drugs in the 80’s.  This law created harsh mandatory sentences for drug crimes that were not seen as seriously before.  Thus, possession of a small amount of drug previous might have resulted in mandatory rehabilitation or community service, now could possibly result in 5 years in prison. 
• In addition, a lot of federal money was given in the form of grants to local police departments who would concentrate their efforts in fighting drugs.  The result of this was an explosion of the prison population. 
• As other countries with developed economies moved towards treating drug addiction as a health issue (e.g. Portugal, Netherlands), the U.S. moved to criminalize drugs with heavy policing and heavy sentences to the point that we have more people in prison in the U.S. than even China does (China the largest population in the world). 
• This is a racialized issue because although most people of all races, study show, use illegal drugs at roughly the same rates, black and brown people who are mostly targeted for crimes and who end up in jail more.  People of color, studies consistently show, are more likely to be stopped by police, to be arrested, to receive inadequate legal representation, to be convicted by a judge, to be given longer sentences, and to be given the death penalty for the same crimes as whites.  This has resulted in a crisis of young men of color, especially black, being put behind bars at disproportionate rates. 

Prison Industrial Complex

• People of color have disproportionately and unjustly been introduced to this system.  This has resulted in many of these lives being permanently damaged. 
• In addition to this, putting people in prison has become an industry where there is money to be made.  This has become known as the Prison Industrial Complex. Part of this complex are politicians who make careers from portraying themselves as being “tough on crime”, it also includes private prisons who make profits by building prisons and housing inmates, it includes rural communities where prisons are built, police departments, prison guard unions, and every other institution with economic lifelines that are involved in fighting crimes, especially the war on drugs.