Always Once Again Refuse to Bow Down Refuse to Be Black Label Society

seven.2 Explaining Deviance

Learning Objective

1. State the major arguments and assumptions of the various sociological explanations of deviance.

If we want to reduce fierce crime and other serious deviance, we must commencement understand why information technology occurs. Many sociological theories of deviance exist, and together they offering a more than complete understanding of deviance than whatsoever one theory offers by itself. Together they help answer the questions posed earlier: why rates of deviance differ within social categories and across locations, why some behaviors are more than likely than others to be considered deviant, and why some kinds of people are more likely than others to be considered deviant and to be punished for deviant behavior. Every bit a whole, sociological explanations highlight the importance of the social environment and of social interaction for deviance and the commision of criminal offense. Equally such, they have important implications for how to reduce these behaviors. Consequent with this book's public sociology theme, a discussion of several such offense-reduction strategies concludes this chapter.

We now turn to the major sociological explanations of crime and deviance. A summary of these explanations appears in Table seven.1 "Theory Snapshot: Summary of Sociological Explanations of Deviance and Crime".

Table 7.1 Theory Snapshot: Summary of Sociological Explanations of Deviance and Crime

Major theory	Related explanation	Summary of explanation
Functionalist	Durkheim'southward views	Deviance has several functions: (a) it clarifies norms and increases conformity, (b) it strengthens social bonds among the people reacting to the deviant, and (c) it tin help lead to positive social modify.
	Social environmental	Certain social and concrete characteristics of urban neighborhoods contribute to high crime rates. These characteristics include poverty, dilapidation, population density, and population turnover.
	Strain theory	According to Robert Merton, deviance amid the poor results from a gap between the cultural emphasis on economic success and the inability to achieve such success through the legitimate means of working. Co-ordinate to Richard Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin, differential access to illegitimate means affects the blazon of deviance in which individuals experiencing strain engage.
	Deviant subcultures	Poverty and other customs weather condition give rise to certain subcultures through which adolescents acquire values that promote deviant behavior. Albert Cohen wrote that lack of success in school leads lower-class boys to join gangs whose value arrangement promotes and rewards delinquency. Walter Miller wrote that malversation stems from focal concerns, a taste for trouble, toughness, cleverness, and excitement. Marvin Wolfgang and Franco Ferracuti argued that a subculture of violence in inner-city areas promotes a fierce response to insults and other problems.
	Social control theory	Travis Hirschi wrote that delinquency results from weak bonds to conventional social institutions such as families and schools. These bonds include attachment, commitment, involvement, and belief.
Conflict		People with power pass laws and otherwise apply the legal arrangement to secure their position at the top of society and to proceed the powerless on the bottom. The poor and minorities are more likely considering of their poverty and race to be arrested, bedevilled, and imprisoned.
	Feminist perspectives	Inequality confronting women and blowsy views about relations between the sexes underlie rape, sexual assault, intimate partner violence, and other crimes against women. Sexual abuse prompts many girls and women to turn to drugs and booze utilize and other antisocial beliefs. Gender socialization is a key reason for large gender differences in criminal offense rates.
Symbolic interactionism	Differential association theory	Edwin H. Sutherland argued that criminal behavior is learned by interacting with close friends and family members who teach us how to commit diverse crimes and also about the values, motives, and rationalizations we need to adopt in order to justify breaking the police.
	Labeling theory	Deviance results from being labeled a deviant; nonlegal factors such every bit appearance, race, and social course affect how oft labeling occurs.

Functionalist Explanations

Several explanations may be grouped under the functionalist perspective in sociology, equally they all share this perspective's fundamental view on the importance of various aspects of club for social stability and other social needs.

Émile Durkheim: The Functions of Deviance

Every bit noted earlier, Émile Durkheim said deviance is normal, but he did not stop in that location. In a surprising and still controversial twist, he as well argued that deviance serves several of import functions for social club.

First, Durkheim said, deviance clarifies social norms and increases conformity. This happens because the discovery and punishment of deviance reminds people of the norms and reinforces the consequences of violating them. If your course were taking an exam and a student was defenseless adulterous, the rest of the course would be instantly reminded of the rules well-nigh cheating and the punishment for it, and every bit a outcome they would be less likely to cheat.

A 2nd role of deviance is that it strengthens social bonds among the people reacting to the deviant. An example comes from the archetype story The Ox-Bow Incident (Clark, 1940), in which 3 innocent men are accused of cattle rustling and are somewhen lynched. The mob that does the lynching is very united in its frenzy confronting the men, and, at least at that moment, the bonds among the individuals in the mob are extremely stiff.

A final function of deviance, said Durkheim, is that it can help lead to positive social change. Although some of the greatest figures in history—Socrates, Jesus, Joan of Arc, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr. to proper noun but a few—were considered the worst kind of deviants in their time, nosotros now honor them for their commitment and sacrifice.

Émile Durkheim wrote that deviance tin can lead to positive social modify. Many Southerners had strong negative feelings near Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during the civil rights movement, but history now honors him for his commitment and sacrifice.

Sociologist Herbert Gans (1996) pointed to an additional office of deviance: deviance creates jobs for the segments of society—police, prison guards, criminology professors, and and then along—whose principal focus is to bargain with deviants in some style. If deviance and offense did not be, hundreds of thousands of law-abiding people in the The states would be out of work!

Although deviance tin accept all of these functions, many forms of it tin can certainly exist quite harmful, as the story of the mugged voter that began this chapter reminds u.s.a.. Violent crime and property criminal offense in the United States victimize millions of people and households each twelvemonth, while crime past corporations has effects that are fifty-fifty more harmful, every bit we discuss later. Drug utilise, prostitution, and other "victimless" crimes may involve willing participants, but these participants often cause themselves and others much harm. Although deviance co-ordinate to Durkheim is inevitable and normal and serves important functions, that certainly does not mean the The states and other nations should be happy to take high rates of serious deviance. The sociological theories we discuss indicate to certain aspects of the social environment, broadly defined, that contribute to deviance and crime and that should be the focus of efforts to reduce these behaviors.

Social Ecology: Neighborhood and Community Characteristics

An important sociological approach, begun in the late 1800s and early on 1900s past sociologists at the University of Chicago, stresses that sure social and physical characteristics of urban neighborhoods raise the odds that people growing up and living in these neighborhoods will commit deviance and crime. This line of thought is now called the social ecology approach (Mears, Wang, Hay, & Bales, 2008). Many criminogenic (crime-causing) neighborhood characteristics have been identified, including loftier rates of poverty, population density, dilapidated housing, residential mobility, and single-parent households. All of these problems are thought to contribute to social disorganization, or weakened social bonds and social institutions, that make information technology difficult to socialize children properly and to monitor suspicious behavior (Mears, Wang, Hay, & Bales, 2008; Sampson, 2006).

Sociology Making a Deviation

Improving Neighborhood Conditions Helps Reduce Offense Rates

One of the sociological theories of offense discussed in the text is the social ecology approach. To review, this approach attributes high rates of deviance and crime to the neighborhood'southward social and physical characteristics, including poverty, high population density, dilapidated housing, and high population turnover. These problems create social disorganization that weakens the neighborhood'southward social institutions and impairs effective child socialization.

Much empirical prove supports social ecology'southward view near negative neighborhood conditions and crime rates and suggests that efforts to improve these conditions volition lower crime rates. Some of the most persuasive testify comes from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (directed by sociologist Robert J. Sampson), in which more than than 6,000 children, ranging in age from birth to xviii, and their parents and other caretakers were studied over a 7-year catamenia. The social and concrete characteristics of the dozens of neighborhoods in which the subjects lived were measured to permit assessment of these characteristics' effects on the probability of delinquency. A number of studies using data from this projection confirm the general assumptions of the social environmental approach. In detail, delinquency is higher in neighborhoods with lower levels of "collective efficacy," that is, in neighborhoods with lower levels of community supervision of adolescent behavior.

The many studies from the Chicago project and data in several other cities show that neighborhood weather condition greatly affect the extent of delinquency in urban neighborhoods. This body of research in turn suggests that strategies and programs that amend the social and physical conditions of urban neighborhoods may well help decrease the high rates of law-breaking and delinquency that are and then ofttimes found there. (Bellair & McNulty, 2009; Sampson, 2006)

Strain Theory

Failure to achieve the American dream lies at the heart of Robert Merton's (1938) famous strain theory (also called anomie theory). Recall from Chapter one "Sociology and the Sociological Perspective" that Durkheim attributed high rates of suicide to anomie, or normlessness, that occurs in times when social norms are unclear or weak. Adapting this concept, Merton wanted to explicate why poor people take higher deviance rates than the nonpoor. He reasoned that the Usa values economic success higher up all else and also has norms that specify the approved means, working, for achieving economic success. Because the poor often cannot attain the American dream of success through the conventional ways of working, they experience a gap betwixt the goal of economical success and the means of working. This gap, which Merton likened to Durkheim's anomie because of the resulting lack of clarity over norms, leads to strain or frustration. To reduce their frustration, some poor people resort to several adaptations, including deviance, depending on whether they accept or reject the goal of economic success and the means of working. Table 7.2 "Merton's Anomie Theory" presents the logical adaptations of the poor to the strain they feel. Allow's review these briefly.

Table seven.two Merton'south Anomie Theory

Accommodation	Goal of economic success	Ways of working
I. Conformity	+	+
Two. Innovation	+	−
III. Ritualism	−	+
Four. Retreatism	−	−
V. Rebellion	±	±
+ means accept, − means reject, ± means refuse and work for a new club

Despite their strain, near poor people continue to accept the goal of economic success and continue to believe they should work to make coin. In other words, they go along to be good, constabulary-abiding citizens. They arrange to society'due south norms and values, and, not surprisingly, Merton calls their adaptation conformity.

Faced with strain, some poor people continue to value economical success simply come up with new means of achieving it. They rob people or banks, commit fraud, or use other illegal ways of acquiring money or property. Merton calls this adaptation innovation.

Other poor people go on to piece of work at a job without much hope of greatly improving their lot in life. They go to work day afterwards mean solar day as a habit. Merton calls this tertiary adaptation ritualism. This adaptation does non involve deviant beliefs simply is a logical response to the strain poor people feel.

1 of Robert Merton'due south adaptations in his strain theory is retreatism, in which poor people abandon order'south goal of economic success and reject its means of employment to reach this goal. Many of today's homeless people might exist considered retreatists nether Merton's typology.

In Merton's quaternary adaptation, retreatism, some poor people withdraw from guild by becoming hobos or vagrants or by becoming fond to alcohol, heroin, or other drugs. Their response to the strain they experience is to decline both the goal of economical success and the ways of working.

Merton's 5th and final adaptation is rebellion. Hither poor people not only reject the goal of success and the means of working but work actively to bring about a new society with a new value organization. These people are the radicals and revolutionaries of their fourth dimension. Because Merton adult his strain theory in the aftermath of the Smashing Depression, in which the labor and socialist movements had been quite active, information technology is non surprising that he thought of rebellion as a logical accommodation of the poor to their lack of economic success.

Although Merton's theory has been popular over the years, information technology has some limitations. Perhaps almost of import, it overlooks deviance such as fraud by the middle and upper classes and also fails to explicate murder, rape, and other crimes that normally are not done for economic reasons. Information technology too does non explicate why some poor people cull i adaptation over another.

Merton's strain theory stimulated other explanations of deviance that built on his concept of strain. Differential opportunity theory, developed by Richard Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin (1960), tried to explain why the poor choose one or the other of Merton's adaptations. Whereas Merton stressed that the poor accept differential access to legitimate ways (working), Cloward and Ohlin stressed that they have differential admission to illegitimate ways. For example, some alive in neighborhoods where organized criminal offense is dominant and will get involved in such criminal offence; others live in neighborhoods rampant with drug use and will commencement using drugs themselves.

In a more than recent conception, two sociologists, Steven F. Messner and Richard Rosenfeld (2007), expanded Merton's view by arguing that in the U.s.a. offense arises from several of our nearly important values, including an overemphasis on economical success, individualism, and competition. These values produce crime past making many Americans, rich or poor, experience they never have enough coin and past prompting them to assist themselves even at other people'due south expense. Crime in the United States, so, arises ironically from the country'southward most basic values.

In yet another extension of Merton'southward theory, Robert Agnew (2007) reasoned that adolescents experience various kinds of strain in addition to the economic type addressed by Merton. A romantic relationship may terminate, a family member may die, or students may be taunted or bullied at school. Repeated strain-inducing incidents such every bit these produce anger, frustration, and other negative emotions, and these emotions in plow prompt delinquency and drug utilize.

Deviant Subcultures

Some sociologists stress that poverty and other community weather condition give rise to certain subcultures through which adolescents acquire values that promote deviant beliefs. Ane of the first to make this betoken was Albert 1000. Cohen (1955), whose condition frustration theory says that lower-form boys do poorly in school because schools emphasize middle-course values. Schoolhouse failure reduces their status and self-esteem, which the boys try to counter by joining juvenile gangs. In these groups, a unlike value arrangement prevails, and boys can regain status and self-esteem by engaging in malversation. Cohen had nothing to say about girls, as he assumed they cared piddling virtually how well they did in school, placing more importance on marriage and family instead, and hence would remain nondelinquent even if they did not do well. Scholars afterwards criticized his disregard for girls and assumptions about them.

Another sociologist, Walter Miller (1958), said poor boys go runaway because they live amidst a lower-class subculture that includes several focal concerns, or values, that help pb to delinquency. These focal concerns include a gustatory modality for trouble, toughness, cleverness, and excitement. If boys grow up in a subculture with these values, they are more than likely to break the law. Their deviance is a outcome of their socialization. Critics said Miller exaggerated the differences betwixt the value systems in poor inner-city neighborhoods and wealthier, eye-class communities (Akers & Sellers, 2008).

A very popular subcultural explanation is the so-called subculture of violence thesis, first advanced by Marvin Wolfgang and Franco Ferracuti (1967). In some inner-city areas, they said, a subculture of violence promotes a violent response to insults and other problems, which people in middle-grade areas would probably ignore. The subculture of violence, they continued, arises partly from the need of lower-class males to "prove" their masculinity in view of their economic failure. Quantitative enquiry to test their theory has failed to prove that the urban poor are more likely than other groups to approve of violence (Cao, Adams, & Jensen, 1997). On the other hand, contempo ethnographic (qualitative) research suggests that large segments of the urban poor do adopt a "code" of toughness and violence to promote respect (Anderson, 1999). Every bit this alien evidence illustrates, the subculture of violence view remains controversial and merits farther scrutiny.

Social Control Theory

Travis Hirschi (1969) argued that human nature is basically selfish and thus wondered why people do not commit deviance. His respond, which is at present chosen social command theory (likewise known as social bonding theory), was that their bonds to conventional social institutions such as the family unit and the school keep them from violating social norms. Hirschi's basic perspective reflects Durkheim'southward view that potent social norms reduce deviance such as suicide.

Hirschi outlined four types of bonds to conventional social institutions: attachment, commitment, involvement, and conventionalities.

1. Attachment refers to how much nosotros feel loyal to these institutions and care nigh the opinions of people in them, such as our parents and teachers. The more fastened nosotros are to our families and schools, the less probable nosotros are to exist deviant.
2. Commitment refers to how much we value our participation in conventional activities such as getting a proficient instruction. The more committed we are to these activities and the more time and free energy we take invested in them, the less deviant we volition be.
3. Involvement refers to the amount of fourth dimension we spend in conventional activities. The more time we spend, the less opportunity nosotros have to be deviant.
4. Belief refers to our credence of society's norms. The more we believe in these norms, the less nosotros deviate.

Travis Hirschi'due south social control theory stresses the importance of bonds to social institutions for preventing deviance. His theory emphasized the importance of attachment to one's family unit in this regard.

Hirschi's theory has been very popular. Many studies find that youths with weaker bonds to their parents and schools are more likely to exist deviant. But the theory has its critics (Akers & Sellers, 2008). One problem centers on the chicken-and-egg question of causal order. For instance, many studies support social command theory past finding that runaway youths often have worse relationships with their parents than do nondelinquent youths. Is that because the bad relationships prompt the youths to exist delinquent, as Hirschi thought? Or is it because the youths' delinquency worsens their relationship with their parents? Despite these questions, Hirschi's social control theory continues to influence our understanding of deviance. To the extent information technology is correct, information technology suggests several strategies for preventing crime, including programs designed to amend parenting and relations betwixt parents and children (Welsh & Farrington, 2007).

Conflict and Feminist Explanations

Explanations of criminal offense rooted in the disharmonize perspective reflect its general view that gild is a struggle betwixt the "haves" at the acme of lodge with social, economic, and political power and the "have-nots" at the bottom. Appropriately, they assume that those with power pass laws and otherwise use the legal system to secure their position at the top of society and to go along the powerless on the lesser (Bohm & Vogel, 2011). The poor and minorities are more probable considering of their poverty and race to be arrested, bedevilled, and imprisoned. These explanations too arraign street crime by the poor on the economic impecuniousness and inequality in which they live rather than on whatsoever moral failings of the poor.

Some conflict explanations also say that capitalism helps create street crime by the poor. An early proponent of this view was Dutch criminologist Willem Bonger (1916), who said that commercialism as an economic organisation involves contest for profit. This competition leads to an emphasis in a capitalist society's culture on egoism, or self-seeking behavior, and greed. Considering profit becomes so important, people in a backer society are more than likely than those in noncapitalist ones to break the constabulary for turn a profit and other gains, even if their beliefs hurts others.

Non surprisingly, disharmonize explanations accept sparked much controversy (Akers & Sellers, 2008). Many scholars dismiss them for painting an overly critical motion-picture show of the United States and ignoring the excesses of noncapitalistic nations, while others say the theories enlarge the degree of inequality in the legal system. In assessing the debate over conflict explanations, a fair conclusion is that their view on discrimination past the legal system applies more than to victimless crime (discussed in a later on section) than to conventional crime, where information technology is difficult to argue that laws against such things as murder and robbery reflect the needs of the powerful. Still, much evidence supports the disharmonize assertion that the poor and minorities face up disadvantages in the legal system (Reiman & Leighton, 2010). But put, the poor cannot afford expert attorneys, private investigators, and the other advantages that coin brings in court. As just one example, if someone much poorer than O. J. Simpson, the former football player and media glory, had been arrested, equally he was in 1994, for viciously murdering two people, the defendant would almost certainly have been institute guilty. Simpson was able to afford a defence force costing hundreds of thousands of dollars and won a jury acquittal in his criminal trial (Barkan, 1996). Also in accordance with conflict theory'southward views, corporate executives, amongst the about powerful members of society, frequently interruption the law without fear of imprisonment, as nosotros shall see in our discussion of white-collar crime later in this chapter. Finally, many studies back up conflict theory's view that the roots of crimes by poor people lie in social inequality and economical impecuniousness (Barkan, 2009).

Feminist Perspectives

Feminist perspectives on crime and criminal justice also fall into the wide rubric of conflict explanations and take burgeoned in the last two decades. Much of this piece of work concerns rape and sexual assault, intimate partner violence, and other crimes against women that were largely neglected until feminists began writing about them in the 1970s (Griffin, 1971). Their views have since influenced public and official attitudes nigh rape and domestic violence, which used to be thought every bit something that girls and women brought on themselves. The feminist approach instead places the blame for these crimes squarely on society's inequality confronting women and antiquated views most relations between the sexes (Renzetti, 2011).

Some other focus of feminist work is gender and legal processing. Are women better or worse off than men when information technology comes to the chances of being arrested and punished? After many studies in the last two decades, the best answer is that we are non sure (Belknap, 2007). Women are treated a little more harshly than men for small crimes and a footling less harshly for serious crimes, just the gender effect in full general is weak.

A tertiary focus concerns the gender deviation in serious crime, as women and girls are much less likely than men and boys to appoint in violence and to commit serious holding crimes such as break-in and motor vehicle theft. Most sociologists aspect this difference to gender socialization. Simply put, socialization into the male person gender role, or masculinity, leads to values such equally competitiveness and behavioral patterns such as spending more time away from abode that all promote deviance. Conversely, despite whatever disadvantages it may accept, socialization into the female person gender part, or femininity, promotes values such equally gentleness and behavior patterns such equally spending more time at home that help limit deviance (Chesney-Lind & Pasko, 2004). Noting that males commit so much offense, Kathleen Daly and Meda Chesney-Lind (1988, p. 527) wrote,

A large price is paid for structures of male domination and for the very qualities that drive men to be successful, to control others, and to wield uncompromising ability.…Gender differences in crime suggest that law-breaking may not exist so normal after all. Such differences challenge us to meet that in the lives of women, men have a peachy deal more than to learn.

Gender socialization helps explain why females commit less serious crime than males. Boys are raised to be competitive and aggressive, while girls are raised to be more gentle and nurturing.

Philippe Put – Fight – CC Past two.0.

Two decades later, that challenge withal remains.

Symbolic Interactionist Explanations

Because symbolic interactionism focuses on the means people gain from their social interaction, symbolic interactionist explanations attribute deviance to various aspects of the social interaction and social processes that normal individuals feel. These explanations help u.s. understand why some people are more probable than others living in the same kinds of social environments. Several such explanations exist.

Differential Association Theory

One pop prepare of explanations, often chosen learning theories, emphasizes that deviance is learned from interacting with other people who believe information technology is OK to commit deviance and who frequently commit deviance themselves. Deviance, then, arises from normal socialization processes. The most influential such explanation is Edwin H. Sutherland's (1947) differential association theory, which says that criminal behavior is learned by interacting with shut friends and family members. These individuals teach u.s.a. not only how to commit various crimes only too the values, motives, and rationalizations that we need to adopt in guild to justify breaking the law. The before in our life that we associate with deviant individuals and the more often we do so, the more likely nosotros become deviant ourselves. In this way, a normal social procedure, socialization, can pb normal people to commit deviance.

Sutherland's theory of differential association was one of the nearly influential sociological theories ever. Over the years much research has documented the importance of adolescents' peer relationships for their archway into the world of drugs and malversation (Akers & Sellers, 2008). However, some critics say that not all deviance results from the influences of deviant peers. Still, differential association theory and the larger category of learning theories it represents remain a valuable approach to agreement deviance and crime.

Labeling Theory

If we arrest and imprison someone, nosotros hope they will exist "scared straight," or deterred from committing a crime once more. Labeling theory assumes precisely the opposite: it says that labeling someone deviant increases the chances that the labeled person will continue to commit deviance. Co-ordinate to labeling theory, this happens because the labeled person ends upwardly with a deviant self-paradigm that leads to even more deviance. Deviance is the event of being labeled (Bohm & Vogel, 2011).

This effect is reinforced past how club treats someone who has been labeled. Research shows that job applicants with a criminal tape are much less likely than those without a record to exist hired (Pager, 2009). Suppose you had a criminal record and had seen the mistake of your ways but were rejected by several potential employers. Do you recollect you lot might be merely a lilliputian frustrated? If your unemployment continues, might you lot think nearly committing a crime once more? Meanwhile, you want to see some police force-abiding friends, and then you go to a singles bar. You first talking with someone who interests y'all, and in response to this person's question, you say you are between jobs. When your companion asks about your last job, you reply that you lot were in prison for armed robbery. How exercise y'all think your companion will react later on hearing this? As this scenario suggests, existence labeled deviant can brand information technology difficult to avert a continued life of deviance.

Labeling theory likewise asks whether some people and behaviors are indeed more likely than others to acquire a deviant characterization. In particular, information technology asserts that nonlegal factors such equally appearance, race, and social class touch on how often official labeling occurs.

Labeling theory assumes that someone who is labeled deviant volition be more likely to commit deviance equally a result. One problem that ex-prisoners face subsequently being released dorsum into society is that potential employers do non desire to rent them. This fact makes it more than likely that they will commit new offenses.

William Chambliss's (1973) classic analysis of the "Saints" and the "Roughnecks" is an fantabulous instance of this argument. The Saints were eight male loftier-school students from heart-grade backgrounds who were very delinquent, while the Roughnecks were half dozen male students in the aforementioned high schoolhouse who were also very delinquent only who came from poor, working-class families. Although the Saints' behavior was arguably more than harmful than the Roughnecks', their actions were considered harmless pranks, and they were never arrested. After graduating from loftier schoolhouse, they went on to college and graduate and professional schoolhouse and concluded upwards in respectable careers. In contrast, the Roughnecks were widely viewed as troublemakers and often got into trouble for their behavior. As adults they either ended up in low-paying jobs or went to prison.

Labeling theory's views on the effects of being labeled and on the importance of nonlegal factors for official labeling remain controversial. However, the theory has greatly influenced the study of deviance and offense in the terminal few decades and promises to practise so for many years to come.

Key Takeaways

• Both biological and psychological explanations assume that deviance stems from problems arising inside the individual.
• Sociological explanations attribute deviance to various aspects of the social environment.
• Several functionalist explanations be. Durkheim highlighted the functions that deviance serves for society. Merton's strain theory assumed that deviance among the poor results from their inability to achieve the economic success so valued in American society. Other explanations highlight the role played by the social and concrete characteristics of urban neighborhoods, of deviant subcultures, and of weak bonds to social institutions.
• Conflict explanations assume that the wealthy and powerful utilize the legal system to protect their own interests and to keep the poor and racial minorities subservient. Feminist perspectives highlight the importance of gender inequality for crimes confronting women and of male socialization for the gender difference in criminality.
• Interactionist explanations highlight the importance of social interaction in the commitment of deviance and in reactions to deviance. Labeling theory assumes that the labeling process helps ensure that someone will continue to commit deviance, and it also assumes that some people are more likely than others to be labeled deviant because of their appearance, race, social grade, and other characteristics.

For Your Review

1. In what of import way do biological and psychological explanations differ from sociological explanations?
2. What are whatever ii functions of deviance according to Durkheim?
3. What are any 2 criminogenic social or physical characteristics of urban neighborhoods?
4. What are any ii assumptions of feminist perspectives on deviance and crime?
5. According to labeling theory, what happens when someone is labeled equally a deviant?

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Source: https://open.lib.umn.edu/sociology/chapter/7-2-explaining-deviance/

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