Deviance, Crime And Social Control - Essay Example

?JOURNALS DEVIANCE, CRIME AND SOCIAL CONTROL As a person, I have come to realize that deviance, crime and social control are interrelated and are actually ascribed to, depending on where a person finds him or her self at a given time. This is because each part of the world has its own values and as such norms. In other words, values that I may break at location A to be regarded as a deviant may not considered values in location B and so if I engage myself in them, may not be seen as deviance. A typical example of this situation happened to be while I traveled to the Eastern part of Asia during one holiday. I traveled with my family. Due to my family upbringing, I easily hold on to my sisters, hands, easily hug her in public and give her kisses on her lips. However, while eating in a restaurant and my sister entered, I met her, hug her and gave her a kiss on her lips. Immediately, I was accosted by a middle age woman who came to confront me and attacked me for being a deviant and immoral. As referred to by Rosenham (1973), variety in setting is the cause of all of this and so I was quick to admit that once I had gone to their own land, I was supposed to play according to their rules. This not withstanding, I admit and accept the fact that there could be specific acts such as murder, which are deviant, no matter where they are committed. The most important responsibility for a person at any point in time would be to stick to what Rosenham (1973) advises, saying that we should be in a position to detect sanity based on the response that the environment gives to our actions. Cite Works Rosenham, L. David “On Being Sane in Insane Places”. (1973). 250 – 258. American Association for Advancement of Science. SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS I have always held the view that the absence of institutions would have made our social word nothing better than a jungle. This is because institutions play a very strong role in ensuring that there is orderliness and that there are agencies that can be held responsible when certain things are not going right in society. One other component of the institutions and agencies that make them highly functional is the people who control the affairs within these institutions. As noted by Mills (1956), these personnel who form the faces of the institutions are able to function effectively because they do not operate on their own by according to the dictates of power that society itself puts in their hands. But in the midst of all these, I tend to have some confusion in my mind when it comes to the utilization of powers given to these social institutions. I agree perfectly with Mills (1956) when he identifies three classes of power elite namely the corporate elite, military elite and political elite. From my personal experience as a person, I have come to have a notion that society gives so much of its powers to these people who form the basis of the power elites that the people at times rise above their powers and above the people who put them in power. A clear example of such a situation can be given in a case whereby a person uses his financial authority (corporate elite) to influence a group of military men (military elite) to win political power (political elite). Indeed, until such a time that society makes people who head its institutions realize that the power belongs to the people, there will continue to be records of such abuses of powers till it comes to a time that such abuses enter our little family social setting. Cite Works Mills, C Wright. “The Power Elite” 1956. Oxford University Press. American Association for Advancement of Science. CULTURE To the best of my opinion, culture is a depiction of the dynamism of the human race. The human race is so complicated and complex that, all people cannot be expected to behave and react in exactly the same way for the same situation that happens around them. And so in terms of features such as language, food, music, family system, and the like, there are different ways in which many different people at different parts of the world live their lives. Rightly agreeing with Glassner (1999), culture has grown beyond physical features of people to include much complicated aspects like way of thinking, understanding and feeling. It is in this new paradigm shift that the culture of fear of the people of United States can be discussed into detail. Indeed, in times past, when we talked of the culture of the United States, no one paid attention to things like fear as a topic. But in modern society, fear has become part of the culture because of the current trend of happenings. Quiet unfortunately, people in today’s social world are so desperate to succeed and have their own way into enjoying life. To this end, Glassner (1999) notes that the price that we are paying now it the outbreak of several acts of lawlessness and impunity. This is what has indeed created so much fear among the few cautious ones especially when they want to think of ways of avoiding the effects that comes with the criminal acts executed by bad people. In some cases even, other people who are engaged in lawlessness even fear their colleagues. I have a personal example of this whereby I have heard a politician who has been involved in so much corruption, expressing fear over drug dealers because if the drug dealers get a lot of money and become so powerful, they will have greater influence over society than the politician. Cite Works Glassner, Barry. “The Culture of Fear”. (1999). Why Americans are Afraid of the Wrong Things. Perseus Books Group. DUDE, YOU’RE A FAG Gender is differentiated from sex when it comes to the roles assigned to because they are either males or females. As a person, I at times wonder how it all started when it comes to the assignment of roles. For example, as to why some roles are aligned to males and not to females baffle my understanding. But what is even more worrying is the fact that some of these same roles have been greatly abused by society whereby some people are expected to act even beyond their identified roles. In the words and definition of Pascoe (2007), this is what leads to what he would call homophobia. Especially among young males in high schools and adolescents in their early ages of adolescence, they are easily influenced by their peers to come to believe that behaving in some rather negative ways is what identifies them as tough and mature. Subsequently, these guys are forced to abuse their gender and go wayward into practices like bullying among others. As these negative attitudes continue, the young adolescents come to a stage where by they think the best pals they can have are those of their same sex and thus go into homosexuality. But because the basis of these people becoming homosexuals are often considered to be questionable, Pascoe (2007) laments that it becomes difficult for others to accept them and so develop homophobia attitudes towards them. As much as I have witnessed instances of abuses against gays and I condemn them, I agree with Pascoe (2007) who admonishes that homosexuals should have a good packaging for themselves so that they can be accepted by society as people who have moral justifications to be homosexuals and not people who are merely homosexuals because they wanted to abuse other people. Cite Works Pascoe C. J. “Dude, you’re a Fag”. Adolescent Masculinity and Fad Discourse. (2007). The Regents of the University of California. MAKING IT BY FAKING IT Success is more of an inherent characteristic of persons and so as much as possible, every one really wants to be seen to be successful. In some cases, were forced to compare ourselves to others and even wish to be more successful than them. But should this ambition cause us to go out of our limits? This is a question that I have always pondered over and I am sure that I have had a lot of answers and solutions from Grandfield (1991) who outlines some of the reasons why people would do everything possible to be perceived to live a certain class of life. First, society seem to have embraced the class culture so much that, we give so much premium to who is a star, who is rich, who is popular, who is this, and who is that! Due to the general beauty and acceptance that is given to people who are supposed of the higher class, students, right from their high school days are forced to want to reach those levels. Subsequently, there comes a time that these students would fake out on what they are not to get to where they want to be. But in the best of my estimation, a decorated monkey is still a monkey. Class stratification should be an internal issue and so as much as possible, if you deceive yourself to be there when you are not; you would have no inner satisfaction. I will give a personal advise to all young men and women to wish to be great but as much as possible, if they would have any measure of their greatness, it should be a measure of what their potentials of achievements are and not according to what their colleagues have earned in life. Cited Works Grandfield, Robert Journal of Contemporary Ethnology. Vol 20 No. 3. P 331 – 351. (1991). Sage Publication. FAMILY FOOD MEMORY NARRATIVE The food people eat changes with their age and location. It is common that toddlers would eat a lot of liquid food because they have no grown teeth. For adults of ages 18 to 30 years, meal time is a pleasurable time because it is a whole adventure that comes with so much to remember. It is with such pleasure that I present this present personal family food memory as a 28 year old Chinese American female. A typical Chinese American as I am Chinese chicken salad and Hulatang are some of the meals that I admire most. Indeed, this is because of the high levels of nutrients that Chinese chicken salad and Hulatang carry and the ability of these nutrients to keep the young woman like myself healthy and going in a day. As a 28 year old Chinese American lady, I am aspiring to be the housekeeper of my own family and so use the meal time with my family as a preparatory ground for the family I am intending to keep myself. I also have a lot of say when it comes to discussing family issues at the meal. This privilege is give to me because I am one of the eldest among my siblings and have so much personal experiences about issues of social life, which they do not know about. So how can a young woman ever forget some of the memorable moments at table such as etiquettes in serving food, eating, and leading family discussions? As a person who would be doing all the cooking one day in my own Chinese American home needs to know how it is all done so that I will not fumble when I am supposed to take charge. So all I can sum up in saying is that food memory is a necessary schooling time for me. Cite Works Gardener, F. Thomas. “Family Encounters as Nurturing for Future Lords.” Oxford Press Journals on Family Culture. Vol 3 No. 5 (2004). Oxford University Press. Read More