Sociology of Deviance - Case Study Example

SOCIOLOGY OF DEVIANCE Sociology of deviance discusses nature, causes and consequences of deviant behavior and abnormality observed or committed by the individuals while interacting with their fellow beings on the one hand and their social surroundings on the other. Deviant behavior refers to the perversion from the norms, values, mores, taboos and laws prevailing within a social set up. Every society establishes some statutes of law as well as determines social norms and cultural values in order to keep the social structure in an adequate decorum. Social norms and laws are enforced for the smooth running of individual and collective behavior so that there could be no harm to any member of society against his will. Since society patronizes and protects the rights of individuals, it does not allow anyone jeopardize the rights of other members of society through non-conformity or deviance. Most familiar examples of nonconformity are negative instances of rule breaking, such as stealing from a campus bookstore, assaulting a fellow student, or driving while intoxicated. (Macionis, 2006) But society is not free from the breakers of social norms, religious values and moral laws prevailing in society. Rather, criminal behavior and perversion exists within every social set up, which stimulate the individuals deviate from the existing rules, regulations and authorities. The social norms and morality are the identification of the individuals of a nation. The price of toleration, George (1993) argues, of serious deviance from a society’s constitutive morality is the loss of a distinctive form of interpersonal integration in community understood as something worthwhile for its own sake. Researches have been conducted and theories have been articulated in order to estimate the motives behind deviancy. The present study has been supported by cultural transmission theory and labeling theory in the pretext of the movie under the title “Mystic River”. Both the theories, above-mentioned, elaborate deviant behavior observed by the individuals. Before embarking upon the topic under study, it would be quite appropriate to define the two theories in brief. Cultural transmission theory refers to the transfer of social norms and patterns of behavior learned by the individuals while living in social environment. The theory lays stress upon the very reality that all human actions and reactions are the outcome of the socialization process through which individuals undergo since their birth; consequently, all social behaviors are learned ones and determine the personality traits and activities of human beings. These patterns of behavior are so powerful that they overcome the natural tendencies of humans too to some extent. Hence, cultural traits are transmitted to the individuals through environment. Since deviant behavior is also the product of society, the socialization process of the individuals involved in committing crimes and observing deviancy plays vital role in their perversion. Age of the individuals, frequency of interaction and intensity of relationship between the learner and instructor are the parameters that play imperative part while leaving influence upon the thoughts and behavior of the learner. Spending more time within some specific group, adopting of the ways and norms of that group and teen age-group are imperative in turning the individuals towards delinquent behavior and perversion. (Zaidi, 2004) Similarly, the present study has been supported by the labeling theory of deviant behavior, which emphasizes upon the fact that society imposes some specific labels on the individuals keeping in view their past activities and behavior. The primary assertion of labeling theorists is that deviants are made of not what they do, but how they are defined. (Lee, 2000) The contemporary societies observe cultural amalgamation in their fold where people belonging to various racial, regional, religious, ethnic and cultural groups live and interact with one another. The same can be estimated by applying this theory to the characters depicted in the movie Mystic River, where three small boys playing hockey in a street have different personality traits in their grown age based on the divergent experiences they observe in childhood. The story of the movie revolves round Dave, Jimmy and Sean, which leads the spectators towards the abduction and subsequent sexual abuse of Dave. Dave is unable to forget his childhood memories and appears to be suffering from psychological disorder and seeks relief in alcohol. Dave maintains painful memories of childhood abuse in his subconscious, about which his friends Jimmy and Sean are well aware of. Renowned psychologist Sigmund Freud is also of the opinion that human behavior and relationships are fashioned by both conscious and unconscious effects. These effects support in shaping the personality. It is therefore sociologists and psychologists more emphatically concentrate on the impact of past occurrence on individual’s development and his performance while behaving with others. These memories of past experiences remain present in man’s sub conscious, which remain pricking him setting his mind and developing the personality traits. Freud is of the view that none of the human behaviors are accidental at all. Cultural transmission theory is determined to explore that man is in constant contact with the memories of his childhood and therefore, psychoanalyses are developed to absolutely focus on an individual’s past memories. The childhood bonds, Fairbairn argues, remain forever in mature as well as old years of man in his personality. (Quoted in Grotstein, 1994) The same is applied with Dave, Jimmy and Sean in the movie under study. Dave has been undergoing serious disturbance, which was the outcome of his molestation. The sexual abuse committed by the criminals upon Dave also affected his friends, turning Jimmy into a criminal and Sean as the detective of crimes. Zaidi (2004) has described the example of a patient, a young man of 35, who was admitted to the therapist ward for treatment, and experienced auditory, visual and tactile hallucination. He was extremely upset and used to request his therapist many times to remove unnecessary persons, sounds and articles from his ward, which actually did not exist at all. Therapist had to convince him that everything had been done all according to his instructions, which made him satisfied and happy. His history sheet revealed that he belonged to lower stratum of society in childhood. Thus, he had to go out in his childhood to involve into child labor at a motor mechanics workshop. He spent many years at the workshop and acquainted with technicalities of the work. He had to undergo child molestation in his childhood, when the owner of the workshop sexually tortured him at the age of ten. The bitter realities of that sexual harassment left indelible imprints on his mind and personality, and dragged him towards psychopathic abnormalities. The story of famous feminist activist Dorothy Alison also supports the same idea. Dorothy Allison is an illegitimate child of an unwed mother, experienced social exclusion during her childhood when she was up brought by single parent and lived in a very poor and almost intolerable atmosphere where her step-father raped her for six consecutive years from the very small age of five only. The feelings of hatred for her step-father turned into hatred for man-folk and she became flag-bearer for the feminist cause and fought for the cause of woman homosexuals. Her reaction against exclusion of women from the mainstream turned out to support a movement for the cause of lesbians in the USA. She could not forget the time when she was molested, battered and abused continuously and got so annoyed with the male gender that the feelings of liking and love for the individuals of the same sex created in her mind and heart at her teen age, the time she was entering her adolescence. Thus, social exclusion gave birth to perversion and deviant behavior. The cases above described support cultural transmission theory, which looks for the deep-rooted influences of the teen age interactions with the environment. Since Dave underwent sexual abuse in his childhood, so these bitter realities regulated his activities throughout his life turning him into an abnormal personality. It is therefore the sight of the pedophiles infuriated him so much at the night of Katie’s death that he killed a pedophile in order to save a child from sexual abuse. Dave was so upset after killing the pedophile that he could not clearly prove his innocence in Katie’s murder case, and was dishonestly killed by his friend and Katie’s father i.e. Jimmy. Similarly, the environment in which Jimmy and Sean grew has turned both these friends as suspects regarding the activities of others. Since Sean and Jimmy had experienced the abduction of Dave at the hands of fake police officers, they have developed the habit of suspecting others without sound proof, which affirms the strength of the cultural transmission theory. Jimmy’s disliking for Katie’s boyfriend may also be due to the childhood experience that forces him look at everyone with distrust and doubt. But the theory also maintains its weaknesses and flaws too, which can be compared on the basis of the developments made in the movie. Cultural transmission theory views constant interaction with some specific environment as the cause of transmission of the activities in future years to come. But neither Dave, nor Jimmy, nor Sean has been the part of the nefarious environment where the pedophiles could influence any of the three in one way or the other. In addition, since both Jimmy and Sean had no direct experience of being abducted or maltreated, they should not have turned to be in life, which they are in grown years. Jimmy’s criminal activities are not the outcome of Dave’s abduction, nor did he witness any type of child abuse. Moreover, he did not spend his time in the company of any pedophile, so his joining and starting criminal activities may be the outcome of some other experience or activity. Hence, the cultural transmission theory maintains many flaws which are apparent while making the analyses of the environment and characters of Mystic River. Taking the labeling theory in view, it becomes crystal clear that Dave has unjustifiably been blamed and labeled as the murderer of Jimmy’s daughter Katie. The detectors i.e. Sean and Whitey also label him as the killer. The labeling theory explains deviance as a social process whereby some people are able to define others as deviant. It emphasizes that the deviance is relative -- it is not until a label is given to someone by someone else in a position of social power that the person actually "becomes" a deviant. (Quoted in valdosta.edu) While analyzing the movie Mystic River, it is evident that Jimmy and Sean labeled Dave as the murderer. Even Dave’s wife suspected her husband and looked at his injured hand with great doubt. Jimmy did not let Dave clarify his position and killed him out of sheer rage and revenge for the murder of his daughter, for which he repents as soon as he comes to know the reality about Katie’s murder. There are some weaknesses of the labeling theory that stresses that constant labeling makes the labeled one as deviant, which is not the case with poor Dave, who even being the victim to the obnoxious circumstances killed the pedophile rather revenging from society for making him the victim of child abuse and pedestry. To conclude, it is fact beyond doubt that human mind is a complex phenomenon that contains countless ideas, thoughts, views and preferences regarding different things and views. It is a reality beyond suspicion that man is rebel by nature. Crime has aptly been stated as a social phenomenon, which exists in all human societies from the Paleolithic and Neolithic cultures of ancient times to the most modern ones of contemporary era. In addition, most of the crimes are consequence of victimization. It is therefore cultural transmission theory and labeling theory came into existence. But the movie under study refutes the very idea of transmission and labeling and concludes that the victim of a crime should not be blamed without sound proof, for he can be the protector of social norms and laws even he has suffered from the criminal activity in his early years. Man enters the world as a neat and clean biological organism, which learns how to behave from society by entering into continuous and constant interaction with the other members of his social arrangement. It is therefore, theorists view man’s behavior as the learnt one, which is highly supportive in his personality development and recognition of his role, position and responsibilities while interacting with his social surroundings. Hence, it is the socio-cultural background that maintains lion’s share in the growth of man’s personality and social behavior. Theorists are of the view that prevailing social norms, mores, values and activities prevailing in a community determine man’s superior and inferior habits and characteristics of head and heart shaping a biological man into the social one. Same is the case with pedophiles. REFERENCES: Allison, Dorothy. Survival is Least of My Desires. An Extract from “Skin: Talking About Sex, Class & Literature. Firebrand Books, 2005. Grotstein, James S. and Rinsley, Donald B. 1994. Fairbairn and the Origins of Object Relations. New York & London: The Guilford Press, ISBN 0-89862- pp135-6. Lee, James Daniel. Socialization and Deviance. University of South Alabama, AL 2000: 381-397 Macionis, John J. Sociology. Eleventh Edition. Pearson Prentice Hall Inc. 2007 228-229 Zaidi, M. H. Sociological and Psychological Causes of Perversion Sociological Theories To Explain Deviance (Retrieved from http://www.valdosta.edu/~klowney/devtheories.htm) http://www.uwlax.edu/Sociology/zollweg/s110exam2notes.htm Read More