Deviance is Regarded as the Behavior Which is Against the Norms - Essay Example

Crime and Deviance Introduction In general deviance is regarded as the behavior which is against the norms, expectations and values of the society. Deviant behavior can change according to the different societies as norms and values of each society differ. Crime, on the other hand, is defined as any practice which is illegal and breaks the law of the state in which the person is residing. Crimes change as per the laws of the specific society and people who commit crimes are punished by the legal system (Hall, 2012, p. 43). However, there is another aspect of study in crime and deviance; the reasons why people act criminally or adopt deviant behavior. Sociologists and biologists give contradicting theories about the causes of crime and deviance. The debate of nature v nurture has been coming along since decades and still there has been no conclusion made. This paper assesses the explanation of crime and deviance along with the sociological and biological theories that talk about the causes. These theories are immensely credential and regarded as important to understand the causes and reach to solutions of improving crime and deviance in a particular society. Every society has certain social order according to which the members are expected to, and to a certain extent forced, to follow. The social order of a society is the consensus of what is good and what is bad; what is acceptable and what is unacceptable. Certain behaviors are expected from everyone living in the same society but to ensure that everyone acts in the same manner is social order. Social control is the practice which the society regulates to ensure that the behaviors of the members are acceptable and ‘good’ (Hall, 2012, p. 43). Social controls can be applied formally and informally. Formal social control is applied and enforced by the legal authorities such as the police and by law while informal social control is applied through primary and secondary socialization including family, schools, media, etc (Innes, 2003, p. 76). Crime and deviance is the breaking of unwritten norms and laws. What is counted as criminal and deviant behavior has changed between societies and over the course of time, and thus depends entirely on the social situation in which the act has taken place. For example, deviant behavior would be when a woman in an Islamic society smokes but this would not be considered as deviance in a western society as the norms and values of both societies differ in this aspect (Hall, 2012, p. 43). Thus there are many theories which explain the causes of criminal and deviant behaviors which will be analyzed in a sociological and psychological perspective. Deviance explained through biological theories suggests that people behave in a deviant way because they are biologically ill. Deviance is considered to be an illness which is the result of pathological factors that happen to specific type of people only. Theorists believe that these people are biologically born criminals and are different than the other normal people who are non-criminals. The logic lies in the fact that these individuals have a physical and mental inferiority which is why they are unable to learn or follow rules. This is what leads to their criminal behavior (Hall, 2010, p. 212). The person who first came up with this theory was Cesare Lombroso who was an Italian criminologist and introduced this theory in the mid 1800s. He was against the Classical School of thought which subjected that people behave criminally as a human nature characteristic. He rather gave the logic that people behave criminally as an inherited characteristic with which they are born. His theory was dependent on the physical constitution of the person’s body to indicate whether he is a born criminal or not. The born criminals are a result of the human evolution at an early stage and their physical development along with mental capabilities. Lombroso developed this theory after a detailed research and observation of the prisoners in Italy. He compared the physical characteristic of those prisoners with the Italian soldiers and concluded that physically, the criminals were rather different. The physical characteristics that he observed in prisoners were an asymmetry of the head or face, large ears mainly monkey-like, twisted nose, huge lips, long arms, excessive cheekbones, and excessively wrinkly skin. He gave a verdict that any person with at least five of these characteristics is marked as a born criminal. But for females the criteria was the existence of only three of these characteristics. He also believed that tattoos marked the born criminals as it showed their immortality and that they are insensitive to physical pain (Rock, 2011, p. 86). Lombroso’s theories tended to portray several weaknesses and eventually it was discovered that his research was merely presumptions based on the studies that were performed on convicted criminals only. His results were thus one sided and there was no control group used to compare the results. His research had no base to be implied to the general population. Several years later, an English physician Charles Goring, refuted Lombroso’s biological theory on the basis of his close research of the British prisoners. He examined the physical traits of the prisoners and compared them to those of Royal Engineers. Goring concluded that there were no apparent differences between both the groups and thus there was no concept of a ‘born criminal’. He published a book called The English Convict in 1913 and included all his detailed research and studies in it. He gathered data and scientifically proved that no criminal can be biologically a criminal, it is rather the environment and his free will which makes him to chose the criminal activities (Littlefield, 1919, p. 44). William Sheldon was another American psychologist who supported the biological theory of crime and deviance. He spent most of his lifetime in observing several varieties of human bodies. He gave the theory which regarded three types of human bodies: endomorphs, ectomorphs, and mesomorphs. Endomorphs are considered as soft and fat people. They have a soft body, their muscles are underdeveloped, their physique is round, and they have difficulty in losing weight. Ectomorphs are fragile and thin and their bodies are lean, flat-chested, lightly muscled, thin, and small shouldered. Mesomorphs are athletic and muscular people who have bodies shaped as an hourglass in women, and in men bodies are rather muscular, rectangular shaped, thick skin; muscles are gained easily, and have excellent postures. According to Sheldon, mesomorphs are prone to adopt criminal and deviant behaviors mostly (Ellis, 2005, p. 98). There are many social theories that have been developed over the course of time to understand why crime and deviance takes place. The structural strain theory was given by Robert Merton which is traced back to the tensions which are caused when there is a gap between the cultural goals of the society and the lack of means to achieve those goals. This theory is based on the fact that societies contain both a social and a cultural structure (Akers, 2011, p. 132). The culture tends to establish goals that the people are expected to achieve while the social structure is expected to provide the means through which the people would achieve those goals. In a society that is well-integrated and free from criminal and deviant behaviors, the members generally use the appropriate and accepted means in the society to fulfill or achieve the goals that they are expected to reach. In such societies, the goals and means are balanced. However, in societies where the goals and means are unbalanced, deviant behavior is likely to occur. An example is that the father is considered as the head of the family traditionally and is culturally expected to achieve the goal of earning a living for his family. The problem occurs when the structure of the society does not provide him the means to fulfill these goals such as unemployment, inflation, economic depression, discriminatory activities, forced labor, etc. Such problems would create an imbalance as the individual would then look for inappropriate means to fulfill his goals such as stealing, committing fraud, or other deviant or criminal activities (Akers, 2011, p. 132). According to this theory, there are different classes of people that exist in the society. Each of these categories of people takes the society structure and cultural goals in a different perspective according to which they act. There are some of them who believe that goals and the means to achieve them are both important and thus they behave according to the values and rules of the society. There may be other individuals who believe only one of them are important and the other isn’t. Some people take out their own innovative ways to fulfill those goals. There are also some people who completely reject the goals and means to achieve them and substitute these with their own new goals and means which leads to deviant and criminal behavior (Rock, 2011, p. 96). The labeling theory is the most important approach that explains crime and deviance under the sociological perspective. The theory originated in the book Suicide by Emile Durkheim. The theory was prominent in the 1960s and 1970s. Many sociologists worked towards its development but the major role was played by Howard Saul Becker with his book Outsiders which greatly influenced the development of the labeling theory and thus it rose to popularity. This theory goes on to explain that no act is naturally criminal but the definitions of crime given by the powerful groups are those which formulate the laws and their interpretations. Deviance is a process which indicates the interaction between non-deviants and deviants under the context of crime and its interpretations. The groups of the society which represent law and order forces such as the police, courts, etc are the ones who enforce these boundaries of appropriate behavior. However at the same time, they provide the source of labeling. Certain people are labeled in the society because of which the power structure of the society is reinforced. The groups that are labeled are mostly the poor, women, minority groups, etc. The society’s powerful groups tend to apply these deviant labels to the considerably lower groups (Abelius, 2011, p. 34). Frank Tannenbaum is known as the grandfather of this theory. He described the social interaction in crime and set the basis for the modern criminology. He was the one who introduced the concept of tagging or labeling which he believed that a negative tag or label would contribute in further criminal activities. Albert Memmi was a sociologist who contributed to the labeling theory by giving a deep psychological analysis of the labels or tags given by dominant groups to other groups (Abelius, 2011, p. 34). Thus, crime and deviance can be explained through various theories in the biological and sociological perspective. However, the most important theory which adequately explains and gives reasons for the crime and deviance is the social theory. The biological theories have largely been discredited in the recent times. Social theories are thus more efficient in explaining the causes of why people behave in a criminal or deviant way. References Abelius, V. 2011. Crime, Disorder, and Justice – The Labeling Theory as a Way of Explaining. USA: GRIN Verlag Akers, R. 2011. Social Learning Theory and the Explanation of Crime. USA: Transaction Publishers Ellis, D. 2005. Deviance and Crime: Theory, Research, and Policy. USA: Elsevier Hall, G. 2010. Handbook on Crime and Deviance. NY: Springer Hall, S. 2012. Theorizing Crime and Deviance: A New Perspective. UK: SAGE Innes, M. 2003. Understanding Social Control: Crime and Social Order in Late Modernity. UK: McGraw-Hill International Littlefield, W. 1919. Criminal is a Defective, but Not a Type; Conclusions from Biometrical Study of 3,000 British Convicts Discredit Lombroso’s Theory and Minimize the Influence of Environment. USA: The New York Times Magazine Rock, P. 2011. Understanding Deviance: A Guide to the Sociology of Crime and Rule-Breaking. UK: Oxford University Press Read More