Deviance and Difference - Term Paper Example

DEVIANCE AND DIFFERENCE Course Name Professor’s Name Institutional Affiliation City and State Where Institution is Located Date Introduction In relation to sociology, deviance describes the act that infringes the formal and informal social norms in the society. Through this, one is able to describe a behaviour that defies the set out rules and regulations of the society, the informal morals of a culture and the conventional guidelines of a society. Basically, is any thought, feeling or action that members of a social group critique to be violation of their values or regulations or group conduct and defies the meaning of appropriate and inappropriate conduct in a society system. Deviant acts are classified in two sections, formal and informal. Formal deviants are violations of the criminal law while informal acts are dictated by social norm. In addition, when informal deviance is punished, it reaffirms the position, essence and necessity to adhere to the social norms in a social system since it promotes moral awareness and social togetherness and solidarity thus creating a sense of us in the society. Different views can be used to analyse deviance. These approaches include critical realism and social construction. This essay looks into the arguments the two approaches make on deviance and how they agree and differ on matters deviance. Critical realism in difference/ deviance Critical realism brings in a different philosophical approach that interjects transcendental realism and critical naturism to create an interface between the natural and social systems. In difference, critical realism makes various assumptions, such as the fact that the world exists independently of our knowledge of it, our knowledge of the world is fallible and theory laden, social phenomena such as actions, texts and institutions are concept dependant and in order to understand social issues it is essential to evaluate them critically. Relatively, Collier (1994) notes that a critical realist sees an ontology in which the world can be differentiated to make distinction between the parameters of: the real, the actual and the empirical. ‘The real ‘subtitles to those mechanisms that generate the series of events that constitute events and experiences, ‘the actual’ which involves the events that may be or may not be experienced and ‘the empirical ‘bases only on the individual’s experience. Critical realism can be done by either right realism or left realism depending on the ontology. Right realism promotes for law and order policies. . 1Right realists believe that the law should be definite and strictly imposed and that the consequences of involvement in deviant acts should not be in form of reform rather a strict punishment should be enforced as a means of curbing deviance. The realists consider reform and treatment punishment as ineffectual. They advocate that, strict and harsh punishment deters the possibility of increment deviant cases in the future. However, 2left realism offers a diverse point of view. In this conceptual view, more emphasis is put on the essence of addressing deviant acts as people experience them. Young, (1991) says that realist of this kind shift focus from mainstream crimes and defines the effect of a formal deviant act on other humans on the same level such as the working class. This perspective attempts to measure the rate of a deviant act occurrence and provide short term solutions to it. In addition, left realist argue based on the primary causes of an act and that even though the measures, penalties and policing are essential in a society, they should be democratically controlled. Social construction in deviance/ difference Social construction is a social point of view that is used in a number of disciplinary and non disciplinary fields. Social constructionism is a part of a popular culture through which the social world’s existence relies on how human routine interactions occur. Generally the perception of social constructs identifies some characteristics of social life as significant while also differentiating features from others and acting as though they have a real concrete existence. In moderation, this concept of reality underlines that fundamental realities do exist, it further illustrates that even social constructions once created define the degree of reality. In addition, they identify that if distinct deviant acts are real, then they have real consequences too. Moreover, if human categorize behaviours, events band experiences as deviant or not, then they are bound to be affected by them positively or negatively. In social construction, there are two philosophical doctrines based on different concepts of social construction. Conventionally, the teleology includes weak social constructionism and strong social constructionism. Weak social constructionism looks at the objective of a class of languages and functional assignments of human. In weak theory all facts are institutional; this interprets the structure of institutional facts show that they universally depend on brute facts. However, critics of social constructionism think that there is no actual reality and all of reality is based on a social construct. Basically, they point out that there are no brute facts upon which social constructions are built. They major on the fact that our language and social practices majorly influence how we make good sense of that reality. On the other hand, Social constructionists share a perception that we shape our world. They ascertain that the society builds its fences in regards to specific deviant acts such as norms, behaviours and cultures. The society also creates a system that puts energy in sustaining the realities of the society. In social constructionism, the society is able to change the realities by recognizing and upholding its role in their construction. Domestic violence in Australia In recent times both men and women in Australia experience different levels of domestic violence. This form of violence is a broad formal deviant that can be defined as either the presence of abuse between current and former partners or any diverse form of abuse including physical and sexual violence, emotional abuse and economical deprivation or the unequal division of power were one has control over the other and uses violence to control and maintain it. In addition, due to the fact that domestic violence causes fear, this leads to psychological damage to the victim thus interfering with the victim’s value and quality of life. Mainly, domestic violence is on women from men in the form of sexual violence, physical violence, emotional abuse and physiological torment. To the victims, domestic violence renders them significant costs in terms of socially, emotionally and physically. In a factual study, 73% of victims have had more than one experience while 58% never sought the help of the police. In addition, the study ascertains that 62% of domestic violence cases occur within the homes which the affected victims live. This shows that all cultures devalue domestic violence, thus the laws of Australia consider it to deserve criminal prosecution. Critical realism in regards to domestic violence The views of critical realism on domestic violence vary depending on the philosophical approach in consideration. In right realism, formal deviance is viewed as real and growing problem that destroys communities, undermines social cohesion and threatens society’s work ethic. This interprets to the fact that they prefer solutions to curbing crimes offered by conservative governments. Basically, this is based on the fact that this systems of government shift focus from ways of curbing the vice to practical and workable crime control solutions. The solutions provided in realism offer control and punishment measures rather than reform and rehabilitation policies. In a right realist view, the best way to deal with domestic violence is to make it less attractive. This is done by imposing harsh measures on the proprietors of the vice. This makes potential offenders shy away from committing the deviant act. However, critics of right realism are criticising the explanations of the deviant act and the solution they offer. This philosophical theory assumes the structural causes of a crime such as domestic violence. The doctrine overlooks the offender’s logic and the factors considered by the offender before committing vices such as domestic violence. This doctrine emphasises that even though, they advocate for zero tolerance to the offender, critics show that right realism does not really reduce the crime occurrence rates. Danermark, B. et al (2006) says it overemphasises on control of a vice rather than the causes of the vice i.e. domestic violence. In moderate contrast, left realism tackles deviance in a moderate manner. In this philosophical approach, response to a vice is done in two formulations. Formula one emphasises the need to take the rising rate of a deviant act seriously while formula two underlines the essence of producing practical solutions to such heinous acts. In this case, left realism tackles domestic violence as deviant act that can be corrected or rather gradually overcome in the society. Through this philosophical approach, domestic violence can be curbed since left realist believe in the need to develop explanations to why the crime occurred and provide strategies for reducing it here and now. This is mainly fuelled by the ideology behind left realism which states that crime is indeed a real problem and the victims of crime are within the society. In a bid to analyse occurrence of domestic violence, left realism first acknowledges the increase in the rates of domestic violence over the years. This makes the doctrine’s perceive the crime to be serious while also recognising the most affected victims. In the basis of domestic violence realism identifies the victim as the woman most of the time. This enables realism to establish the root cause of domestic violence while in the meantime formulating the solutions to curb the occurrence of the vice on the woman. This is by improving both policing and control by dealing with the fundamental structural causes of a crime such as domestic violence. Left realism involves the society in policing matters, realist insist that the involvement of the public in determining the style of policing and the policing priorities is essential. Since domestic violence is a social problem, left realism would curb it by ensuring information flow between the police and the society so as to counter the lack of reporting of the vice. If correctly administered, left realism offers a reality on domestic violence and its effects on the victims. Social construction in regards to domestic violence Basically, each social norm has a social construction clarification, thus in domestic violence, through social construction one attempts to describe the construct of the crime. In a bid to elaborate more Richardson & Hazel (2002) state that social definitions of domestic violence alternate within culpability, victimization and social appropriate definitions in specific contexts. In the social constructionist perspective, criminal behaviour is a joint human enterprise between the proprietor and the victim. In addition, crime and deviance are created by human agents making distinctions, perceiving differences, engaging in behaviours, interpreting their effects and eventually passing judgments about the appropriate and inappropriate behaviour. This social system is effective as it produces a fine product of set out social do and do not’s. In the case of domestic violence, the deviant nature of some humans to lean on a violent nature arouses the need to have set guidelines. This necessitates the importance of considering how the vice is created by the society and how the society plays a role in its continuity. Through the social construction theory, the concept of domestic violence can be formulated to suggest that it is a part of a broader series of deviant behaviours. In that, those violent partners who tend to involve in it tend to also indulge in other deviant behaviours too. Moreover, indulgence in deviant behaviour at a young age predicts future domestic violence during adulthood. As Swank (2002) reports, a large number of domestically violent men tend to have a past full of violence and involvement in other deviant behaviour. However, by the use of social construction methodology and a culture of thought, the structure of the vice relies on the implementation undertaken to curb occurrence of domestic violence. It creates a rapport in which the society creates policy that foresee and guideline while also preventing the occurrence of such offences. The perspective utilizes the essentiality of predicting behaviour. In comparison to critical realism, the former is very useful to the society as it offers value for the data analyzed and predicted. Principally, social constructs believe that the society builds its fences on specific deviant matters. The society recognises its role in the social construction of realities such as domestic violence. Thus, in this way it is able to put up institutions and policies that limit the occurrence of the heinous act. Through this, social constructionism can be able to maintain and uphold the morals of the society while also offering solutions and reforms on domestic violence. Conclusion It is clear that each perspective takes it own road in matters deviance. This is well illustrated by the fact that critical realism factors in control and punishment for formal deviant acts while social constructionism faces the causes of the deviant acts such as domestic violence and seeks to make sure their occurrence is prevented. The latter introduces the use of policies and institutions to maximize non occurrence and offer reform opportunities while the former takes a high road and punishes severely the act in order to control its occurrence. It does not believe in reform and rehabilitation and mentions that the best way to prevent a deviant act is to impose heavy laws against it. Even though, the two perspectives offer different views, they both embrace the fact that the deviant acts actually have a heavy effect on the victim. Therefore it is very necessary to offer solutions that curb the rate of deviance activities. REFERNCES Collier, A (1994). Critical realism: an introduction to Roy Bhaskar's philosophy, London: Company. Julia, H (2006) Left and Right Realism, Retrieved on 12th/ 07/ 2016 www.juliahermida.com/contrealism.htm Richardson, D & Hazel, D (1999) Deserving victims? Sexual status and the Social construction of violence, The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review, Blackwell Publishers, Oxford. Stam, H. Introduction: Social construction and its critics. Theory and Psychology vol. 11 (2001). pp. 291–296. Swank, P (2002) Men’s Domestic Violence and Other Forms of Deviant Behaviour, Houston. Danermark, B & Mats, E & Liselotte, J (2006) Explaining Society: critical realism in the social sciences, London, Rutledge Young, J (1991) Left Realism and the Priorities of Crime Control, The Politics of Crime Control Pg No. 148 Read More