SOCIAL CONTROL AND DEVIANCE:Crime, Deviants, Stigma, Labeling

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Introduction to Sociology SOC101

Lesson 16

SOCIAL CONTROL AND DEVIANCE

Every group within society, and even human society itself, depends on norms for its existence. These very

norms make social life possible by making behavior predictable. We can count on most people most of the

time to meet the expectations of others. As a result there is some kind of social order in the society.

Social order is a group's usual and customary social arrangements, on which members depend and on

which they base their lives. Without social order there is likely to be chaos.

Social Control

Every society or group develops its mechanism for making its members to obey the norms for the smooth

functioning of its life. These are the attempts of society to regulate people's thoughts and behavior. This

process, may be formal or informal, is referred to as social control. Hence social control is a group's formal

and informal means of enforcing its norms.

Deviance

Sociologists use the term deviance to refer to the violation of norms. How a society defines deviance, which is

branded as deviant, and what people decide to do about deviance all have to do the way society is organized.

Hence:

... it is not the act itself, but the reactions to the act, that makes something deviant.

In other words, people's behavior must be viewed from the framework of the culture in which that takes

place. Therefore it is group's definition of behavior, not the behavior itself that makes it deviant.

Perhaps everybody violates the norms of society, but every violation may not be defined as deviance. So

"what is deviance", is the creation of the society i.e. an act to which people responds negatively is deviance.

Social creation of deviance and crime is also called social construction of deviance and crime.

The preceding discussion can also be called as "relativity of deviance." An act, which is called deviance by one group in

one culture, is considered as praise worthy by another group in another culture. Similarly what is deviance

at one time may not be considered so at another time. Look at somebody who is called by one group as a

terrorist and by another as a freedom fighter. Sociologists usually use the term deviance non-judgmentally

The concept of deviance can be applied to individual acts and to the activity of groups.

Deviant group behavior may result in deviant sub-culture.

Crime

Crime is the violation of norms that are written into law. An act approved in one group may be a crime

punishable by death in another group, which suggests the cultural relativity of crime. Look at honor killing,

homosexuality, polygamy, and cousin marriages; these are all examples of cultural relativity of crime. Acts of

suicide bombers may be considered as positive (acts of bravery) in one situation and negative in another.

Deviance and crime are not synonymous but these may overlap. In fact deviance is much broader than

crime because it can apply to all those acts, which violate the norms of society; norms may be unwritten.

The crimes are such acts that violate those norms that are enacted into the laws of society with special

agencies for their enforcement.

Deviants:

Deviants are those people who violate the norms and rules of society. People usually react negatively against

such violations.

Introduction to Sociology SOC101

Stigma:

To be considered as deviant, a person may not have to do anything. Sociologist Erving Goffman used the

term stigma to refer to attributes that discredit people. These are the "blemishes" that discredit a person's

claim to a "normal" identity. Without the choice of a person these are the violations of norms of ability

(maazoor i.e. handicapped due to blindness, deafness, mental disability), and norms of appearance (facial

birthmark, obesity). It can also be involuntary membership in groups such as relatives of criminals or

victims of AIDS. The stigma becomes a person's master status, defining him or her as deviant.

A stigma operates as a master status overpowering other aspects of social identity so that a person is

discredited in the minds of others, becoming socially isolated, and may start following a deviant behavior.

In this perspective, as individuals develop a stronger commitment to deviant behavior they typically acquire

a stigma, a powerfully negative label that greatly changes a person's self-concept and social

identity.

Juvenile Delinquency

Juvenile delinquency refers to the violation of legal standards by the young. Who is young is again a relative

concept and has social construction. Nevertheless, it is defined under the law of the country.

Labeling

Labeling implies giving "bad-name" (budnaam) to individuals. It implies that the labels people are given affect

their own and others' perceptions of them, thus channeling their behavior either into deviance or into

conformity.

A labeling theory has been developed by Howard Becker, under which there is an assertion that deviance and

conformity result not so much from what people do as from how others respond to those actions.

Some people are tagged with a negative social label that radically changes a person's self-concept and social

identity. This very label could act as a `master status' as discussed earlier.

No act is intrinsically deviant; it is the people's creation. In fact it is the creation of people in power, who

impose the labels (categories of deviance). Deviant behavior is behavior that people so label. Individual accepts the

label and acts accordingly.

Labeling a child as delinquent is actually stigmatizing him as criminal, and resultantly he is likely to be

considered as untrustworthy. Society isolates him and he gets isolated.

Primary and Secondary Deviation

The action that provokes only slight reaction from others and has little effect on a person's self-concept is

primary deviance. For example skipping school or initial act of stealing may be ignored. But when people

notice some one's deviance and make something of it and give a label on repeated violations, may be as a

reaction the person repeatedly violates a norm and begins to take on a deviant identity. This may be called

as secondary deviation.

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