Deviance as a Social Problem - Essay Example

? Deviance Affiliation) According to sociologists deviance refers to an individual or groups behavior which does not comply with the norms and regulations of the society (Giddens, 2006, p.794). Sociologists believe that study of deviance is not limited to an individual’s behavior or judgments; they believe that deviance is even a part of group process and group’s behavior and judgments. Sociologists even believe that deviance in different societies have different meanings or view points of deviance and what is considered as a deviant behavior in a particular society might not be considered as deviant behavior in another society. Deviance has been defined differently by different sociological perspectives. Deviance is considered negative for the society, but the functionalist theorists have a different perspective of deviance. Functionalist theorist believe that deviance helps in strengthens the society and members of a society learn about what are non-deviant and deviant behaviors due to occurrence of deviance. According to Durkheim, deviance helps in creating cohesion in a particular society and helps in building solidarity in people of a particular society (Ferrante, 2008, p.177). Structural strain theory of Robert Merton states that each society has established certain goals and the society has even defined the method of attaining these goals. He believes that if the methods established to achieve these goals are not enough to obtain these goals, the probability of deviant behavior occurring will increase. For example: A goal established by any society such as the US is to achieve economic success, and the method to achieve this goal is by gaining education and finding a suitable job. But everybody does have access to good education and job, thus people use deviant methods to achieve these goals. The deviant behavior that might occur in order to accomplish society’s goal of success may be theft, prostitution and killing. Travis Hirschi’s theory of social control states that a parson is likely to conduct deviant behavior if his attachment with his society is weak. The theory suggests that individual’s in a society want to be attached with their society and they conform to the norms of the society and they act as they are expected to act. This theory even states that if an individual does not conform to the norms of his society, the likelihood of deviant behavior occurring is quite high. Conflict theories suggest that deviance is a result of social inequality; Karl Marx believes that there is a particular class that is dominant enough because they are controlling society’s major portion of the resources and they exercise power to ensure that rules and regulations are made to support their power (Mooney, 2011, p.116). The theory further states that while major portion of the resources are under the control of certain individual, other individuals have fewer amounts of resources and they have to conduct crime in order to live their lives. This theory clearly shows that the level of crime rate and criminal activities is higher amount the poor part of the society. This theory shows that individuals who do not have enough wealth indulge in various criminal activities such as drug selling, prostitution, robbery. Conflict theorists even suggest that the wealthy people of the society who own more resources even indulge in criminal activities but they are not always arrested or held responsible for these activities as they use their power and resources to hide their deviant activities. On the other hand the poor ones are majority of the time held responsible as they do not have the required resources to hide their deviant activities. Conflict theorists believe that organizations are committing corporate crimes; they state that organizations earn higher profits on the expense of poor people. Conflict theorists believe that organizations are involved in elite deviance, elite deviance is a term used for the mal practices conducted by the powerful individuals of a society. The mal practices conducted by these individuals and organizations include: tax evasion, an accounting fraud. These crimes and deviant activities are even recognized as white collar crimes. The conflict theorists even argue that law and legal system of a society are there to safeguard the interest of the prominent groups in the society. Conflict theorists state that the poor individuals of a society are manipulated and they have to conform to the rich sector of a society. Conflict theorists believe that behavior of poor individuals is directed and changed by powerful individuals of the society. If the poor individuals of the society fail to comply with the norms set by the prominent individuals of the society, they are considered as deviant and they are held responsible by the court of law for these activities. The conflict theorist’s perspective of deviance clearly shows that deviance is dependent on power and resource inequality. According to Symbolic Interaction theories, deviance is defined by what people perceive about certain behaviors. According to W. I. Thomas deviant behavior is a response to various situations people find themselves in. According to the differential association theory of Symbolic Interaction, deviant behavior is learned when an individual interacts with others. According to Sutherland, people learn deviant behavior from the groups they belong to. If an individual is a part of a group that does not teaches its members about obeying the law and rather teaches them about disobeying the law, the members of this group will indulge in deviant or unlawful activities. For example: if an individual is a member of a criminal group and the groups norms are against the law, the probability that the individual conduct deviant activities is high. This shows that it is not necessary that a child has to be born from a deviant background to conduct deviant activities, this rather shows that an individual learn about deviant behavior and conduct deviant activities from its peers. According to the labeling theory provided Symbolic Interaction theorists, a person or his activities are labeled as deviant by the social agents (Prus, 1996, p.82). This means that the activities conducted by an individual are not considered as deviant as long as those activities are labeled as deviant by others. This theory has a link with the conflict theory that states that people having power and resources define what deviant behavior is and who is indulged in deviance. For example: If the police, law enforcement agencies and justice system label somebody as deviant, then that individual will be recognized as deviant. The labeling theory further states that once an individual is recognized as deviant, removing that label is very complex. For example: if an individual is recognized as killer by the court of law, he will always be considered as a court of law even if he has not conducted a crime or even if he appeals again and again against the verdict of the court of law. When an individual is labeled as deviant, he does not only experiences problems in getting that label removed but he faces further problems due to that label. When an individual is considered as a wrong doer, he is not accepted by the society, organizations do not want to hire him and people who are not considered deviants are not ready to socialize with him. All these practices and difficulties created by the society does not allow the individual to change is label and this increases the probability of the individual conducting deviant activities. Deviance is a social problem and people who do not have enough resources or power are mostly recognized as deviant even if they have or have not conducted any deviant activities. The justice system is exploited by those who have resources and people who are not really criminals are recognized as criminals. Bibliography 1. Giddens, A., & Griffiths, S. (2006). Sociology. Cambridge, UK [u.a.: Polity Press 2. Ferrante, J. (2008). Sociology: A global perspective. Belmont, Calif: Thomson Wadsworth. 3. Mooney, L. A., Knox, D., & Schacht, C. (2011).Understanding social problems. Belmont, Calif: Wadsworth Cengage Learning 4. Prus, R. C. (1996). Symbolic interaction and ethnographic research: Intersubjectivity and the study of human lived experience. Albany: State University of New York Press. Read More