Deviant Behavior

Crime, Conflict, and Interest Groups

Charles H. McCaghy, Timothy A. Capron, J.D. Jamieson, Sandra Harley H. Carey

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317348764
• Edition: 8
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

Using the framework of interest group conflict, this text combines a balanced, comprehensive overview of the field of deviance with first-hand expertise in the workings of the criminal justice system. Deviant Behavior, Seventh Edition, surveys a wide range of topics, from explanations regarding crime and criminal behavior, measurement of crime, violent crime and organizational deviance, to sexual behavior, mental health, and substance abuse. This new edition continues its tradition of applying time-tested, sociological theory to developing social concepts and emerging issues.

PART ONE

The Concept of Deviant Behavior

Throughout the history of human civilization, the concept of deviant behavior has remained dynamic. This text attempts to examine the fact that deviance as a concept is subject to many changes that are dependent on time, place, and the influence of those who may impose a label of deviance. The first three chapters provide theoretical perspectives on deviance. We ask the question, “Who is deviant?” and answer it by discussing perspectives that attempt to explain deviant behavior.

Chapter 1 discusses the classical school of criminology theory and the observation that deviance is a choice, made by a rational individual. This is in marked contrast to the positivist school, which is presented next. Positivists place an emphasis on determinism, on factors beyond the control of the individual. Chapter 2 then expands on this determinism by stressing explanations such as economic determinism, social structural theories, subcultural explanations, and control theory. Chapter 3 revisits the production of deviance and examines labels and interest group conflicts. By the end of this section, students will recognize that deviance is not a fixed concept. They will also recognize that life in the United States is characterized by conflicts of interest, that interest groups exert varying influences on legislation and law enforcement, and that the more powerful interest groups use this application of law to contain those less powerful. Deviant behavior is thus a rational, learned response to social, economic, and political conditions. These deviant responses are in turn supported by learned traditions, rewards, and motives.

CHAPTER 1

Perspectives on Deviants

The Early Development of Criminal Deviance Theory

If any single factor makes human social life possible and bearable, it is the ability of human beings to predict the behavior of others. One often hears that “human behavior cannot be predicted,” but some reflection will reveal that the adage is not really true. In your daily activities you constantly behave on the basis of predictions; they provide sets of assumptions and expectations upon which to act. For example, you come to class assuming that the instructor will be there to lecture; you take notes assuming that they will be of some use in furthering your intellectual development or at least your grade average; and you answer test questions assuming that the instructor reads the responses and grades according to the degree to which your answers reflect the “truths” he or she communicated and expected you to learn.

Should the instructor fail to meet your predictions by consistently missing classes, by posing trivial or unrelated examination questions, and by assigning grades on the basis of students’ looks, you would feel cheated, all because your predictions did not materialize.

Not that all unpredictability is bad. Surprises and departures from routine are certainly welcome at times. We are concerned here with people who behave in both unexpected and unacceptable ways. What constitutes unexpected and unacceptable behavior may seem to be rather personal and individual judgments. To some extent they are, yet group life would obviously be difficult without considerable agreement among members concerning the ground rules regulating behavior. Regardless of how dedicated they may be to personal gratification, group members must operate under some constraints if the group is to survive. It is difficult to imagine any viable group in which members did whatever they wished regardless of the feelings and well-being of others. If, for example, a group of free spirits formed a ruleless community in which everyone could follow any impulse, how long would it last if a member decided to enjoy some sadism followed by cannibalistic snacks or, worse yet, refused to help with the dishes? Unless the others were extremely pliant masochists, one can safely assume that some restrictions would shortly be forthcoming.

If any group is to continue as an operating entity, there must be some agreement among members about how they shall act toward one another; and, of course, there must be at least tacit consensus about what constitutes unacceptable behavior. We aren’t necessarily consistent or logical about it, however, and our lack of consistency can have serious consequences. It is easy to envision an attractive, outgoing person making suggestive remarks at a party. The individual might acquire the social label of “flirt,” and the behavior might be categorized as playful or fun-loving. However, an ugly, unpopular person who made exactly the same remarks might be perceived entirely differently and earn the individual the label of “creep,” “pervert,” or even “stalker” or “sexual harasser.”

Even so, your ventures into the world of human relations depend on these complicated rules and the immediate consensus about them. You reasonably assume, generally on the basis of experience, that such relations will be conducted according to the rules as you understand them. In everyday life you are usually secure from unpleasant surprises. Although those about you are seeking to satisfy their own interests and appetites, their behavior is usually predictable and within acceptable limits. These rules governing human relations within social groups are what sociologists call norms. Specifically, a norm is defined as “an ideal standard of behavior to which people conform to a greater or lesser extent.”¹

But, as we know, human relations do have their unsettling moments. Some people ignore or defy the norms. They do not conform to your expectations and therefore are the source of an entire range of negative emotions such as irritation, disgust, suspicion, and even fear. They are people who are not on time, who deceive, who renege on promises, who take things that do not belong to them, who are inconsiderate, who cannot be trusted, and so on. In short, they are deviant.

Who Is Deviant?

In July 2001, Newsweek magazine carried an article by George Will² regarding a book entitled Neighbors, written by Professor Jan Gross.³ In the book Gross describes an event that occurred sixty years ago in the Polish town of Jedwabne as the invading German army occupied the area. With the consent of the German officials, the Polish residents of Jedwabne murdered almost all of the town’s 3,600 Jewish residents. Although the Germans suggested sparing some Jewish craftsmen and professional families, the Polish residents decided, in a democratic forum held by the town’s leaders, to kill all of the Jews. The mayor supervised the slaughter, which took on a “carnival” atmosphere and was attended by Poles from nearby villages along with the local residents. Of the town’s 3,600 Jews, only about a dozen escaped death. The rest were burned alive, impaled with pitchforks, killed slowly with clubs and metal hooks, or hacked to pieces.

How could people inflict such homicidal atrocities on their neighbors? These were people they had known all their lives in the small community. Although Professor Gross doesn’t answer this question directly, George Will contends that the Poles massacred the Jewish members of their community simply because they were given permission to do so. Unfortunately, what happened at Jedwabne was not an isolated incident. Deadly persecution between neighbors on a grand scale happens fairly frequently. More recently, Chinese neighbors killed each other off during Mao’s Cultural Revolution in the 1960s. In the late 1970s, young, impressionable soldiers recruited from poor rural areas by the Khmer Rouge exterminated 1.5 million of their compatriots in the “killing fields” of Cambodia. The Rwandan genocide of 1994, described in chilling detail by Alan Kuperman⁴ and others, involved several hundred thousand Hutu extremists systematically hacking their Tutsi neighbors to death in churches, in public buildings, and at road barricades. Over a half million perished. The list continues on to include Central and South Americans; Arabs and Israelis in the Middle East; and the complex, ethnicity-driven neighborhood battles between Serbs, Croats, Muslims, Bosnians, Montenegrins, Macedonians, and Albanians in the former Yugoslavia, and the continuing conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia.

In our own backyard we can observe equally disturbing events almost every day. On June 20, 2001, Andrea Yates killed her five children by drowning them one by one in the bathtub of their suburban Texas home. The victims were four boys, aged 2 to 7 years, and a 6-month-old baby girl. Autopsy reports⁵ indicated that the boys all struggled violently as they were held under water. Yates subsequently called the police and apparently told them that she thought the children were developing too slowly and so she had decided to “send them back to God.” Although Yates was convicted and sentenced, she has been granted a new trial. Many experts, including Michelle Oberman,⁶ who has written extensively on the subject of post-childbirth depression, believe that Yates was in the desperate throes of postpartum psychosis. Although a majority of women experience the “baby blues” form of mild depression following childbirth, around one in five suffer significant depression. In rare cases involving psychosis the mother loses touch with reality and may become dangerous to herself, the child, and others.⁷ The psychosis and desperation deepen if the woman believes she cannot meet society’s demands for proper parenting. Yates was perceived generally as a devoted parent, although she had a history of hospitalization and medication for depression and suicide attempts following previous births and stressful events. Clearly, her behavior was deviant and rare, but it may have been a strong manifestation of a symptom common to many mothers.

What about nonlethal forms of behavior that have traditionally been categorized as deviant? On the same day that the Yates children lost their lives, law enforcement agencies were cooperating to break up the largest commercial child pornography ring ever discovered in the United States. Hundreds of people were implicated and many arrested. On that day, millions of people around the world woke up in prison or jail for criminal behavior (or perhaps political behavior); millions viewed explicit images on pornography Web sites; millions ingested illegal drugs; and uncounted numbers were mentally ill in some way, were involved in prostitution, or were homosexual. Traditional deviant behavior, then, is quite common, and we are all probably susceptible to some of the influences associated with the different types. What could possibly make someone start murdering neighbors? Perhaps a chemical imbalance is all it takes, or a mesmerizing leader, or permission.

It is rather disturbing to think that beneath a thin, fragile veneer of civilization lurks a strong tendency to torture and kill other people when an opportunity pops up and we can get away with it. It might help to conceptualize an intricate competition for behavior. On one side are the positive influence of social learning and expectation, genetic strength, balanced chemicals in our bodies, law and leadership, and opportunity for all manner of legitimate success; on the other are genetic liabilities, ineffective socialization, abuse and neglect, stress and chemical confusion, and unlawful opportunity—all complicated by Sigmund Freud’s churning maelstrom of impulsive drives for gratification. Deviant behavior really should not surprise us. It is common. The real surprise would be finding people who had never done anything wrong.

How may we decide, academically, what and whom to classify as deviant? This seems to be a simple question. A simple answer is: The deviant is the person involved in deviance. Clearly, the Unabomber, an individual linked to 16 mail-bomb attacks that killed 3 and injured 23, is an example of what many would consider a deviant. But when the Unabomber declared that he would cease his bombing if the Washington Post and the New York Times published his manifesto, which they did, the editors of both newspapers were regarded as “deviant” and criticized by many for abetting terrorism.⁸ Deviance, according to one dictionary, means “differing from a norm or from accepted standards of society.”⁹ An introductory sociology text defines deviance as “any behavior or physical appearance that is socially challenged and condemned because it departs from the norms and expectations of a group.”¹⁰ But the question is not as simple as it sounds. We must ask, “What are the accepted standards and social expectations?” You personally know what is accepted and expected within your circle of family and friends, but what about within other social circumstances? To what degree do your notions of proper conduct match those...