Who decides what counts as deviant? Learn the language of crime, punishment and social control.
These terms were extracted from Introduction to Sociology – 2nd Canadian Edition by William Little, eCampusOntario (originally published by BCcampus, 2016) which is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Based on Introduction to Sociology by OpenStax (© 2013 Rice University), licensed under CC BY 3.0.
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The involvement of Aboriginal communities in the sentencing of Aboriginal offenders.
Aboriginal sentencing circles involve victims, the community, and elders in deciding with offenders how to heal the harm done.
Offenders serve a conditional sentence in the community, usually by performing some sort of community service.
Many non-custodial sentences involve community-based sentencing, in which offenders serve a conditional sentence in the community, usually by performing some sort of community service.
A means of social control that obliges an offender to pay a victim to compensate for a harm committed.
Compensatory social control obliges an offender to pay a victim to compensate for a harm committed.
A means of social control that reconciles the parties of a dispute and mutually restores harmony to a social relationship that has been damaged.
Conciliatory social control aims to reconcile the parties of a dispute and mutually restore harmony to a social relationship that has been damaged.
Serious acts of deviance about which there is near-unanimous public agreement.
The most serious acts of deviance are consensus crimes about which there is near-unanimous public agreement.
Acts of deviance that may be illegal but about which there is considerable public disagreement concerning their seriousness.
Conflict crimes are acts like prostitution or smoking marijuana, which may be illegal but about which there is considerable public disagreement concerning their seriousness.
A theory that states social control is directly affected by the strength of social bonds and that deviance results from a feeling of disconnection from society.
Control theory asks why most people do not commit crimes, pointing to the social bonds that tie them to family, school and work.
Crime committed by white-collar workers in a business environment.
White-collar or corporate crime refers to crimes committed by corporate employees or owners in the pursuit of profit or other organization goals.
The system tasked with supervising individuals who have been arrested, convicted, or sentenced for criminal offences.
The corrections system, more commonly known as the prison system, is tasked with supervising individuals who have been arrested, convicted, and sentenced for a criminal offence.
A system that has the authority to make decisions based on law.
A court decides whether an accused person is guilty and what sentence they should receive.
A behaviour that violates official law and is punishable through formal sanctions.
A crime is therefore an act of deviance that breaks not only a norm, but a law.
Crimes committed as ways in which individuals cope with conditions of oppression and inequality.
As a result of inequality, many crimes can be understood as crimes of accommodation, or ways in which individuals cope with conditions of oppression (Quinney, 1977).
An organization that exists to enforce a legal code.
Critical sociologists do not see the normative order and the criminal justice system as simply neutral or “functional” with regard to the collective interests of society.
Looks to social and economic factors as the causes of crime and deviance.
Critical sociology looks to social and economic factors as the causes of crime and deviance.
Theory that suggests conformity to the prevailing cultural norms of lower-class society causes crime.
Social disorganization theory, strain theory, and cultural deviance theory represent three functionalist perspectives on deviance in society.
A violation of contextual, cultural, or social norms.
This is a tradition that goes back to 19th century positivist approaches to deviance, which attempted to find a biological cause for criminality and other types of deviant behaviour.
A theory that states individuals learn deviant behaviour from those close to them, who provide models of and opportunities for deviance.
His conclusions established differential association theory, stating that individuals learn deviant behaviour from those close to them who provide models of and opportunities for deviance.
Detailed continuous training, control, and observation of individuals to improve their capabilities.
The chief components of disciplinary social control in modern institutions like the prison and the school are surveillance, normalization, and examination (Foucault, 1979).
Women (or other categories of individual) who break both laws and gender (or other) norms.
Women who are regarded as criminally deviant are often seen as being doubly deviant.
The use of tests by authorities to assess, document, and know individuals.
The chief components of disciplinary social control in modern institutions like the prison and the school are surveillance, normalization, and examination (Foucault, 1979).
Norms based on everyday cultural customs like etiquette.
According to sociologist William Graham Sumner (1840–1910), deviance is a violation of established contextual, cultural, or social norms, whether folkways, mores, or codified law (1906).
Sanctions that are officially recognized and enforced.
Formal sanctions, on the other hand, are ways to officially recognize and enforce norm violations.
Practices by which individuals or organizations seek to govern the behaviour of others or themselves.
Codified laws are norms that are specified in explicit codes and enforced by government bodies.
Attacks based on a person’s race, religion, or other characteristics.
Miloszewski, 1999).Attacks motivated by hate based on a person’s race, religion, or other characteristics are known as hate crimes.
Sanctions that occur in face-to-face interactions.
That doesn’t mean picking your nose in public won’t be punished; instead, you will encounter informal sanctions.
The ascribing of a deviant behaviour to another person by members of society.
Labelling theory examines the ascribing of a deviant behaviour to another person by members of society.
Norms that are specified in explicit codes and enforced by government bodies.
According to sociologist William Graham Sumner (1840–1910), deviance is a violation of established contextual, cultural, or social norms, whether folkways, mores, or codified law (1906).
Codes that maintain formal social control through laws.
Within these systems of norms, societies have legal codes that maintain formal social control through laws, which are rules adopted and enforced by a political authority.
A label that describes the chief characteristic of an individual.
Secondary deviance can be so strong that it bestows a master status on an individual.
An individual or group who, in the service of its own interests, publicizes and problematizes “wrongdoing” and has the power to create and enforce rules to penalize wrongdoing.
One way in which certain activities or people come to be understood and defined as deviant is through the intervention of moral entrepreneurs.
An expanding cycle of deviance, media-generated public fears, and police repression.
One of the tactics used by moral entrepreneurs is to create a moral panic about activities, like marijuana use, that they deem deviant.
Serious moral injunctions or taboos that are broadly recognized in a society.
According to sociologist William Graham Sumner (1840–1910), deviance is a violation of established contextual, cultural, or social norms, whether folkways, mores, or codified law (1906).
Punishments for violating norms.
Negative sanctions are punishments for violating norms.
Strategies of social control that identify, classify, and manage groupings of offenders by the degree of risk they represent to the general public.
New penology strategies seek to regulate levels of deviance, not intervene or respond to individual deviants or the social determinants of crime.
Crimes that involve the destruction or theft of property, but do not use force or the threat of force.
Nonviolent crimes involve the destruction or theft of property, but do not use force or the threat of force.
The process by which norms are used to differentiate, rank, and correct individual behaviour.
The chief components of disciplinary social control in modern institutions like the prison and the school are surveillance, normalization, and examination (Foucault, 1979).
A society that uses continual observation, discipline, and correction of its subjects to exercise social control.
Foucault describes disciplinary social control as a key mechanism in creating a normalizing society.
The difference between the proportion of an identifiable group in a particular institution (like the correctional system) and their proportion in the general population.
Although black Canadians are a smaller minority of the Canadian population than Aboriginal people, they experience a similar problem of overrepresentation in the prison system.
Jeremy Bentham’s “seeing machine” that became the model for the ideal prison.
In 1791, Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) published his book on the ideal prison, the panopticon or “seeing machine.”
A means of social control that prohibits certain social behaviours and responds to violations with punishment.
Penal social control functions by prohibiting certain social behaviours and responding to violations with punishment.
The network of institutions that create and exclude inter-generational, criminalized populations on a semi-permanent basis.
Some researchers have spoken about a penal-welfare complex to describe the creation of inter-generational criminalized populations who are excluded from participating in society or holding regular jobs on a semi-permanent basis (Garland, 1985).
A civil force in charge of regulating laws and public order at a federal, state, or community level.
While we may never encounter the police for breaking a law, if we work, go to school, or end up in hospital, we are routinely subject to disciplinary control through most of the day.
Rewards given for conforming to norms.
Positive sanctions are rewards given for conforming to norms.
A small group of wealthy and influential people at the top of society who hold the power and resources.
In his book The Power Elite (1956), sociologist C. Wright Mills (1916-1962) described the existence of what he dubbed the power elite, a small group of wealthy and influential people at the top of society who hold the power and resources.
A violation of norms that does not result in any long-term effects on the individual’s self-image or interactions with others.
Primary deviance is a violation of norms that does not result in any long-term effects on the individual’s self-image or interactions with others.
A personality disorder characterized by anti-social behaviour, diminished empathy, and lack of inhibitions.
Psychopathy and sociopathy both refer to personality disorders that involve anti-social behaviour, diminished empathy, and lack of inhibitions.
The singling out of a particular racial group for extra policing.
A survey revealed that blacks in Toronto are subject to racial profiling by the police, which might partially explain their higher incarceration rate (Wortley, 2003).
The likelihood for people to be arrested again after an initial arrest.
In particular, first time offenders who are sent to prison have higher rates of recidivism than similar offenders sentenced to community service (Nieuwbeerta, Nagin, & Blockland, 2009).
Focuses on establishing a direct, face-to-face connection between the offender and the victim.
A version of community-based sentencing is restorative justice conferencing, which focuses on establishing a direct, face-to-face connection between the offender and the victim.
The means of enforcing rules.
One means of enforcing rules are through sanctions.
A change in a person’s self-concept and behaviour after his or her actions are labelled as deviant by members of society.
Sometimes, in more extreme cases, primary deviance can morph into secondary deviance.
After an initial victimization, secondary victimization is incurred through criminal justice processes.
This had excluded spousal sexual assault as a crime and had also exposed women to secondary victimization by the criminal justice system when they tried to bring charges.
Collection of data acquired using voluntary response methods, such as questionnaires or telephone interviews.
A self-report study is a collection of data acquired using voluntary response methods, based on telephone interviews.
Strategies of social control that redesign spaces where crimes or deviance could occur to minimize the risk of crimes occurring there.
Similarly, situational crime control redesigns spaces where crimes or deviance could occur to minimize the risk of crimes occurring there (Garland, 1996).
The regulation and enforcement of norms.
All societies practise social control, the regulation and enforcement of norms.
Deviant acts that are not illegal but are widely regarded as harmful.
Social deviations are acts like abusing serving staff or behaviours arising from mental illness or addiction, which are not illegal in themselves but are widely regarded as serious or harmful.
Theory that asserts crime occurs in communities with weak social ties and the absence of social control.
Social disorganization theory, strain theory, and cultural deviance theory represent three functionalist perspectives on deviance in society.
Acts that violate social norms but are generally regarded as harmless.
Finally there are social diversions like riding skateboards on sidewalks, overly tight leggings, or facial piercings that violate norms in a provocative way but are generally regarded as distasteful, or for some cool, but harmless.
An arrangement of practices and behaviours on which society’s members base their daily lives.
The underlying goal of social control is to maintain social order, an arrangement of practices and behaviours on which society’s members base their daily lives.
A personality disorder characterized by anti-social behaviour, diminished empathy, and lack of inhibitions.
Psychopathy and sociopathy both refer to personality disorders that involve anti-social behaviour, diminished empathy, and lack of inhibitions.
A theory that addresses the relationship between having socially acceptable goals and having socially acceptable means to reach those goals.
Social disorganization theory, strain theory, and cultural deviance theory represent three functionalist perspectives on deviance in society.
Crime committed by average people against other people or organizations, usually in public spaces.
In the United States it has been estimated that the yearly value of all street crime is roughly 5 percent of the value of corporate crime or “suite crime” (Snider, 1994).
Various means used to make the lives and activities of individuals visible to authorities.
The chief components of disciplinary social control in modern institutions like the prison and the school are surveillance, normalization, and examination (Foucault, 1979).
A means of social control that uses therapy to return individuals to a normal state.
Therapeutic social control involves the use of therapy to return individuals to a normal state.
Centred on healing and building community rather than retribution.
The emphasis is on forms of traditional Aboriginal justice, which centre on healing and building community rather than retribution.
The notion that women lie about sexual assault out of malice toward men and women will say “no” to sexual relations when they really mean “yes”.
In particular, feminists challenged the twin myths of rape that were often the subtext of criminal justice proceedings presided over largely by men (Kramar, 2011).
Activities against the law that do not result in injury to any individual other than the person who engages in them.
An often-debated third type of crime is victimless crime.
Based on the use of force or the threat of force.
In 1999, 71 percent of violent crimes in Canada did not involve any weapon (Miljan, 2001).
Crimes committed by high status or privileged members of society.
PricewaterhouseCoopers reports that 36 percent of Canadian companies were subject to white-collar crime in 2013 (theft, fraud, embezzlement, cybercrime).
Areas within the city characterized by high levels of migration, social diversity, and social change.
They were particularly interested in the zones of transition between established working class neighbourhoods and the manufacturing district.