Social Deviance and Social Control - Theoretical Perspectives

Social Deviance and Social Control – Theoretical Perspectives

Social deviance may be looked at as an individual’s behavior or actions that do not conform to the established cultural norms as observed by social audiences; hence, warranting disapproval from the social audience of the majority of the society. These violations may be formal or informal violations of social norms. The individual’s attitudes towards all human being be it females or males should be uniform under ideal social conditions. For instance, under ideal social relations conditions, it is not expected for an individual to go about exposing nudity in public, this would be observed as a deviant from the accepted social norms. There are three major perspectives as proposed by Pfohl (1994), which help in constructing and explaining the various aspects of social deviance and social control. Power relations, which are constructed socially play an essential role in shaping how people perceive and define deviance and social control (Chekroun & Brauer, 2002). This means that the subject of deviance and social control has a lot to do with political mind view. This paper analyses social deviance and social control on the perspectives: societal reaction, Classical theoretical perspective and the functionalist perspective.

Societal Reaction Perspective

The societal reaction perceptive is closely related to the labeling theory of social deviance. In this perspective, social deviance is given its essence through a process of social definition and not as an intrinsic quality of the observed act. Since the act is constructed as deviant based on the observer, it implies that this relative nature of social deviance makes it to vary from culture to culture, from time to time within the same societies and cultures and also varies based different situations. Therefore, according to this perspective, there are certain members of the society that conform and who interpret specific behaviors as deviant and react by labeling or attaching the identified label to the individuals (Chekroun & Brauer, 2002). These conforming individuals are also responsible for determining the difference between the deviant and non-deviant behavior. The societal reaction perspective thus questions the application of the identified labels to different individuals, why these individuals come up with these labels and the results of these labeling (Newman, 2003). Regardless of the label attached to some groups or individuals there are a certain characters in the society that simply resist falling within the accepted boundaries of power and hence clashing with the established historical intersections of gender, race and class (Turner, 2008). These include rebels, criminals and witches. The images created by such characters are considered as deviant and are balanced by social control.

To show that social deviance is relative as mentioned above, the book provides a juxtaposed analysis of images of deviance by artists and by scientists and establishes that even these two professions produce images of deviance that are parallel (James, 2003). This further provides strong support to the idea that societal reaction perspective’s way of identifying social deviance is relative depending on the observer’s frame of reference. Therefore, an artist will produce an image of social deviance that totally parallels the image of deviance produced by a scientist or music composer (James, 2003). This characteristic is also a profound limitation of the societal reaction perspective since it is impossible to come up with a uniformly agreeable form of social deviance that all cultures, professions or societies can unanimously accept as an image of deviance (Chekroun, & Brauer, 2002). While this perspective holds that an individual in the society conforms to what the society has labeled them to fulfill attributes of the labels like a prophecy, the negative effects of this deviant image are only shed off via proper social control.

Classical Theoretical Perspective of Social deviance and Social Control

The classical perspective of social deviance and social control was a radical upshot and deviation from the demonic theory of social deviance. According to the demonic theory of social deviance, deviant behaviors were as a result of demonic forces that to control of an individual’s ability to think rationally (Blomberg & Cohen, 2003). The classical perspective however deviated from this view and postulated that deviant behaviors are because of the calculative rationality of human reason (Baron, 2003). For this reason, social deviance was basically viewed as a rationally evaluated choice or move meant to maximize pleasure while minimizing pain. Therefore, the social order has no connection with the cosmic underpinnings but the society creates social contract between and among individuals (Blomberg & Cohen, 2003). Accordingly, if an individual steps outside the boundaries of this social contract it is considered a deviance from the accepted norms (Baron, 2003). To achieve balance, rational punishment is used for social control.

The rational forms of punishment instituted were meant to be a reminder to the individuals who exhibited deviant behaviors in the society that they had a social contract with other members of the society that obliged them to maintain social order. Preserving social order created an intersection of common interest to all (Baron, 2003). Nevertheless, while the state has a prerogative to punish, dictatorial punishments must be distinguished from the classical perspective of the punishment. This is because tyrannical rulers for their efforts to gain or retain positions of power and advantage in the society could easily misuse the sense of punishment.

One of the greatest limitations of the classical perspective of social deviance is the fact that it endeavored to control acts of deviance without considering the actors. The principle of controlling the acts of deviance without controlling the actors was problematic due to the fact that it could easily be misused by those holding positions of advantage in the society (Bursik, 2006). The theory assumes that all individuals in the society are bestowed with similar calculus of rationality based on reason and free will. Therefore, this perspective failed to consider important factors that surround deviance. These factors include the circumstances surrounding the deviance or crime and the actor’s circumstances in life.

Functionalist and Anomie Perspective of Social Deviance

The functionalist and anomie perspective provides a framework for understanding the significance of having deviance as a necessity to the society. According to this perspective, a society needs deviance by necessity in order to help in the creation of social boundaries and collective conscience that transcends any individual (Bernburg, 2002). It is therefore evident up to this point that deviance is important as it helps in creating the collective conscience and the social boundaries, which implies that it helping in developing and devising social norms. However, when social norms are non-existent at all or when the existing norms conflict, confusion is created in the social fabric of the society (Featherstone & Deflem 2003). For example, attainment of wealth is a socially approved goal in many societies (if not all). Yet, if an individual faces hurdles created by socially constructed imbalances and differences, the individual may resort to deviant ways of attaining wealth. Homophobia and paranoia are other examples of deviant behaviors that may result from an individual reaching anomie when their efforts to attain power and status are inhibited by socially constructed differences in the society. In effect, this perspective finds a lot of historical support as it can explain the trends of many deviant behaviors that historically resulted from socially constructed differences and how these deviant behaviors were important in the creation of legal mechanisms, social boundaries and collective conscience that went beyond individual, race and religion especially in the United States.

The functionalist perspective of social deviance displays the intricate relationship between deviance and conformity and attempts to dispel notion of pathology (Brinkman, 2004). Through this path, the functionalist perspective leads to appreciation of deviance to a certain level due to the functions it plays in the society since deviance is viewed as a viable way of life and thus an integral part of a normal society. Besides boundary maintenance and collective conscience, deviance plays an important role in ensuring group solidarity as individuals view each member as having common goals and objectives. This can well be explained by the working of organized crime and how it countered by the anti-crime police units. Another function is innovation and reduction of tension in the society. As a form of social deviance comes up, an innovative way must be devised for social control to be achieved (Brinkman, 2004). Therefore, with time, dynamics within the society become more complex and systems of social control also become elaborate to ensure balance and normal function of the society.

However, the functionalist perspective has its limitations too and these limitations are related to the approach the perspective has on deviance and society. One of the failures of this perspective is that it fails to ask who the target of the functional deviance is (Featherstone & Deflem 2003). In addition, this perspective assumes the objective reality of norms. By asserting the functional purpose of deviance in the normal functioning of the society, this perspective may also be seen as asserting that aspects that lead to demonstration of deviance (for instance poverty, injustice and crime) are important to the society as they serve a function in the society (Bernburg, 2002). However, as seen from the point of view highlighted above under the anomie impact, these constructs could be because of the anomies and may be doing little to serve the purported function.

One more way that functionalist perspective is criticized is through the fundamental assumptions it is based on. Through its assertion that social deviance is necessary for normal functioning of the society, it assumes that the society has a consensus on what structure of norms and values are true for everyone, and, everyone works to achieve these. To some extent, it can be seen that the perspective holds a lot of grip in that things like power, resources, status and wealth are goals for all individuals in the society and everyone strives to attain (Brinkman, 2004). However, individuals or groups of individuals have different beliefs about these vital aspects and therefore end up conflicting in their respective approaches to them.

Critics of the functionalist perspective further argue that it is impossible to attach a quantitative measure to a given social stratum and therefore the functionalist perspective is more speculative than a measurable endeavor since it suggests that patterns observed in the society serve a function because they are desirable and inevitable. How can the functional importance of each occupation in the society be measured? Can the functional importance of the occupation be represented objectively by the occupational incomes? These are some of the questions that put hard pressure on the functionalist perspective.

Reference

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