But due to poor educational achievement and low paid manual work they are unable to gain these goals. An example of this is Willis’ 12 lads and their ‘anti-school’ subculture. The strain makes working classes experience ‘status frustration’ due to the lack of power, respect and prestige that they receive and therefore they seek this through illegitimate means such as joyriding. This suggests that criminal gangs develop for more reasons than financial gain. From this it is clear that Albert Cohen agrees with the subculturalist view of crime being a collective activity.
Like the item says, 'functionalist sociologists focus on how far individuals accept the norms and values of society.' Durkheim blames people not being fully integrated into society’s norms and values as to why they commit crime. So he said once people have served their time for their crime, they should be reintegrated. It’s a strength that Durkheim suggests them being reintegrated as it means they’re less likely to reoffend if they feel they belong to their society and do not look for status through crime. However, interactionists would say that agents of social control cause crime, not the society you are in.
According to Sociology in Modules, Deviance is exhibiting behavior that violates the standards of conduct or expectations of a group or society. In other words, it violates a groups social norms. There are many different theories that explains deviance, but the one the i believe best explains deviance is, the labeling perspective of deviance. The labeling perspective of deviance does not focus on why some individuals come to commit deviant acts, according to Sociology in Modules. The labeling perspective instead attempts to explain why certain people are viewed as deviants, while others whose behavior is similar are not seen as deviants.
The malicious acts committed by Malcolm X reflect the idea that people ignore truth to conform to society. Known for having strong opinions, Malcolm X seems to be an unlikely victim of blind conformity. However, as shown in his essay, “My First Conk”, Malcolm X was victimized by this need to conform. Changing to look or behave like another because it is more desired by the public is due to a disregarding of self-claimed morals and values, an over emphasis of the media and outside opinions, and an insecurity. In “My First Conk”, Malcolm X assured that black people were being brainwashed to believe that they actually were inferior to white people, thus they conked their hair; which was a hair straightener gel made from lye popular among African-American men from the 1920s to the 1960s.
This being the case, if crimes were not committed then the crimes within a specific society would become indistinct. This suggests that if there is no punishment, then there would be no way of re-establishing the values that the crime offends. Durkheim proposes that deviancy plays an important role to the well being of society, because deviancy challenges the moral and legal establishments to act in unity for the law abiding citizens of the community. Consequently, the recognition and punishment of crime is in effect the reaffirmation of the laws and morals of a society. The existence of laws and unified strength are upheld by members of society, wherein violations of crime and deviancy are recognised, discussed and acted upon by forms of legal punishment.
Primary deviants don't tend to see themselves as deviant. However, some deviance is labelled. Secondary deviance is the result of societal reaction. Being caught and publicly labelled as a criminal can involve being stigmatised, shamed, humiliated, shunned or excluded from normal society. This can provoke a crisis for the individual's self concept.
Outline and briefly explain the term deviance [15] Deviance can be defined as a non-conformity to a given set of norms that are accepted by a significant amount of people in one given society or community. the difference between deviance and crime is that deviance are “laws/norms” set by a society or a community, this means that they are socially constructed. if these norms aren’t conformed to there are consequences such as the society showing their disapproval through social shunning and scolding, this is different to criminal consequences as they are not relative norms/laws like criminal laws they are particular to that society. for example murder is a criminal act in most places but something like spitting is seen as deviant but not criminal. Eickman offers a useful definition for deviance saying that ‘deviance is behaviour that violates the standards of conduct or expectations of a group or society’.
Cohen’s theory assured that lower class youth enter into gang delinquency as a group response to a failure to acquire status as measured by middle class norms and values. Since lower-class youths are disadvantaged in institutional settings such as school, they lack the means and opportunities to attain culturally prescribed goals. He said that working class youths suffer from status frustration, they realize that they cannot achieve in middle class terms. According to him, even though lower class boys want a middle class status; they can not compete with middle class boy because they don’t have middle class values. As a result, they engage in reaction formation and reject the middle class world.
HOW GANGS BECOME IDENTIFIED AS DEVIANT. Gang membership is considered to be deviant in our society because they violate societal norms. Norms are “established rules of behaviour or standard of conduct” (Kendall, Murray, Linden, 2003:79). Every society has its own specific behavioural expectations or norms. The majority people in society accept the norms that are set by a group of people.
Persistently irresponsible, they are impulsive violators of what are considered social norms. They disregard the feelings of others, while feeling no guilt or remorse for actions they have done (Cavadino, 1998). Because psychopathy and sociopathy are often confused, it is important to differentiate between the two types of personality disorders. What makes a sociopath separate from the psychopath is “sociopathy is not a formal psychiatric condition. It refers to patterns of attitudes that are considered to be antisocial and criminal by society at large, but are seen as normal or necessary by the subculture or social environment in which they developed” (Babiak & Hare, 2007, p. 26).