Week 9-2. Introduction to Sociology/Deviance

1. Summary

Deviation is an act that violates cultural norms. Deviation is divided into two types. The first refers to crimes that violate officially enacted laws, and are called official deviation. The second refers to the violation of informal social norms, norms not classified by law, and is called informal deviation. Deviation can vary considerably from culture to culture. Deviation is also relative because cultural norms are relative.

In socialist typology, the deviant type was proposed based on two criteria. The first is the individual's motivation or compliance with cultural goals, and the second is the individual's belief in how to achieve the goal. Therefore, deviation may be the result of accepting one norm but breaking another one in pursuit of a false one. Structural functionalism argues that heterogeneity plays an important role in society for many reasons. First, deviance helps distinguish acceptable behavior from non-acceptance behavior. Second, it can promote social unification by making a deviant individual happy. Finally, thirdly, deviance is actually regarded as a means of changing society over time. Deviation behavior can lead to social imbalance and society changes on the occasion of deviance to regain equilibrium. Conflict theory argues that deviation reflects the imbalance of power. One of the most representative examples is that office crimes are generally committed by individuals of higher social classes. However, property crimes are often committed by those who need money. Labeling theory argues that deviant labels apply to them and that personal deviations occur when labels are adopted by showing behavior and attitudes associated with labels. This approach to deviance recognizes cultural relativity and recognizes that deviance can be caused by an imbalance of power. They presented an idea for the stigma.

It also talks about crime statistics. Crime statistics are generally data collected by the government for reporting criminal cases. But it is important to understand that crime statistics do not provide a perfect view of crime. Government statistics on crimes only show data on crimes reported to the authorities. Such crimes are only part of the crimes carried out by law enforcement agencies, which are only part of the crimes the police have filed complaints against, which are only part of the total number of crimes.


2. Interesting

It tells us that the United States has the third largest population in the world, while the proportion of people in prison is the highest in the world. In addition, however, the U.S. has a relatively high recidivism rate. This situation was interesting. A high proportion of the population in prison can be inferred that the punishment is so strong. I thought the recidivism rate in the United States would be low because I usually don't commit crimes out of fear if I counted the sentences. Surprisingly, however, the recidivism rate in the U.S. was high. And it was amazing when I found out that this was due to social stigma. As such, I realized that social stigma has a great influence on deviation.


3. Discuss

We have confirmed that social stigma can cause deviation. Is it wrong, then, to brand criminals socially?

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