Critical Theories of Deviance 1. Conflict Theories 2. Power-Reflexive ...
Critical Theories of Deviance 1. Conflict Theories 2. Power-Reflexive Theories 3. Feminist Theories Conflict Theory of Deviance • Macro-level approach • Focus on FORMAL social control of deviant behaviour • Social order is maintained through management of conflict between different groups in society • Focus on WHO has the power to create rules that deviantize those with less power • Conflict theory of deviance includes 3 basic elements: ◦ Social rules emerge from conflict and serve the interests of society's powerful groups ◦ Members of powerful groups are less likely to break the rules because... ◦ Members of powerful groups are more likely to break the rules because... • Society is divided into groups with competing interests • Social rules emerge from this conflict • However, the dominant group organizes society in order to preserve and reproduce power • Therefore the rules serve powerful interests and deviantize those that are powerless • The goal of a conflict approach to deviance is to explain crime within economic and social contexts including: ◦ The connections among social class, crime, and social control ◦ The role of government/criminal justice system (CJS) in creating criminogenic environments ◦ Bias in the justice system ◦ The relationship between capitalism and crime rates • Karl Marx (1818-1883) ◦ Bourgeoisie (“ruling” class) and proletariat (“powerless” class) have an unequal relationship due to power differentials ◦ Marx: capitalism would result in proliferation of criminal laws to foster the interests of the bourgeoisie: ▪ Laws would prohibit behaviour that wasn't conductive to ruling class ▪ Laws would legitimize formal social control by the ruling • Friedrich Engels (1820-1895) ◦ Portrayed crime as a function of social demoralization ▪ A collapse of people's humanity reflecting a decline in society ◦ The brutality of the capitalist system turns workers into animal-like creatures ▪ Without a will of their own • Willem Bonger (1876-1940) ◦ Society is composed of ruling class and inferior class based on the system of production ◦ Laws reflect the interests of the dominant class ◦ Capitalism encourages egoism and criminality by equating status with property ◦ Capitalism creates greed --> crime! Modern Conflict Theory • Prominent during the 1960s
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Influenced by: ◦ Labelling theories ◦ Research on social inequality (racism, sexism) and social injustice ◦ Social and political upheavals of the 60s and 70s Sees crime/deviance as RATIONAL behaviour due to the nature of society
Group Conflict Theory (George Vold) • Vold: “Criminality is the normal, natural response of normal, natural human beings struggling in understandably normal and natural situations for the maintenance of the way of life to which they stand committed.” • Behaviour that conflicts with the ideology of the dominant group will be defined as deviant/criminal • Deviant behaviour often associated with an ideological clash between dominant and less powerful groups “Core Struggle” (Austin Turk) • Dominant group must convince “powerless” group that norms/rules are legitimate ◦ Coercing doesn't work • In order to convince the “powerless” of the current rules, dominant class uses: ◦ Ideology ◦ Hegemony ◦ Power ◦ Authority • Results in the “powerless” having a “False Consciousness” Instrumental Marxism (Richard Quinney) • Laws and definitions of deviance are a “tool” of the ruling class • About serving interests of those in power and criminalizing the behaviour of those with minimal power • Laws and definitions of deviance are instrumental to those making them • A “deviant” label is a means through which to control the powerless Social Reality of Crime (Richard Quinney) • Definitions of behaviour (conformity and deviance) made by authorized political agents • Deviant/criminal definitions reflect interests of powerful • Degree of threat determines mode of enforcement • Less powerful = more deviant • Media disseminates “images” of crime = consensus • Crime is “constructed” Nuts, Sluts, and Perverts (Alexander Liazos) • Fascination with individual deviants deflects our attention from social structure and “power” • Ignores “top dogs”—power holders • Sociologists should be focusing on “Covert Institutional Violence” Structural Marxism (Stephen Spitzer - 1975)
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Rules protect capitalist system Not just about protecting the “ruling class” Interests usually coincide, but ruling class is not monolithic Deviant labels attached to anyone who threatens the capitalist system
Contradictions of Capitalism • Education • Factory system • Problem populations: ◦ Social junk ◦ Social dynamite Control Overproduction of Deviance 1. Normalization 2. Conversion 3. Containment 4. Organized Crime Pluralist Conflict Theory • Emphasizes multiple axes of inequality and power in society—needs to focus on more than just the economic • Intersectional approach to deviance/crime • People can be deviantized/powerless on the basis of other social categories, ex: ◦ Gender ◦ Race/Ethnicity ◦ Sexual orientation ◦ Religion Cultural Conflict Theory (Thorstein Sellin – 1938) • Criminal law vs. Conduct norms • Results in culture conflict • ex. recent Shafia honour killings in Canada Power-Reflexive Theories (Pfohl – 1994) • Aka “Critical Poststructuralism” • Emphasize intertwining of knowledge and power • Existence of multiple “discourses” (bodies of knowledge) • BUT...power relations determine which discourses are legitimized • 3 tasks of power-reflexive analysis • Foucault – power through discipline • Benthan – Panoptic Prison Panoptic Power and Discipline (Foucault) • Society modelled like a panopticon • Pervasiveness of regulatory mechanisms to ensure “conformity” • Disciplinary power allows for supervision, control, and correction of deviance
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Always potentially under surveillance
Limitations • Ignores individual differences ◦ Variation in response to powerlessness ◦ Why people commit particular crimes/acts of deviance ◦ Opportunity, intelligence, skills ◦ Individuals/groups not totally dominated, dominating • Focus on making the powerless amendable to “correction” • Tends to be historical and analitical • Romantic view of crime • Marxists state the obvious • Marxist standards are too high and moralistic • Group status can change • People can be part of more than one groups Feminist Theories of Deviance • When a woman is bad, she's REALLY bad • Look at how women are more likely to be deviantized for certain behaviours than men are • How gender filters into our generalization and labelling • Prior to 1970s, if a women did something that was deviant she was considered really bad and deviant • 4 types of feminism: ◦ Liberal—a equality and opportunity in freedom and choice (having equality fro men and women) ◦ Socialist/Marxist—how women become oppressed and have less status because of the capitalist system ◦ Radical—when women try to completely organize separately from men ◦ Cultural—type we have now in society, how womens status in their gender integrate into other statuses in life • Gendered social construction of deviance • Dominant moral codes that denote what is “deviant” vs. “normal” are predicated on a male normative standard • Often definitions of deviance in our society are based on a male standard—you don't have females deciding what is and is not deviant **Gender and Deviance** • Males and females are differentially defined and labelled even when the deviant act is the same ◦ Ex. Women being promiscuous is worse than men being promiscuous ◦ Ex. Lesbians often times don't get as much negative reactions than gay men • Gendered notions of deviance are socially constructed—stem from ideas about “masculinity” and “femininity” • Males are more likely to be charged with crimes against property/person • Females more likely to get charged with sexual deviance, shoplifting, and moral crimes ◦ Females commit 13% of all crime ◦ More expected to be passive so when they do commit a crime it is more deviantized
◦ Ex. of moral crime--prostitution Gender and Substance Abuse • Women are less likely than men to use illegal substances...BUT are more likely to use legal drugs (alcohol, prescriptions, etc) • Men often do drugs for experiment, pleasure or due to peer pressure • Women often do drugs as a means of self-medication ◦ For women, it's about dulling the pain History of Gendered Deviance • Womens' deviance used to be pathologized (sometimes still is) ◦ Women often been seen as having some sort of biological nature that makes them more likely to be deviant • Society has historically exerted stricter control over women • Woman is “other” to normal man • Courts have previously been a means through which to control women's deviance (criminal or otherwise) • Modern forms of pathologizing women's deviance: PMS and PMDD ◦ PMS actually been used in criminal court for a reason for engaging in crime **Prostitution** • Although prostitution is primarily a female occupation—96% of those involved are male (pimps, johns/clients, etc) and 4% are female • Women are disproportionately more likely to be charged with than men • Within this occupation, women are most at risk of victimization—most visible are streetworkers • Women engaging in this deviant act is arguably the most deviant act a female can do • **For many, prostitution is a “qualified choice”, where these women are poor, uneducated, runaways, no skills, etc. ◦ Applies this to exotic dancers as well ◦ Prostitution as a “survival strategy” ◦ This is called the “victimization hypothesis” • Feminization of poverty ◦ Women as a group in society are more likely to live in poverty than men are ◦ This is why a lot of women engage in prostitution ◦ 2/3 of female, lone parents are below the poverty level ◦ Engaging in these behaviours is actually a smart choice given their situation ◦ Sometimes people don't have other rational options open to them Moral Panic Over the Deviant Female • Women commit 13% of all crimes—less than a 3rd of crime compared to amount of crime committed by men • Women are often seen as too “fragile” to commit crime, so in the instances that women do commit crime they are labelled “monsters” • For women, committing crime is seen as: ◦ Breaking the law
◦ Stepping out of gendered norms **Power-Control Theory (Hagan)** • Gendered Social Class Structure • Female crime can be traced back to the gendered social structure • Risk taking behaviour influenced by family class relationship ◦ Class position—about power ▪ Position of dominance at work is equated with control in the housework ◦ Family functions—about control ◦ Females more crime-avoiding and males more crime-seeking • Paternalistic families ◦ Fathers assume tradition role of breadwinner and Mother has very menial low job or stays home and provide for the kids ◦ Girls socialized into the cult of domesticity (to be mothers and wives) ◦ Boys socialized to be more risk-taking ◦ Girls less likely to engage in crime in these types of families • Egalitarian families ◦ Mom and Dad have similar levels of dominance in the workforce and share similar positions of power in household ◦ Girls would actually end up being more likely to engage in crime in deviance since they are socialized to being more risk-taking **Girls' Crime (Chesney-Lind)** • Girls historically are overwhelmingly charged with “status offences” ◦ Status offences are crimes that end up being criminal based on their ages ◦ Ex. Girls engaging in truancy and prostitution being charged since they are young ◦ Today: often accused of such offences • Administrative offences ◦ Ex. not going to court and failing to complete required program due to crime • Gender stratification—patriarchal society • Double standard ◦ Chivalry hypothesis ▪ Idea that in the criminal justice system women can either be treated really leniently or really harshly ▪ If the women appear passive and agree with everything said then they are usually treated with more leniency ▪ Women who don't buy into this are usually treated more harshly • History of sexual/physical abuse at some point in their life • Criticize Hagan's power-control theory ◦ Ideas about deviance and delinquency stem from what men and women are meant to be like in society
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•
Influenced by: ◦ Labelling theories ◦ Research on social inequality (racism, sexism) and social injustice ◦ Social and political upheavals of the 60s and 70s Sees crime/deviance as RATIONAL behaviour due to the nature of society
Group Conflict Theory (George Vold) • Vold: “Criminality is the normal, natural response of normal, natural human beings struggling in understandably normal and natural situations for the maintenance of the way of life to which they stand committed.” • Behaviour that conflicts with the ideology of the dominant group will be defined as deviant/criminal • Deviant behaviour often associated with an ideological clash between dominant and less powerful groups “Core Struggle” (Austin Turk) • Dominant group must convince “powerless” group that norms/rules are legitimate ◦ Coercing doesn't work • In order to convince the “powerless” of the current rules, dominant class uses: ◦ Ideology ◦ Hegemony ◦ Power ◦ Authority • Results in the “powerless” having a “False Consciousness” Instrumental Marxism (Richard Quinney) • Laws and definitions of deviance are a “tool” of the ruling class • About serving interests of those in power and criminalizing the behaviour of those with minimal power • Laws and definitions of deviance are instrumental to those making them • A “deviant” label is a means through which to control the powerless Social Reality of Crime (Richard Quinney) • Definitions of behaviour (conformity and deviance) made by authorized political agents • Deviant/criminal definitions reflect interests of powerful • Degree of threat determines mode of enforcement • Less powerful = more deviant • Media disseminates “images” of crime = consensus • Crime is “constructed” Nuts, Sluts, and Perverts (Alexander Liazos) • Fascination with individual deviants deflects our attention from social structure and “power” • Ignores “top dogs”—power holders • Sociologists should be focusing on “Covert Institutional Violence” Structural Marxism (Stephen Spitzer - 1975)
• • • •
Rules protect capitalist system Not just about protecting the “ruling class” Interests usually coincide, but ruling class is not monolithic Deviant labels attached to anyone who threatens the capitalist system
Contradictions of Capitalism • Education • Factory system • Problem populations: ◦ Social junk ◦ Social dynamite Control Overproduction of Deviance 1. Normalization 2. Conversion 3. Containment 4. Organized Crime Pluralist Conflict Theory • Emphasizes multiple axes of inequality and power in society—needs to focus on more than just the economic • Intersectional approach to deviance/crime • People can be deviantized/powerless on the basis of other social categories, ex: ◦ Gender ◦ Race/Ethnicity ◦ Sexual orientation ◦ Religion Cultural Conflict Theory (Thorstein Sellin – 1938) • Criminal law vs. Conduct norms • Results in culture conflict • ex. recent Shafia honour killings in Canada Power-Reflexive Theories (Pfohl – 1994) • Aka “Critical Poststructuralism” • Emphasize intertwining of knowledge and power • Existence of multiple “discourses” (bodies of knowledge) • BUT...power relations determine which discourses are legitimized • 3 tasks of power-reflexive analysis • Foucault – power through discipline • Benthan – Panoptic Prison Panoptic Power and Discipline (Foucault) • Society modelled like a panopticon • Pervasiveness of regulatory mechanisms to ensure “conformity” • Disciplinary power allows for supervision, control, and correction of deviance
•
Always potentially under surveillance
Limitations • Ignores individual differences ◦ Variation in response to powerlessness ◦ Why people commit particular crimes/acts of deviance ◦ Opportunity, intelligence, skills ◦ Individuals/groups not totally dominated, dominating • Focus on making the powerless amendable to “correction” • Tends to be historical and analitical • Romantic view of crime • Marxists state the obvious • Marxist standards are too high and moralistic • Group status can change • People can be part of more than one groups Feminist Theories of Deviance • When a woman is bad, she's REALLY bad • Look at how women are more likely to be deviantized for certain behaviours than men are • How gender filters into our generalization and labelling • Prior to 1970s, if a women did something that was deviant she was considered really bad and deviant • 4 types of feminism: ◦ Liberal—a equality and opportunity in freedom and choice (having equality fro men and women) ◦ Socialist/Marxist—how women become oppressed and have less status because of the capitalist system ◦ Radical—when women try to completely organize separately from men ◦ Cultural—type we have now in society, how womens status in their gender integrate into other statuses in life • Gendered social construction of deviance • Dominant moral codes that denote what is “deviant” vs. “normal” are predicated on a male normative standard • Often definitions of deviance in our society are based on a male standard—you don't have females deciding what is and is not deviant **Gender and Deviance** • Males and females are differentially defined and labelled even when the deviant act is the same ◦ Ex. Women being promiscuous is worse than men being promiscuous ◦ Ex. Lesbians often times don't get as much negative reactions than gay men • Gendered notions of deviance are socially constructed—stem from ideas about “masculinity” and “femininity” • Males are more likely to be charged with crimes against property/person • Females more likely to get charged with sexual deviance, shoplifting, and moral crimes ◦ Females commit 13% of all crime ◦ More expected to be passive so when they do commit a crime it is more deviantized
◦ Ex. of moral crime--prostitution Gender and Substance Abuse • Women are less likely than men to use illegal substances...BUT are more likely to use legal drugs (alcohol, prescriptions, etc) • Men often do drugs for experiment, pleasure or due to peer pressure • Women often do drugs as a means of self-medication ◦ For women, it's about dulling the pain History of Gendered Deviance • Womens' deviance used to be pathologized (sometimes still is) ◦ Women often been seen as having some sort of biological nature that makes them more likely to be deviant • Society has historically exerted stricter control over women • Woman is “other” to normal man • Courts have previously been a means through which to control women's deviance (criminal or otherwise) • Modern forms of pathologizing women's deviance: PMS and PMDD ◦ PMS actually been used in criminal court for a reason for engaging in crime **Prostitution** • Although prostitution is primarily a female occupation—96% of those involved are male (pimps, johns/clients, etc) and 4% are female • Women are disproportionately more likely to be charged with than men • Within this occupation, women are most at risk of victimization—most visible are streetworkers • Women engaging in this deviant act is arguably the most deviant act a female can do • **For many, prostitution is a “qualified choice”, where these women are poor, uneducated, runaways, no skills, etc. ◦ Applies this to exotic dancers as well ◦ Prostitution as a “survival strategy” ◦ This is called the “victimization hypothesis” • Feminization of poverty ◦ Women as a group in society are more likely to live in poverty than men are ◦ This is why a lot of women engage in prostitution ◦ 2/3 of female, lone parents are below the poverty level ◦ Engaging in these behaviours is actually a smart choice given their situation ◦ Sometimes people don't have other rational options open to them Moral Panic Over the Deviant Female • Women commit 13% of all crimes—less than a 3rd of crime compared to amount of crime committed by men • Women are often seen as too “fragile” to commit crime, so in the instances that women do commit crime they are labelled “monsters” • For women, committing crime is seen as: ◦ Breaking the law
◦ Stepping out of gendered norms **Power-Control Theory (Hagan)** • Gendered Social Class Structure • Female crime can be traced back to the gendered social structure • Risk taking behaviour influenced by family class relationship ◦ Class position—about power ▪ Position of dominance at work is equated with control in the housework ◦ Family functions—about control ◦ Females more crime-avoiding and males more crime-seeking • Paternalistic families ◦ Fathers assume tradition role of breadwinner and Mother has very menial low job or stays home and provide for the kids ◦ Girls socialized into the cult of domesticity (to be mothers and wives) ◦ Boys socialized to be more risk-taking ◦ Girls less likely to engage in crime in these types of families • Egalitarian families ◦ Mom and Dad have similar levels of dominance in the workforce and share similar positions of power in household ◦ Girls would actually end up being more likely to engage in crime in deviance since they are socialized to being more risk-taking **Girls' Crime (Chesney-Lind)** • Girls historically are overwhelmingly charged with “status offences” ◦ Status offences are crimes that end up being criminal based on their ages ◦ Ex. Girls engaging in truancy and prostitution being charged since they are young ◦ Today: often accused of such offences • Administrative offences ◦ Ex. not going to court and failing to complete required program due to crime • Gender stratification—patriarchal society • Double standard ◦ Chivalry hypothesis ▪ Idea that in the criminal justice system women can either be treated really leniently or really harshly ▪ If the women appear passive and agree with everything said then they are usually treated with more leniency ▪ Women who don't buy into this are usually treated more harshly • History of sexual/physical abuse at some point in their life • Criticize Hagan's power-control theory ◦ Ideas about deviance and delinquency stem from what men and women are meant to be like in society
