There are four main parts to having a deviant career, and although my participants were just using marijuana not selling it, I still thought it would be interesting to look at how they could leave this deviant behavior by applying the four stages of deviant careers to them. The four stages are, entering deviance, training and socialization, changes over time, and exiting deviance. For entering deviant careers, scholars have found that “at risk” populations are more likely to enter into deviant careers. “Although some people venture into deviance on their own, the vast majority do it with the encouragement and assistance of others, often joining cooperative deviant enterprises” (Adler, 2012, p. 522). As I stated before all of my participant’s …show more content…
Third there is changes over time, “They must navigate the changing dimensions of available opportunities to commit their deviance, evolving technologies that can enable and catch them, their relationships within deviant communities…”(Adler, 2012, p. 523). I applied this to my study by looking at my participants who started smoke in high school and before, and how they had to adapt their smoking to each new location. My on participant who smoke when he was 12, only did it occasionally with his sister, then once in high school he learned that smoking with his friends was entertaining and fun, once he learned how he could be productive while high he started smoking more by himself, Then finally when he went to college, he still smokes at parties and by himself, but he also found that he could smoke and hangout with his roommate who doesn’t smoke and it be just as enjoyable. As he grew in his life and the opportunities for him changed from just with his sister, to his friends, then to just by himself, the way he participated in his deviance …show more content…
And I was able to look at the structures of their social organizations once they began their deviant act. By using the conflict theory I was able to analyze that the dominant class had a huge influence on the criminalization of marijuana. This influence led to the change in public opinion, which eventually led to policies that outlawed the drug. The dominant class held the power, there does seem to be a change in publics attitude toward marijuana, this is most commonly credited to increased knowledge about the drug and the change in how the media depicts the drug. Secondly I use differential association to provided an understanding on how individuals get involved into deviance, because deviant behavior is learned, people get involved through others who are close to them. Then I looked at the social organization of the groups that my participants smoked in. I concluded that they were part of the group colleagues, which allow individuals to participate in deviant acts alone, but they also have a community supporting them. Lastly I used the outline for deviant careers and applied it to my study to see how my participants entered and exited their deviance. There were some differences because this usually looks at larger scale, more serious deviance, but I felt that there were a few main
The first criminological theory, that explains behavior of the drug sellers, is the theory of Differential Association. Differential Association, termed by Edwin Sutherland, argued that persons engage in delinquent behavior because they learn it from society and they engage in it when it benefits them. By this, he is saying that an individual will be a criminal if they experience an excess of criminal definitions over conventional definitions. Sutherland discovered that Differential Association is developed through various stages and he explains such development with the use of nine propositions. (Lily et al. 2011, 48) Such propositions are as follows: (1) criminal behavior is learned, (2) it...
"Sociological Theories To Explain Deviance." Sociological Theories To Explain Deviance. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Dec. 2013. .
Crime is an irrelevant concept as it is tied to the formal social control mechanism of the State; deviance is a concept that is owned by sociology thus our study should be the sociology of deviance, rather than criminology
The Deviance of Marijuana Smokers Marijuana smokers were once considered regular members of society. In 1937 all that changed when marijuana was banned and made illegal. The smokers were labeled as deviants from then on. I studied marijuana smokers and discussed their experiences. I would like to see whether they are ordinary members of society or deviants.
Before the 1950’s theorists focused on what the difference was between deviants and criminals from “normal” citizens. In the 1950’s researchers were more involved exploring meaning and reasons behind deviant acts. This led to the most dominant question in the field of deviance, “what is the structural and culture factors that lead to deviant behavior?” This question is important when studying deviance because there is no clear answer, everyone sees deviance in different ways, and how deviance is created. Short and Meier states that in the 1960’s there was another shift in focus on the subject of deviance. The focus was what causes deviance, the study of reactions to deviance, and the study of rule breaking and rule making. In the 1960’s society was starting to speak out on what they believed should be a rule and what should not; this movement create chaos in the streets. However, it gave us a glimpse into what makes people become deviant, in the case it was the Vietnam War and the government. Short and Meier also write about the three levels that might help us understand were deviance comes from and how people interact to deviance. The first is the micro level, which emphasizes individual characteristics by biological, psychological, and social sciences. The second level is macrosociological that explains culture and
Wright Mills first question is what is the structure of this particular society as a whole?. In asking this question, Mills wanted to know how crime is understood in society and how is it an essential components that is inter-related in society?. In society, crime is seen as any actions that violates the laws established by a political authority. However, according to the authors of the book introduction to sociology states that “sociologists studying crime and deviance in the interactionist tradition focus on deviance and crime as a socially constructed phenomenon.”(p. 167). Meaning that crime is believed to be socially constructed. Edwin H. Sutherland used the theory of Differential Association to link crime through interaction with others, where individuals learns values, attitudes, techniques, and motives for criminal behavior. In other words, criminals learns to be criminal from other criminals. Another theory that show the interaction between society and crime is the labeling theory. The labeling theory is the idea that behaviors are deviant only when society labels them as deviant. This theory expresses the arrangement of power in society between those who does the labeling and those who are labeled. The people who holds the most power in society does most of the labeling in society. Furthermore, this often leads individuals that is considered deviant having a higher risk of committing a
Echoing the structural strain theory is the differential opportunity theory, which states that learning environments and opportunities are not equally distributed in the social system and gender, class and ethnicity affects conformity and deviance (Deutschmann, 2007). Taking both theories into account, those susceptible to joining gangs would be people that are deprived of opportunities and resources to succeed, mainly people of the lower class and racial minorities as exemplified by the high volume of emergence of racially exclusive gangs in the past. In the 1970’s, the United States of America lifted its quota on immigration based on nationality and this saw the influx of immigrants from Asia and the West Indies coming into the USA in hopes of getting rich or simply to flee from their war torn native lands. Instead of assimilating into the American culture, these immigrants brought along their own cultural practices and religions, which were rejected by the Americans and resulted in resentment between both parties. Racial discrimination was rampant and these once hopeful immigrants soon found themselves being isolated in the outskirts, jobless and helpless. Members of racial minority groups like the majority aspire to possess material success in life but are void of the means to achieve those (McNulty & Bellair, 2003). The same can be said of the lower class, whose low socio-economic status limit their opportunities for tertiary education which could potentially be imperative in securing lucrative jobs (Curry & Spergel, 1988). Therefore, to satisfy their appetite for success, these people adapt to strain by treading the path of innovators- using illegitimate means to actualise their positively valued goals. Moreover, with global...
The difference between a deviant act and a deviant career is different in many ways. For one to start off by talking about a deviant career. A deviant career has phases that the people involved in it go through.
The social disorganization perspective follows the substance users to their living era and environment. Social disorganization perspective examines why individuals more from one environment to another and how they struggle to adjust to new environment, and how they are lured or forced into substance user, deviance, or criminal activity in the face of difficulty from the new environment or due to their individual maladjustments.
Some people are likely to generalize about the causes of drug related crimes and say that they are simply related to people who do not do any good for our society. However, in certain instances drugs can be used as a source of income for people and they commit crimes in order to facilitate that goal (Nurco, 1998). These people have no way out of their drug lives and therefore may not necessarily choose this life style but are brought up into it.
This relates to genderm age and ethnic groupings which ar all factors in the statistics of criminal behavior and class structure which can be related to deviance.
The development of the theories associated to the nature of deviance were necessary in explaining the human condition with regards to the functions and mechanism of the human mind and how it is affected by society itself and vice versa. Sociologist proposed different theories to explain this phenomenon, specifically Symbolic interactionist and Functionalist perspectives. Further, these theories investigated the individual and how societal groups influence a person 's behavior and state of mind that gives rise to deviant actions.
One may ask the exact nature of the relationship between substance abuse and crime. As pointed out by Greenfield, not all those people who use drugs or alcohol commit crime. More so, not all criminals’ abuse drugs or uses alcohol (“An analysis of national….”). Yet again, there is consistently high amount of substance abuse among those engaged in criminal activities. Since the pharmacological impact of immediate as well as chronic exposure of substance abuse changes judgment and reduces self-control, those argue that criminal behaviors promote the use of substances (Sewell, Poling and Sofuoglu, 189). Similarly, some experts argue that criminal behaviors promote the use of substances (Greenfield, 12). Yet again, other experts hold that there is a third aspect, for instance an individual’s genetic make-up or his environment that exposes the individual to substance abuse as well as criminal activities (Walker, 73).
I would like to look first at “The Choice Theory”. The first explanations of wrongdoing and delinquency held that the child him/her self’s behavior was a matter of choice. The classical view tells us that the decision to violate the law comes from the youth carefully weighting out the benefits and cost of the criminal behavior. According to the classical vie, youths who decide to become a drug dealer weigh ad compare the possible benefits, such as cash to buy cars, clothes, and other luxury items; knowing that the potential penalties are being arrested and possibly staying in a juvenile facility. Therefore if the youth thinks they are less likely to get caught or they see that the punishment for getting caught is minimal they are more likely to go forth and break the law. Thus being said, CHOICE is huge for there is always an option and you can dictate your path.
Smoking is one of the dangerous habits that people perform in their lives. This habit affects the health and causes several diseases, such as lung cancer, cardiovascular disease, and pulmonary disease (Institute of Medicine, 2012). In the family I visited, the father is a smoker. He strongly approves with the idea of smoking while the mother strongly disapproves the idea of smoking. Both of them know that smoking is harmful to the smoker, but the father does not know that smoking is harmful for other people who are called: second hand smokers. In addition, the father was at the age of 15 when he started smoking cigarettes. There is more than one reason that pushed the father to start smoking when he was a teenager. One of these reasons is copying the behavior of his father. He believes it would be difficult for him to give up smoking. I agree that quit of smoking is difficult since cigarettes contain nicotine, which is more addictive than heroin and also smoking becomes part of his daily routine (Giovanni, 2012).