Social Device: The Criminological Theory Of Deviance?

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In Criminology, a behaviour that is not considered to be a norm in society is known as deviance. This may differ throughout the world as some cultures have a different interpretation of norms (Phofl, 1985). The bulk of deviant behavior will be looked as discontentment from those in society or even punishment from the system. Deviance can fall into many classifications such as addictions and delinquency. We will look at deviance and about how and why people are deviant. Some theories support the idea of deviance being biological while others refute this and believe the idea of it being caused by your social construction. There are two key interpretations that people see as to how an individual becomes deviant; biologically or from a person’s social construction. The biological explanation of deviance is that it is part of who you are when you are born. Whether you are born into a long line of alcoholics or your mother has a mental illness, it is coming from your genes. There are many theories that support the biological explanation of deviance that will be explained in this essay. Some seem very unlikely and don’t have a lot of evidence but there are a lot of theorists that support this idea. The social constructionist explanation is that you become deviant from the way that you are brought up. It is believed that certain parts of your childhood can cause a person to become deviant. This could be that your parents or caregivers brought you up to be a deviant person because they were deviant themselves. It could also be that you were neglected as a child and never were taught right from wrong. There are also many theories supporting this explanation of deviance and one famous believer of social constructionism causing deviance is E... ... middle of paper ... ...nted in Maori men and the XYY chromosome represents hyper masculinity (Gillham, 2011). Also in Lombroso’s theory he describes the appearances as large jaws and cheekbones and a general hairiness of the body which is normally associated with males (Burfeind & Bartusch, 2006). In conclusion, it would be safe to suggest that the labelling theory and the learning theory both have abundant influence over people’s lives, conceivably because of their susceptibility and the way they look at different behavior within their society. With both criminal and deviant acts being shaped and fabricated by society, the behavior displayed by an individual will certainly be labelled if they do not live up to the norms and value’s that are in place in their society. However, as the essay explains young people will gather characteristics of deviance from society’s influential structures.

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