Theories Of Deviant Behaviour

Deviance is the behaviour that moves away from typical norms and values in society, such as burping or spitting in public.

According to Howard Becker, social groups create deviance by making rules whose infraction constitutes deviant behaviour and by giving these rules to particular people and labelling them as outsiders. From this perspective, deviance isn't an action which the individual commits, but instead a consequence of application by others of the rules and sanctions to an offender. The deviant is someone to whom the label has successfully been applied; deviant behaviour is behaviour that individuals so label.

Becker is suggesting that there is no such thing as a deviant act. A certain act only becomes deviant when others perceive and

It assumes that after an individual has been labelled, their deviance will become worse, and that the labelled person does not have any option but to become more involved with deviant activities. Ronald Ackers said that “One sometimes gets the impression from reading the literature that people go about minding their own business, and then ‘wham' bad society comes along and slaps them in the face with a stigmatised label. Forced in to the role of deviant the person has little choice but to be deviant. Critics like Ronald Ackers are suggesting that individuals might simply just decide to be deviant, whether or not they've been labelled. Labelling doesn't cause most terrorists to turn to crime; they're motivated by their political beliefs to break the law (Bryant,

Lombroso thought that by studying someone's physical features, you could identify a possible criminal. Lombroso's criteria for this were: A big jaw, a low sloping forehead, a flattened or upturned nose, high cheekbones, handle shaped ears, hawk-like noses a pointed chin or fleshy lips, hard shifty eyes, baldness and an insensitivity to pain. Lombroso finally concluded by saying a criminal would have long