Instant Ebooks Textbook READINGS IN DEVIANT BEHAVIOR 6th Edition Alex Thio Download All Chapters

Full download ebook at ebookgate.
com
READINGS IN DEVIANT BEHAVIOR 6th Edition Alex

Thio
https://ebookgate.com/product/readings-in-deviant-
behavior-6th-edition-alex-thio/
Download more ebook from https://ebookgate.com

More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...
Sociology of Deviant Behavior 13th Edition Marshall

B.Clinard
https://ebookgate.com/product/sociology-of-deviant-behavior-13th-
edition-marshall-b-clinard/
Hadoop in Practice Alex Holmes
https://ebookgate.com/product/hadoop-in-practice-alex-holmes/
Alex s Adventures in Numberland Dispatches from the

Wonderful World of Mathematics Alex Bellos
https://ebookgate.com/product/alex-s-adventures-in-numberland-
dispatches-from-the-wonderful-world-of-mathematics-alex-bellos/
Hadoop in Practice 2nd Edition Alex Holmes
https://ebookgate.com/product/hadoop-in-practice-2nd-edition-
alex-holmes/
Key Readings in Journalism 1st Edition Elliott King
https://ebookgate.com/product/key-readings-in-journalism-1st-
edition-elliott-king/
Behavior Analysis and Design of Steel Work Connections

Vol 3 6th Edition El-Sayed Bahaa Machaly
https://ebookgate.com/product/behavior-analysis-and-design-of-
steel-work-connections-vol-3-6th-edition-el-sayed-bahaa-machaly/
Readings in Chinese Communist Ideology Wen-Shun Chi
https://ebookgate.com/product/readings-in-chinese-communist-
ideology-wen-shun-chi/
Applied Behavior Analysis Principles and Procedures in

Behavior Modification 1st Edition Edward P. Sarafino
https://ebookgate.com/product/applied-behavior-analysis-
principles-and-procedures-in-behavior-modification-1st-edition-
edward-p-sarafino/
Readings in the Cantos 1st Edition Richard Parker

(Editor)
https://ebookgate.com/product/readings-in-the-cantos-1st-edition-
richard-parker-editor/
ALBQ146_THIO_Frontmatter.qxp 1/16/09 3:54 PM Page i
READINGS IN DEVIANT BEHAVIOR

ALBQ146_THIO_Frontmatter.qxp 1/16/09 3:54 PM Page ii
ALBQ146_THIO_Frontmatter.qxp 1/16/09 3:54 PM Page iii
READINGS IN DEVIANT BEHAVIOR

SIXTH EDITION
ALEX THIO
Ohio University
THOMAS C. CALHOUN
Jackson State University
ADDRAIN CONYERS
The College at Brockport, State University of New York
Allyn & Bacon

Boston • New York • San Francisco
Mexico City • Montreal • Toronto • London • Madrid • Munich • Paris
Hong Kong • Singapore • Tokyo • Cape Town • Sydney
ALBQ146_THIO_Frontmatter.qxp 1/16/09 3:54 PM Page iv
Publisher: Karen Hanson

Editorial Assistant: Courtney Shea
Senior Marketing Manager: Kelly May
Senior Production Administrator: Karen Mason
Manufacturing Buyer: Debbie Rossi
Cover Administrator: Joel Gendron
Editorial Production Service: Modern Graphics, Inc.
Electronic Composition: Modern Graphics, Inc.
Copyright © 2010, 2008, 2006, 2004, 2001, 1995 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Allyn &
Bacon, 75 Arlington St., Suite 300, Boston, MA 02116.
All rights reserved. Manufactured in the United States of America. No part of the material pro-
tected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, elec-
tronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and
retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner.
To obtain permission(s) to use material from this work, please submit a written request to Pearson
Higher Education, Rights and Contracts Department, 501 Boylston Street, Suite 900, Boston, MA
02116 or fax your request to 617-671-3447.
Between the time website information is gathered and then published, it is not unusual for some
sites to have closed. Also, the transcription of URLs can result in typographical errors. The pub-
lisher would appreciate notification where these errors occur so that they may be corrected in sub-
sequent editions.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Readings in deviant behavior / [edited by] Alex Thio, Thomas C. Calhoun, Addrain Conyers. —
6th ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-205-69557-4 (alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-205-69557-7 (alk. paper)
1. Deviant behavior. I. Thio, Alex. II. Calhoun, Thomas C. III. Conyers, Addrain.
HM811.R4 2010
302.5’42—dc22
2008053803
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 HAM 13 12 11 10 09
Allyn & Bacon

is an imprint of
ISBN 10: 0-205-69557-4
www.pearson highered.com ISBN 13: 978-0-205-69557-7
ALBQ146_THIO_Frontmatter.qxp 1/16/09 3:54 PM Page v
CONTENTS
Preface xi
INTRODUCTION 1
PART ONE
DEFINING DEVIANCE 9
1 Images of Deviance
Stephen Pfohl 11
2 Defining Deviancy Down

Daniel Patrick Moynihan 15
PART TWO
POSITIVIST THEORIES 19
3 Strain Theory
Robert K. Merton 21
4 Differential Association Theory

Edwin H. Sutherland and Donald R. Cressey 27
5 Control Theory
Travis Hirschi 30
6 Shaming Theory
John Braithwaite 33
PART THREE
CONSTRUCTIONIST THEORIES 37
7 Labeling Theory
Howard S. Becker 39
8 Phenomenological Theory
Jack Katz 42
9 Conflict Theory
Richard Quinney 45
10 Feminist Theory
Kathleen Daly 50
v
ALBQ146_THIO_Frontmatter.qxp 1/16/09 3:54 PM Page vi
vi CONTENTS
PART FOUR
PHYSICAL VIOLENCE 57
11 What Drives the Libyan Suicide Bombers in Iraq?
Kevin Peraino 59
12 Serial Murder: Popular Myths and Empirical Realities

James Alan Fox and Jack Levin 67
13 What Triggers School Shootings?

Michael S. Kimmel and Matthew Mahler 76
14 “I Hope Someone Murders Your Mother!”:

Extreme Support for the Death Penalty
Margaret Vandiver, David J. Giacopassi, and Peter R. Gathje 83
PART FIVE
INTIMATE VIOLENCE 89
15 Tenured and Battered
Madeline Bates 91
16 Intimate Stalking: Characteristics and Consequences

Jennifer L. Dunn 94
17 Child-to-Mother Violence
Debra Jackson 98
18 How Child Molesters Explain Their Deviance

Louanne Lawson 108
PART SIX
SELF-DESTRUCTIVE DEVIANCE 115
19 The Desire for Death
Thomas Joiner 117
20 Self-Injurers: A “Lonely Crowd”

Patricia A. Adler and Peter Adler 129
21 Being Sane in Insane Places

David L. Rosenhan 133
22 The Emergence of Hyperactive Adults as Abnormal

Peter Conrad and Deborah Potter 138
ALBQ146_THIO_Frontmatter.qxp 1/16/09 3:54 PM Page vii
CONTENTS vii
PART SEVEN
VICTIMS OF STIGMA 145
23 Managing the Stigma of Personal Bankruptcy
Deborah Thorne and Leon Anderson 147
24 The Stigma of Obesity

Erich Goode 161
25 What Is It Like to Be a Rural Lesbian?

Margaret Cooper 168
26 “You’re Not a Retard, You’re Just Wise”

Steven J. Taylor 173
PART EIGHT
HETEROSEXUAL DEVIANCE 181
27 The Globalization of Sex Tourism
Nancy A. Wonders and Raymond Michalowski 183
28 Flawed Theory and Method in Studies of Prostitution

Ronald Weitzer 193
29 Exotic Dancers: “Where Am I Going to Stop?”

Jennifer K. Wesely 203
30 “Everyone Knows Who the Sluts Are”: How Young Women Get
around the Stigma
Jennifer L. Dunn 207
PART NINE
SUBSTANCE USE AND ABUSE 211
31 Binge Drinking on College Campuses
Keith F. Durkin, Scott E. Wolfe, and Kara Lewis 213
32 “Hey, Don’t Blame Me. . . Blame the Booze”

Robert L. Peralta 217
33 OxyContin: A Prescription for Disaster

James A. Inciardi and Jennifer L. Goode 223
34 Damn, It Feels Good to be a Gangsta: Selling Drugs on Campus

A. Rafik Mohamed and Erik Fritsvold 229
ALBQ146_THIO_Frontmatter.qxp 1/16/09 3:54 PM Page viii
viii CONTENTS
PART TEN
INTERNET DEVIANCE 237
35 Show Me the Money: Online Mistresses and Slaves
Keith F. Durkin 239
36 Online Dating: “I’m Dysfunctional, You’re Dysfunctional”

Andrea Orr 247
37 Online Boys: Male-for-Male Internet Escorts

Matthew V. Pruitt 255
38 Cyberbullying: Offenders and Victims

Sameer Hinduja and Justin W. Patchin 266
PART ELEVEN
PRIVILEGED DEVIANCE 271
39 Criminal Telemarketing: A Profession on the Line
Neal Shover, Glenn S. Coffey, and Dick Hobbs 273
40 The Neutralization of Professional Deviance among Veterinarians

DeAnn M. Kalich 281
41 Societal Causes of Political Corruption

Xiaohui Xin and Thomas K. Rudel 286
42 Enron: Organizational Rituals as Deviance

Jason S. Ulsperger and J. David Knottnerus 291
PART TWELVE
UNDERPRIVILEGED DEVIANCE 295
43 Shoplifters: “The Devil Made Me Do It”
Paul Cromwell and Quint Thurman 297
44 Burglary: The Offender’s Perspective

Paul Cromwell 302
45 The Immediate Experiences of Carjacking

Bruce A. Jacobs, Volkan Topalli, and Richard Wright 308
46 The Good Thing about Workplace Deviance

Elizabeth A. Hoffmann 312
ALBQ146_THIO_Frontmatter.qxp 1/16/09 3:54 PM Page ix
CONTENTS ix
PART THIRTEEN
CONTROLLING DEVIANCE 319
47 What It’s Like to be Known as a Sex Offender
Richard Tewksbury and Matthew Lees 321
48 Responses to Workplace Bullying

Joanne D. Leck and Bella L. Galperin 329
49 Eating for Two: How Pregnant Women Neutralize Nutritional Deviance

Denise A. Copelton 335
50 A New Way of Fighting the War on Drugs

Erich Goode 342
NAME INDEX 349
SUBJECT INDEX 359

ALBQ146_THIO_Frontmatter.qxp 1/16/09 3:54 PM Page x
ALBQ146_THIO_Frontmatter.qxp 1/16/09 3:54 PM Page xi
PREFACE
In this sixth edition of Readings in Deviant Behavior, the following articles are new:
“What Drives the Libyan Suicide Bombers in Iraq?”

“‘Hey, Don’t Blame Me . . . Blame the Booze’”
“Damn, It Feels Good to be a Gangsta: Selling Drugs on Campus”
“Show Me the Money: Online Mistresses and Slaves”
“Cyberbullying: Offenders and Victims”
“The Good Thing about Workplace Deviance”
“What It’s Like to be Known as a Sex Offender”
“Responses to Workplace Bullying “
“Eating for Two: How Pregnant Women Neutralize Nutritional Deviance’”
These articles, along with most of the others in this edition, reflect the current trend in
the sociology of deviance. The inclusion of many more studies on noncriminal de-
viance—such as lesbianism, personal bankruptcy, online dating, exotic dancing, and
binge drinking—represents a significant shift from criminal deviance, such as murder,
robbery, and rape. Some of the noncriminal deviances, such as the proliferation of cy-
berdeviance, have only recently emerged on the scene; others, such as binge drinking and
corporate corruption, have been around for a long time but have only recently become the
subject of research by sociologists. On the theoretical front, there is a change in empha-
sis from the positivist perspective to the constructionist one. In research methodology,
there is greater use of ethnography at the expense of the traditional use of surveys. All
these new developments are showcased in the current edition of this reader.
Like its previous editions, this anthology offers comprehensive coverage. As its ed-
itors, we decided against taking a single theoretical approach when selecting articles. In-
stead, we present a great variety of readings that represent the full range of deviance
sociology. We believe that students should be exposed to different theories of deviance.
Students should also know different kinds of data collected with different research
methodologies.
This reader covers all the major theories in deviance sociology, from classic ones
such as Merton’s strain theory and Becker’s labeling theory, to modern ones such as
shaming, phenomenological, and feminist theories. In addition, this anthology encom-
passes a wide spectrum of deviant behaviors. There are articles about deviances that have
long attracted sociological attention, such as homicide, suicide, drug abuse, and mental
disorders. There are also articles on deviances that in recent years have leapt into public
and sociological consciousness, such as suicide bombing, sex tourism, binge drinking,
and Internet deviance. Analyses of these subjects rely on data from theory-informed re-
search that runs the gamut from surveys to ethnographic studies. All these analyses are
multidisciplinary, coming not only from sociologists but also from scholars and re-
searchers in other fields. They all effectively reflect what the sociology of deviance is like
today: diverse, wide-ranging, and exciting.
xi
ALBQ146_THIO_Frontmatter.qxp 1/16/09 3:54 PM Page xii
xii PREFACE
This is a user-friendly reader, put together with students in mind. The articles are not only
authoritative, but also interesting. Many were chosen from a variety of books and journals. Some
were solicited from sociologists and researchers. Most important, unique to this reader, most of
these articles have been carefully edited for clarity, conciseness, and forcefulness. Students will
therefore find them easy and enjoyable to read while learning what deviance is all about.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We want to thank our colleagues who specifically wrote for this reader. Our deep gratitude also
goes to all those writers whose published works are presented here. Further deserving our thanks
are the many reviewers who have greatly contributed to preparation of a truly useful and student-
oriented reader. For contributing to the current edition our thanks go to William Beaver, Robert
Morris University; Brian Lawton, Sam Houston State University; and Timothy O’Boyle, Kutz-
town University.
ALBQ146_THIO_Introduction.qxp 12/31/08 11:07 AM Page 1
INTRODUCTION
What is deviant behavior? Why ask what it is? definition, arguing that a person can be a deviant
Doesn’t everybody know it has to do with weirdos without violating any rule or doing something
and perverts? Not at all. There is, in fact, a great that rubs others the wrong way. According to this
deal of disagreement among people about what argument, individuals who are afflicted with
they consider deviant. In a classic study, sociolo- some unfortunate condition for which they cannot
gist Jerry Simmons asked a sample of the general be held responsible are deviant. Examples include
public who they thought was deviant. They men- psychotics, paraplegics, the mentally challenged,
tioned 252 different kinds of people as deviants, and other people with physical or mental disabil-
including homosexuals, prostitutes, alcoholics, ities. These people are considered deviant be-
drug addicts, murderers, the mentally ill, commu- cause they are disvalued by society. In contrast,
nists, atheists, liars, Democrats, reckless drivers, some sociologists contend that deviance does not
self-pitiers, the retired, career women, divorcées, have to be negative. To these sociologists, de-
Christians, suburbanites, movie stars, perpetual viance can be positive, such as being a genius, re-
bridge players, prudes, pacifists, psychiatrists, former, creative artist, or glamorous celebrity.
priests, liberals, conservatives, junior executives, Other sociologists disagree, considering “positive
girls who wear makeup, smart-aleck students, and deviance” to be an oxymoron—a contradiction in
know-it-all professors. If you are surprised that terms (Heckert and Heckert, 2002).
some of these people are considered deviant, your All of these sociologists apparently assume
surprise simply adds to the fact that a good deal that, whether it is a positive or a negative, dis-
of disagreement exists among the public about turbing, or disvalued behavior, deviance is real in
what deviant behavior is. and of itself. The logic behind this assumption is
There is a similar lack of consensus among that if it is not real in the first place, it cannot be
sociologists. We could say that the study of de- considered positive, negative, disturbing, or dis-
viant behavior is probably the most “deviant” of valued. Other sociologists disagree, arguing that
all the subjects in sociology. Sociologists disagree deviance does not have to be real behavior for it
more about the definition of deviant behavior to be labeled deviant. People can be falsely ac-
than they do on any other subject. cused of being criminal, erroneously diagnosed as
mentally ill, stereotyped as dangerous because of
their skin color, and so on. Conversely, commit-
CONFLICTING DEFINITIONS
ting a deviant act does not necessarily make a per-
Some sociologists simply say that deviance is a son a deviant, especially when the act is kept
violation of any social rule, but others argue that secret. It is, therefore, the label deviant—a men-
deviance involves more than rule violation—it tal construction or image of an act as deviant,
also has the quality of provoking disapproval, rather than the act itself—that makes an individ-
anger, or indignation. Some advocate a broader ual deviant.
1
2 INTRODUCTION
Some sociologists go beyond the notion of (2) How to study it? (3) What does the result of
labeling to define deviance by stressing the im- the study mean? The first question deals with the
portance of power. They observe that relatively subject of study, the second has to do with the
powerful people are capable of avoiding the fate method of study, and the third concerns the data-
suffered by the powerless—being falsely, erro- based theory about the subject. Positivism and
neously, or unjustly labeled deviant. The key rea- constructionism provide conflicting answers to
son is that the powerful, either by themselves or each question.
through influencing public opinion or both, hold
more power for labeling others’ behavior as de-
Subject: What to Study?
viant. Understandably, sociologists who hold this
view define deviance as any act considered by the Positivism suggests that we study deviance or de-
powerful at a given time and place to be a viola- viants. The reason deals with the positivist’s ab-
tion of some social rule. solutist definition of deviance. According to this
From this welter of conflicting definitions, definition, deviance is absolutely or intrinsically
we can nonetheless discern the influence of two real in that it possesses some qualities that distin-
opposing perspectives: positivism and social con- guish it from conventionality. Similarly, deviants
structionism. The positivist perspective is associ- are thought to have certain attributes that make
ated with the sciences, such as physics, chemistry, them different from conventional individuals. By
or biology. It influences how scientists see and contrast, social constructionism suggests that we
study their subject. In contrast, the constructionist study law enforcers and other such people who
perspective has more to do with the humanities, are influenced by society to construct an image of
such as art, language, or philosophy. It affects certain others as deviants and then label them as
how scholars in these fields see and study their such, or how the process of such labeling takes
subject. These two perspectives can be found in place and affects the labeled. This is because the
sociology; some sociologists are more influenced constructionist assumes the relativist stance in
by the positivist perspective and others by the defining deviance as a socially constructed label
constructionist. Positivist sociologists tend to de- imposed on some behavior. Such a definition can
fine deviance in one way, whereas constructionist be said to be relativist by implying that the de-
sociologists pursue another way. The two per- viancy of a behavior is relative to—dependent
spectives further influence the use of certain on—the socially constructed negative reaction to
theories and methodologies for producing knowl- the behavior.
edge about deviant behavior. The conflicting def-
initions that we have discussed can be couched in Absolutism: Deviance as Absolutely Real.
terms of these two perspectives. The definitions Around the turn of the twentieth century, crimi-
that focus on deviance as rule-breaking behavior nologists believed that criminals possessed cer-
are essentially positivist, whereas those that tain biological traits that were absent in
center on labeling and power are constructionist. noncriminals. Those biological traits included de-
Let us delve more deeply into the meanings and fective genes, bumps on the head, a long lower
implications of these two conflicting perspec- jaw, a scanty beard, an unattractive face, and a
tives. tough body build. Because all these traits are in-
herited, people were believed to be criminals sim-
ply because they were born criminals. If they
CONFLICTING PERSPECTIVES
were born criminals, they would always be crim-
The knowledge about deviance basically consists inals. As the saying goes, “If you’ve had it,
of answers to three questions: (1) What to study? you’ve had it.” No matter where they might go—
INTRODUCTION 3
they could go anywhere in the world—they and calling lunacy a name does not cause it.”
would still be criminals. These positivist sociologists seem to say that just
Then the criminologists shifted their atten- as a rose by any other name would smell as sweet,
tion from biological to psychological traits. Crim- so deviance by any other label is just as real.
inals were thought to have certain mental
characteristics that noncriminals did not have. Relativism: Deviance as a Label. Social con-
More specifically, criminals were believed to be structionists hold the relativist view that deviant
feeble-minded, psychotic, neurotic, psychopathic, behavior by itself does not have any intrinsic char-
or otherwise mentally disturbed. Like biological acteristics unless it is thought to have those char-
traits, these mental characteristics were seen as acteristics. The so-called intrinsically deviant
inherent in individual criminals. Also, like bio- characteristics do not come from the behavior it-
logical traits, mental characteristics would stay self; they originate instead from some people’s
with the criminals, no matter where they went. minds. To put it simply, an act appears deviant
Again, because of these psychological traits, only because some people think it so. As Howard
criminals would always remain criminals. Becker (1963) says, “Deviant behavior is behav-
Today’s positivist sociologists, however, ior that people so label.” Therefore, no deviant
have largely abandoned the use of biological and label, no deviant behavior. The existence of de-
psychological traits to differentiate criminals viance depends on the label. Deviance, then, is a
from noncriminals. They recognize the important mental construct (an idea, thought, or image) ex-
role of social factors in determining a person’s pressed in the form of a label.
status as a criminal. Such status does not remain Because they effectively consider deviance
the same across time and space; instead, it unreal, constructionists understandably stay away
changes in different periods and with different so- from studying it. They are more interested in the
cieties. A polygamist may be a criminal in West- questions of whether and why a given act is de-
ern society but a law-abider in Moslem countries. fined by society as deviant. This leads to studying
A person who sees things invisible to others may people who label others as deviant—such as the
be a psychotic in Western society but may be- police and other law-enforcing agents. If con-
come a spiritual leader among some South Pacific structionists study so-called deviants, they do so
tribes. Nevertheless, positivist sociologists still by focusing on the nature of labeling and its con-
largely regard deviance as intrinsically real. sequences.
Countering the relativist notion of deviance as ba- In studying law-enforcing agents, construc-
sically a social construction in the form of a label tionists have found a huge lack of consensus on
imposed on an act, positivist Travis Hirschi whether a certain person should be treated as a
(1973) argues: “The person may not have com- criminal. The police often disagree among them-
mitted a ‘deviant’ act, but he did (in many cases) selves about whether a suspect should be arrested,
do something. And it is just possible that what he and judges often disagree about whether those ar-
did was a result of things that had happened to rested should be convicted or acquitted. In addi-
him in the past; it is also possible that the past in tion, because laws vary from one state to another,
some inscrutable way remains with him and that the same type of behavior may be defined as
if he were left alone he would do it again.” More- criminal in one state but not in another. Prostitu-
over, countering the relativist notion of mental ill- tion, for example, is legal in Nevada but not in
ness as a label imputed to some people’s other states. There is, then, a relativity principle
behavior, positivist Gwynn Nettler (1974) explic- in deviant behavior; behavior gets defined as de-
itly voices his absolutist stance: “Some people are viant relative to a given norm, standard of behav-
more crazy than others; we can tell the difference; ior, or the way people react to it. If it is not related
4 INTRODUCTION
to the norm or to the reaction of other people, a ciologists have tried hard to follow the scientific
given behavior is in itself meaningless—it is im- rule that all their ideas about deviant behavior
possible to say whether it is deviant or conform- should be subject to public scrutiny. This means
ing. Constructionists strongly emphasize this that other sociologists should be able to check out
relativistic view, according to which, deviance, the ideas to see whether they are supported by
like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. facts.
Such a drive to achieve scientific objectivity
has produced substantial knowledge about de-
Method: How to Study It?
viant behavior. No longer popular today are such
Positivism suggests that we use objective meth- value-loaded and subjective notions as maladjust-
ods such as survey, experiment, or detached ob- ment, moral failing, debauchery, demoralization,
servation. The subject is treated like an object, sickness, pathology, and abnormality. Replacing
forced, for example, to answer the same questions these outdated notions are such value-free and
as presented to everybody else with the same objective concepts as innovation, retreatism, ritu-
value-free, emotionless demeanor. This is be- alism, rebellion, culture conflict, subcultural be-
cause positivists define deviance as a largely ob- havior, white-collar crime, norm violation,
jective fact, namely, a publicly observable, learned behavior, and reinforced behavior.
outward aspect of human behavior. By contrast, To demonstrate the objective reality of these
social constructionism suggests that we study in- concepts, positivist sociologists have used official
dividuals with more subjective methods, such as reports and statistics, clinical reports, surveys of
ethnography, participant observation, or open- self-reported behavior, and surveys of victimiza-
ended, in-depth interviews. With these methods, tion. Positivists recognize the unfortunate fact
subjects are treated as unique, whole persons and that the sample of deviants in the studies—espe-
are encouraged to freely express their feelings in cially in official statistics—does not accurately
any way they want. This is because construction- represent the entire population of deviants. Nev-
ists define deviance as a mostly personal experi- ertheless, positivists believe that the quality of in-
ence—a hidden, inner aspect of human behavior. formation obtained by these methods can be
improved and refined. In the meantime, they con-
Objectivism: Deviance as an Objective Fact. By sider the data, though inadequate, useful for re-
focusing on the outward aspect of deviance, pos- vealing at least some aspect of the totality of
itivists assume that sociologists can be as objec- deviant behavior.
tive in studying deviance as natural scientists can
be in studying physical phenomena. The trick is Subjectivism: Deviance as a Personal Experi-
to treat deviants as if they are objects, like those ence. To social constructionists, the supposedly
studied by natural scientists. Nonetheless, posi- deviant behavior is a personal experience and the
tivist sociologists cannot help being aware of the supposedly deviant person is a conscious, feeling,
basic difference between their subject, human be- thinking, and reflective subject. Constructionists
ings, and that of natural scientists, plants, ani- insist that there is a world of difference between
mals, and inanimate objects. As human beings humans (as active subjects) and nonhuman beings
themselves, positivist sociologists must have cer- and things (as passive objects). Humans feel and
tain feelings about their subject. However, they reflect, but animals, plants, things, and the others
try to control their personal biases by forcing do not. It is proper and useful for natural scien-
themselves not to pass moral judgment on deviant tists to assume and then study nature as an object,
behavior or share the deviant person’s feelings. because this study can produce objective knowl-
Instead, they try to concentrate on the subject edge for controlling the natural world. It may also
matter as it outwardly appears. Further, these so- be useful for social scientists to assume and then
INTRODUCTION 5
study humans as objects, because it may produce ety, and his activities.” To understand the life of a
objective knowledge for controlling humans. deviant, constructionists believe, we need to use
However, this violates the constructionist’s hu- the relatively subjective approach, which requires
manist values and sensibilities. our appreciation for and empathy with the
Constructionists are opposed to the control of deviant. The aim of this subjective approach, ac-
humans; instead, they advocate the protection and cording to David Matza (1969), “is to compre-
expansion of human worth, dignity, and freedom. hend and to illuminate the subject’s view and to
One result of this humanist ideology is the obser- interpret the world as it appears to him.”
vation that so-called objective knowledge about As a result of their subjective and empathetic
human behavior is inevitably superficial when- approach, constructionists often present an image
ever it is used to control people. In order for the of deviants as basically the same as conventional
former white racist government in South Africa to people. People who are deaf, for example, are the
control blacks, for example, it needed only the su- same as those who hear in being able to commu-
perficial knowledge that blacks were identifiable nicate and live a normal life. They should, there-
and separable from whites. However, to achieve fore, be respected rather than pitied. This implies
the humanist goal of protecting and expanding that so-called deviant behavior, because it is like
blacks’ human worth, dignity, and freedom, a so-called conventional behavior, should not be
deeper understanding of blacks is needed. This controlled, cured, or eradicated by society.
understanding requires appreciating and em-
pathizing with them, experiencing what they ex-
perience as blacks, and seeing blacks’ lives and Theory: What Does It Mean?
the world around them from their perspective. We
Positivism suggests that we use etiological,
must look at the black experience from the inside
causal, or explanatory theories to make sense of
as a participant rather than from the outside as a
what research has found out about deviant behav-
spectator. In a word, we must adopt the internal,
ior, because positivists favor the determinist view
subjective view instead of the external, objective
that deviance is determined by forces beyond the
one.
individual’s control. By contrast, constructionism
The same principle, according to construc-
suggests that we go for largely noncausal, de-
tionists, should hold for understanding deviants
scriptive, or analytical theories. Such theories
and their deviant behavior. Constructionists con-
provide detailed analyses of the subjective, expe-
trast this subjective approach with the positivists’
riential world of deviance. Constructionists feel at
objective one. To constructionists, positivists treat
home with these analyses because they regard
deviance as if it were an immoral, unpleasant, or
most deviance as a voluntary act, an expression of
repulsive phenomenon that should be controlled,
free will.
corrected, or eliminated. In consequence, posi-
tivists have used the objective approach by stay-
ing aloof from deviants, studying the external Determinism: Deviance as “Determined” Be-
aspects of their deviant behavior and relying on a havior. Overly enthusiastic about the prospect of
set of preconceived ideas to guide their study. The turning their discipline into a science, early soci-
result is a collection of surface facts about de- ologists argued that, like animals, plants, and ma-
viants, such as their poverty, lack of schooling, terial objects that natural scientists study, humans
poor self-image, and low aspirations. All this may do not have any free will. The reason is that ac-
be used to control and eliminate deviance, but it knowledgment of free will would contradict the
does not tell us, in Howard Becker’s (1963) scientific principle of determinism. If a killer is
words, “what a deviant does in his daily round of thought to will, cause, or determine a murderous
activity, and what he thinks about himself, soci- act, then it does not make sense to say that the
6 INTRODUCTION
murderous act is caused by such things as the in- change, differential association, differential rein-
dividual’s physical characteristics, mental condi- forcement, and lack of social control. Any one of
tion, family background, or some social these causes of deviance can be used to illustrate
experience. Therefore, in defending their scien- what positivists consider a real explanation of de-
tific principle of determinism, the early sociolo- viance, because, for example, wife abuse is more
gists maintained their denial of free will. likely to cause a woman to kill her husband than
However, today’s positivist sociologists assume not. Etiological theories essentially point out fac-
that humans do possess free will. Still, this as- tors like those as the causes of deviance.
sumption, they argue, does not undermine the sci-
entific principle of determinism. No matter how Voluntarism: Deviance as a Voluntary Act. To
much a person exercises free will by making social constructionists, the supposedly deviant
choices and decisions, the choices and decisions behavior is a voluntary act or an expression of
do not simply happen but are determined by some human volition, will, or choice. Constructionists
causes. If a woman chooses to kill her husband take this stance because they are disturbed by
rather than continue to live with him, she cer- what they claim to be the dehumanizing implica-
tainly has free will or freedom of choice so long tion of the positivist view of deviant behavior.
as nobody forces her to do what she does. How- The positivist view is said to imply that a human
ever, some factor may determine the woman’s being is like “a robot, a senseless and purposeless
choice of one alternative over another, or the way machine reacting to every fortuitous change in the
she exercises her free will. One such factor, as re- external and internal environment.” Construction-
search has suggested, may be a long history of ists emphasize that human beings, because they
abuse at the hands of her husband. Thus, accord- possess free will and choice-making ability, de-
ing to today’s positivists, there is no inconsis- termine or cause their own behavior.
tency between freedom and causality. To support this voluntarist assumption, con-
Although they allow for human freedom of structionists tend to analyze how social control
choice, positivists do not use it to explain why agencies define some people as deviant and carry
people behave in a certain way. They will not, for out the sanctions against them. Such analyses
example, explain why the woman kills by saying often accent, as Edwin Lemert (1972) has ob-
“because she chooses to kill.” This is no explana- served, “the arbitrariness of official action,
tion at all, because the idea of choice can also be stereotyped decision-making in bureaucratic con-
used to explain why another woman does not kill texts, bias in the administration of law, and the
her husband—by saying “because she chooses general preemptive nature of society’s controls
not to.” According to positivists, killing and not over deviants.” All this conveys the strong im-
killing (or, more generally, deviant and conven- pression that control agents, being in positions of
tional behavior), being two contrary phenomena, power, exercise their free will by actively, inten-
cannot be explained by the same thing, such as tionally, and purposefully controlling the “de-
choice. The idea of choice simply cannot explain viants.”
the difference between deviance and convention- Constructionists also analyze people who
ality; it cannot explain why one man chooses to have been labeled deviant. The “deviants” are not
kill when another chooses not to kill. Therefore, presented as if they are robots, passively and
although positivists do believe in human choice, senselessly developing a poor self-image as con-
they will not attribute deviance to human choice. ventional society expects. Instead, they are de-
They will instead explain deviance by using such scribed as actively seeking positive meanings in
concepts as wife abuse, broken homes, unhappy their deviant activities. In Jack Katz’s (1988)
homes, lower-class background, economic depri- analysis, murderers see themselves as morally su-
vation, social disorganization, rapid social perior to their victims. The killing is said to give
INTRODUCTION 7
the murderers the self-righteous feeling of de- methods such as survey, experiment, or detached
fending their dignity and respectability because observation. Third is the determinist assumption
their victims have unjustly humiliated them by that deviance is determined or caused by certain
taunting or insulting them. Katz also portrays rob- social forces. This suggests that we use causal
bers as feeling themselves morally superior to theories to make sense of research data. With the
their victims—regarding their victims as fools or social constructionist perspective, the first as-
suckers who deserve to be robbed. If robbers want sumption is that deviant behavior is basically a
to hold up somebody on the street, they first ask a label, mental construct, or social construction.
potential victim for the time, for directions, for a This suggests that we study law enforcers and
cigarette light, or for change. Each of these re- other labelers, the process of labeling, and the
quests is intended to determine whether the per- consequences of labeling. The second assumption
son is a fool. The request for the time, for is that the supposedly deviant behavior is a per-
example, gives the robber the opportunity to sonal experience. This suggests that we use less
know whether the prospective victim has an ex- objective research methods such as ethnography,
pensive watch. Complying with the request, then, participant observation, or open-ended, in-depth
is taken to establish the person as a fool and hence interviews. The third assumption is that the so-
the right victim. called deviance is a voluntary, self-willed act.
This suggests that we develop noncausal, descrip-
tive theories. (See Table I.1 for a quick review.)
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
The diverse definitions, theories, methodolo-
Each of the positivist and social constructionist gies, and data we have discussed reflect many dif-
perspectives consists of three related assump- ferent aspects of deviant behavior. Although they
tions, and each assumption suggests a strategy for appear to conflict, they actually complement each
contributing to the sociology of deviance. For the other. They may be compared with the different
positivist perspective, the first is the absolutist as- views of a house. From the front, the house has a
sumption that deviant behavior is absolutely real. door, windows, and a chimney on top. From the
This suggests that we study deviance or deviants. back, it has a door and a chimney on top but fewer
Second is the objectivist assumption that deviant windows. From the side, it has no doors, but it has
behavior is an objective, publicly observable fact. windows and a chimney on top. From the top, it
This suggests that we use objective research has no doors or windows, but a chimney in the
Table I.1 A Summary of Two Perspectives
POSITIVIST PERSPECTIVE CONSTRUCTIONIST PERSPECTIVE
Absolutism Deviance is absolutely, Relativism Deviance is a label, a social

intrinsically real; hence, deviance or construction; hence, labelers, labeling, and the
deviants are the subject of study. impacts of labeling are the subject of study.
Objectivism Deviance is an objective, Subjectivism Deviance is a personal

observable fact; hence, objective experience; hence, subjective research methods
research methods are used. are used.
Determinism Deviance is a determined Voluntarism Deviance is a voluntary act, an

behavior, a product of causation; hence, expression of free will; hence, noncausal,
casual, explanatory theory is developed. descriptive theory is developed.
8 INTRODUCTION
middle. It is the same house, but it looks different, knowing the different views on deviant behavior
depending on one’s position. Taking in the differ- ensures a fuller understanding of deviance. This
ent views on the house ensures a fuller knowledge reader is intended to make that possible.
of what the house actually looks like. Similarly,
REFERENCES
Becker, Howard S. 1963. Outsiders: Studies in the So- sual Attractions in Doing Evil. New York: Basic
ciology of Deviance. New York: Free Press. Books.
Heckert, Alex, and Druann Maria Heckert. 2002. “A Lemert, Edwin M. 1972. Human Deviance, Social
New Typology of Deviance: Integrating Norma- Problems, and Social Control, 2d ed. Englewood
tive and Reactivist Definitions of Deviance.” De- Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
viant Behavior 23:449–479. Matza, David. 1969. Becoming Deviant. Englewood
Hirschi, Travis. 1973. “Procedural Rules and the Study Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
of Deviant Behavior.” Social Problems 21:166– Nettler, Gwynn. 1974. “On Telling Who’s Crazy.”
171. American Sociological Review, 39:893–894.
Katz, Jack. 1988. Seductions of Crime: Moral and Sen-
ALBQ146_THIO_Part1.qxp 12/31/08 11:12 AM Page 9
PART ONE
DEFINING DEVIANCE
Bonnie Pitzer, a middle-school student, was taking a vocabulary test. When she drew a
blank on the word “desolated,” she did not panic, but instead quietly searched the Inter-
net for the definition. Was she cheating? If she was, her behavior may be regarded as de-
viant. In today’s Internet age, however, a growing number of educators, including
Bonnie’s teacher, do not consider her behavior to be cheating or deviant. To them, intel-
ligent online surfing and analysis are more important than rote memorization. To her
teacher, Bonnie aced the test not only because she knew how to surf the Internet for the
meaning of a word, but also because she was able to use the word in a sentence. As her
teacher explains, “I want the kids to be able to apply the meaning, not to be able to mem-
orize it.” But many other teachers would regard Bonnie as deviant for cheating on her
test.1
There is, in fact, a great deal of disagreement among people as to what they consider
deviant. If you ask a variety of people who they think is deviant, they will likely mention
many different kinds of people, including prostitutes, alcoholics, drug users, murderers,
the mentally ill, atheists, liars, Democrats, Republicans, reckless drivers, movie stars,
smart-aleck students, know-it-all professors, and so on. To you, some of these people are
not deviant at all, but to others they are. Given this disagreement, who determines what
constitutes deviance? This question, in effect, asks how sociologists go about defining
what deviance is. Here are two related articles that deal with this subject. In the first ar-
ticle, “Images of Deviance,” Stephen Pfohl presents the sociological view on why some
people are seen and treated as deviant. In the second article, “Defining Deviancy Down,”
Daniel Patrick Moynihan discusses how our society today no longer sees many harmful
behaviors as deviant. In Moynihan’s words, many people define deviancy down by ac-
cepting or tolerating a large amount of it as normal, but more conservative Americans de-
fine deviance up by demonizing it, condemning it, or advocating a harsh penalty for it.
1
Ellen Gamerman, “Legalized Cheating.” Wall Street Journal, January 21, 2006, pp. 1, 8.
9
CHAPTER 1
IMAGES OF DEVIANCE
STEPHEN PFOHL
The scene is a crowded church during the Amer- them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their
ican Civil War. “It was a time of great and exalt- flag and country imperishable honor and glory.
ing excitement. The country was up in arms, the Wars come and go. Words vary. Nonetheless,
war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of the essential message of this sermon remains
patriotism.” So says Mark Twain in his short and alarmingly the same: “God is on our side.” Before
searing parable—The War Prayer. Amidst the continuing with Twain’s story, I ask you to con-
clamor of beating drums, marching bands, and sider a more contemporary version of this age-old
toy pistols popping, Twain describes an emo- narrative—the 1991 Gulf War between Iraq and
tional church service. A passionate minister stirs the United States–led coalition of “New World
the gallant hearts of eager volunteers; bronzed re- Order” forces demanding an Iraqi withdrawal
turning heroes; and their families, friends, and from Kuwait. Claiming it to be its moral impera-
neighbors. The inspired congregation await their tive to repel an act of international aggression, the
minister’s every word. United States pictured Iraqi President Saddam
And with one impulse the house rose, with Hussein as a Hitler-like character bent on world
glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out domination. Iraq in turn cited contradictions in
that tremendous invocation— the U.S. position (its long-term support for Israeli
occupation of Palestinian territories, for example)
God the all-terrible! as evidence of both U.S. hypocrisy and what Iraq
Thou who ordainest, alleged to be the true motives for the attack on
Thunder thy clarion Iraq—namely, “American” efforts to police the
and lightning thy sword! price of oil. Each side in this conflict repre-
sented the other as evil, treacherous, and power-
Then came the “long” prayer. None could re- mongering. Each side claimed to be righteous and
member the like of it for passionate pleading and blessed by God. This is typical of societies en-
moving and beautiful language. The burden of its gaged in war.
supplication was that an ever-merciful and benig- Returning to Twain’s story, what is untypical
nant Father of us all would watch over our noble about this thoughtful tale is what happens next. It
young soldiers and aid, comfort, and encourage is not only untypical, but “deviant.” After the
them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield minister completes his moving prayer, an “unnat-
them in the day of battle and the hour of peril, urally pale,” aged stranger enters the church. He
bear them in His mighty hand, make them strong is adorned with long hair and dressed in a full-
and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help length robe. The stranger motions the startled
Source: Stephen Pfohl, Images of Deviance and Social Control, 2nd ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1994),
pp. 1–6. Reprinted with permission.
11
12 PART ONE DEFINING DEVIANCE
minister aside and informs the shocked parish- trol this threat. They do not have to take seriously
ioners that he is a messenger from Almighty God. the chilling implications of his sermon. Their re-
He tells the congregation that God has heard their ligious and patriotic senses are protected from his
prayer and will grant it, but only after they con- disturbing assault. Why? The reason is as simple
sider the full import of their request. In rephras- as their response. They believe that he is a lunatic.
ing the original sermon the mysterious messenger They believe that he is a deviant. By classifying
reveals a more troubling side to the congrega- the old man as a deviant they need not listen to
tion’s prayer. When they ask blessing for them- him. The congregation’s beliefs are protected,
selves they are, at the same time, praying for the even strengthened. The lunatic’s beliefs are safely
merciless destruction of other humans (their ene- controlled. The War Prayer is thus a story of how
mies). In direct and graphic language the old man some people imagine other people to be “deviant”
portrays the unspoken implications of their re- and thereby protect or isolate themselves from
quest, as follows: those whom they fear and from that which chal-
lenges the way in which “normal” social life is or-
help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with
ganized. It is a story of how people convince
our shells;
themselves of what is normal by condemning
help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale
those who disagree. It is a story of both deviance
forms of their patriotic dead;
and social control. . . .
help us to draw the thunder of the guns with
The story of deviance and social control is a
shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain;
battle story. It is a story of the battle to control the
help us to lay waste their humble homes with a
ways people think, feel, and behave. It is a story
hurricane of fire;
of winners and losers and of the strategies people
help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending
use in struggles with one another. Winners in the
widows to unavailing grief;
battle to control “deviant acts” are crowned with
help us to turn them out roofless with their little
a halo of goodness, acceptability, normality.
children to wander unbefriended the wastes of
their desolated land.
Losers are viewed as living outside the bound-
aries of social life as it ought to be, outside the
The strange old man continues—talking “common sense” of society itself. They may be
about blighting their lives, bringing tears, and seen by others as evil, sleazy, dirty, dangerous,
staining the snow with blood. He completes his sick, immoral, crazy, or just plain deviant. They
war prayer with a statement about the humble and may even come to see themselves in such nega-
contrite hearts of those who ask God’s blessings. tive imagery, to see themselves as deviants.
The congregation pauses in silence. He asks if Deviants are only one part of the story of de-
they still desire what they have prayed for. “Ye viance and social control. Deviants never exist
have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The except in relation to those who attempt to control
messenger of the Most High waits.” We are now them. Deviants exist only in opposition to those
at the final page of Twain’s book. The congrega- whom they threaten and those who have enough
tion’s response is simple and abrupt. As sug- power to control against such threats. The out-
gested previously, the old stranger was clearly a come of the battle of deviance and social control
social deviant. In Twain’s words: “It was believed is this. Winners obtain the privilege of organizing
afterward that the man was a lunatic, because social life as they see fit. Losers are trapped
there was no sense in what he said.” within the vision of others. They are labeled de-
The stranger in The War Prayer directly viant and subjected to an array of current social
threatens the normal, healthy, patriotic, and control practices. Depending upon the controlling
blood-lusting beliefs of the embattled congrega- wisdom at a particular moment in history, de-
tion. Yet it is with ease that they contain and con- viants may be executed, brutally beaten, fined,
1 PFOHL IMAGES OF DEVIANCE 13
shamed, incarcerated, drugged, hospitalized, or institutions in which contemporary power is con-

even treated to heavy doses of tender loving care. centrated.
But first and foremost they are prohibited from A related question may be posed concerning
passing as normal women or men. They are serial killers. The violence of serial killers haunts
branded with the image of being deviant. our nightly news broadcasts. Indeed, the seem-
When we think of losers in the battle to con- ingly random character of serial killings—al-
trol acceptable images of social life, it may seem though they are most commonly directed against
natural to think of juvenile gang members, serial women and children—instills a deep and alarm-
killers, illegal drug users, homosexuals, and bur- ing sense of dread within society as a whole.
glars. Indeed, common sense may tell us that such Nevertheless, the sporadic violence of serial mur-
people are simply deviant. But where does this derers, no matter how fearful, is incomparable in
common sense come from? How do we come to terms of both scope and number to the much less
know that certain actions or certain people are de- publicized “serial killings” perpetrated by U.S.-
viant, while others are “normal”? Do people cat- supported death squads in countries such as El
egorized as deviants really behave in a more Salvador and Guatemala. The targets of such
dangerous fashion than others? Some people death squads are typically people who dare to
think so. Is this true? speak out in the name of social justice. From
Think of the so-called deviants mentioned 1980 to 1991, for instance, approximately 75,000
above. Are their actions truly more harmful than Salvadoran civilians were secretly killed or made
the actions of people not labeled as deviants? In to “disappear” by paramilitary executioners. Why
many cases the answer is no. Consider the juve- is it that such systematic murders are rarely ac-
nile gang. In recent years the organized drug deal- knowledged as true serial killings? Why, more-
ing and violent activities of gangs have terrorized over, do such cold-blooded killings provoke so
people living in poverty-stricken and racially little U.S. public outrage in comparison to the at-
segregated urban neighborhoods. Gang-related tention given to the isolated violence of individ-
deviance has also been the focal point for sensa- ual murderers, such as Ted Bundy or Jeffrey
tional media stories and for social control policies Dahmer? Is it because the people who authorize
ranging from selective “stop-and-search” police them are respectable persons, sometimes even
tactics to the building of new prisons and (in Los publicly elected officials? Is it because, though
Angeles) even the criminalization of alleged gang we feel vulnerable to other serial killers, we our-
members’ parents. selves—at least those of us who are white, male,
But what about the people most responsible North American, and economically privileged to
for the oppressive inner-city conditions that lie at live at a distance from the violence that histori-
the root of many gang-related activities? What cally envelops the daily lives of others—feel pro-
about the “gangs” of bankers whose illegal redlin- tected from death squads?
ing of mortgage loans blocks the investment of Similar questions might be raised about drug
money in inner-city neighborhoods? What about users. When we speak of the abuse of drugs, why
the “gangs” of corporate executives whose greed do we often think only of the “controlled sub-
for short-term profits has led to the “off-shoring” stances” that some people use as a means of
of industrial jobs to “underdeveloped” countries achieving psychic escape, altered consciousness,
where labor is cheap and more easily exploitable? and/or bodily pleasure? True, we as individuals
Aren’t the actions of such respectable people as and as a society may pay a heavy price for the
costly as, if less visible than, the activities of most abuse of such drugs as cocaine and heroin. But
inner-city gangs? Yet, there is an important dif- what about other—legal—substances that many
ference: unlike gangs of elite deviants, inner-city of us are “on” much of the time? Some of these
youths have little or no real access to dominant drugs are even more dangerous than their illicit
counterparts. In addition to alcohol, tobacco, Further consider the actions of sexist hetero-
chemical food additives, and meat from animals sexuals. Such persons may routinely mix various
that have been fed antibiotics and hormones, our forms of sexual harassment with manipulative pa-
society openly promotes the use of prescription triarchal power and an intolerance of alternative
and over-the-counter drugs for everything from forms of sexual intimacy. Despite the harm these
losing weight, curing acne, and overcoming anx- heterosexist individuals cause, they are far less
iety to building strong bodies, fighting depres- likely to be labeled deviant than are gay, lesbian,
sion, and alleviating allergies caused by industrial or bisexual lovers who caress one another with af-
pollution. Certainly many of these substances fection. The same goes for corporate criminals,
have their salutary effects and may help us adjust such as the executives . . . implicated in the sav-
to the world in which we live. However, even ings and loan scandal. The stealthy acts of such
legal substances can be abused; they too can be white-collar criminals have cost the U.S. public
dangerous. The effects can be direct, jeopardizing as much as $500 billion. Yet the elite deviance of
an individual’s health or fostering addiction, or the upper echelon of rule breakers is commonly
they can be indirect and more insidious. For ex- less feared than are the street crimes of ordinary
ample, consider the role drugs play in creating burglars and robbers.
and sustaining our excessively image-conscious, From the preceding examples it should be ev-
age-conscious environment and in promoting our ident that many forms of labeled deviance are not
tendency to avoid dealing with personal conflicts more costly to society than the behaviors of peo-
and everyday problems in a thoughtful and re- ple who are less likely to be labeled deviant.
sponsible manner. Also—not to belabor the Why? The answer . . . is that labeled deviants are
issue—just think of what we are doing to our viewed as such because they threaten the control
planet, to our future, with our use of pesticides, of people who have enough power to shape the
fertilizers, and other industrial products and by- way society imagines the boundary between good
products. To raise such concerns is not to claim and bad, normal and pathological, acceptable and
that legal drugs are more dangerous than illegal deviant. This is the crux of the effort to under-
drugs, but simply to suggest that what is officially stand the battle between deviance and social con-
labeled illegal or deviant often has more to do trol. Deviance is always the flip side of the coin
with what society economically values than with used to maintain social control.
whether the thing is physically harmful per se.
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. Explain what the author means when he says, “Deviants never exist except in
relation to those who attempt to control them.”
2. Why did the congregation dismiss what the “strange old man” had to say?
3. Using Pfohl as your frame of reference, how does one become a “winner” or a
“loser”?
CHAPTER 2
DEFINING DEVIANCY DOWN

DANIEL PATRICK MOYNIHAN
In one of the founding texts of sociology, The “the number of deviant offenders a community can
Rules of Sociological Method (1895), Emile afford to recognize is likely to remain stable over
Durkheim set it down that “crime is normal.” “It time.” [My emphasis]
is,” he wrote, “completely impossible for any so- Social scientists are said to be on the lookout
ciety entirely free of it to exist.” By defining what for poor fellows getting a bum rap. But here is a
is deviant, we are enabled to know what is not, theory that clearly implies that there are circum-
and hence to live by shared standards. stances in which society will choose not to notice
The matter was pretty much left at that until behavior that would be otherwise controlled, or
seventy years later when, in 1965, Kai T. Erikson disapproved, or even punished.
published Wayward Puritans, a study of “crime It appears to me that this is in fact what we in
rates” in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The plan the United States have been doing of late. I prof-
behind the book, as Erikson put it, was “to test fer the thesis that, over the past generation, since
[Durkheim’s] notion that the number of deviant the time Erikson wrote, the amount of deviant be-
offenders a community can afford to recognize is havior in American society has increased beyond
likely to remain stable over time.” The notion the levels the community can “afford to recog-
proved out very well indeed. Despite occasional nize” and that, accordingly, we have been re-
crime waves, as when itinerant Quakers refused defining deviancy so as to exempt much conduct
to take off their hats in the presence of magis- previously stigmatized, and also quietly raising
trates, the amount of deviance in this corner of the “normal” level in categories where behavior is
seventeenth-century New England fitted nicely now abnormal by any earlier standard. . . .
with the supply of stocks and whipping posts. [In today’s normalization of deviance] we are
Erikson remarks: dealing with the popular psychological notion of
The agencies of control often seem to define their “denial.” In 1965, having reached the conclusion
job as that of keeping deviance within bounds that there would be a dramatic increase in single-
rather than that of obliterating it altogether. Many parent families, I reached the further conclusion
judges, for example, assume that severe punish- that this would in turn lead to a dramatic increase
ments are a greater deterrent to crime than mod- in crime. In an article in America, I wrote:
erate ones, and so it is important to note that
many of them are apt to impose harder penalties From the wild Irish slums of the 19th century
when crime seems to be on the increase and more Eastern seaboard to the riot-torn suburbs of Los
lenient ones when it does not, almost as if the Angeles, there is one unmistakable lesson in
power of the bench were being used to keep the American history: a community that allows a
crime rate from getting out of hand. . . . Hence large number of young men to grow up in broken
Source: Daniel Patrick Moynihan, “Defining Deviancy Down,” The American Scholar, vol. 62, no. 1
(Winter 1993), pp. 17–30. © 1992 by the author. Reprinted with permission.
15
families, dominated by women, never acquiring tine’s Day Massacre every weekend. Even the
any stable relationship to male authority, never most ghastly reenactments of such human slaugh-
acquiring any set of rational expectations about ter produce only moderate responses. On the
the future—that community asks for and gets morning after the close of the Democratic Na-
chaos. Crime, violence, unrest, unrestrained lash-
tional Convention in New York City in July, there
ing out at the whole social structure—that is not
was such an account in the second section of the
only to be expected; it is very near to inevitable.
New York Times. It was not a big story; bottom of
The inevitable, as we now know, has come to the page, but with a headline that got your atten-
pass, but here again our response is curiously pas- tion. “3 Slain in Bronx Apartment, but a Baby is
sive. Crime is a more or less continuous subject of Saved.” A subhead continued: “A mother’s last
political pronouncement, and from time to time it act was to hide her little girl under the bed.” The
will be at or near the top of opinion polls as a mat- article described a drug execution; the now-
ter of public concern. But it never gets much fur- routine blindfolds made from duct tape; a man
ther than that. In the words spoken from the and a woman and a teenager involved. “Each had
bench, Judge Edwin Torres of the New York State been shot once in the head.” The police had found
Supreme Court, Twelfth Judicial District, de- them a day later. They also found, under a bed, a
scribed how “the slaughter of the innocent three-month-old baby, dehydrated but alive. A
marches unabated: subway riders, bodega own- lieutenant remarked of the mother, “In her last
ers, cab drivers, babies; in laundromats, at cash dying act she protected her baby. She probably
machines, on elevators, in hallways.” In personal knew she was going to die, so she stuffed the
communication, he writes: “This numbness, this baby where she knew it would be safe.” But the
near narcoleptic state can diminish the human matter was left there. The police would do their
condition to the level of combat infantrymen, best. But the event passed quickly; forgotten by
who, in protracted campaigns, can eat their bat- the next day, it will never make World Book.
tlefield rations seated on the bodies of the fallen, Nor is it likely that any great heed will be
friend and foe alike. A society that loses its sense paid to an uncanny reenactment of the Prohibition
of outrage is doomed to extinction.” There is no drama a few months later, also in the Bronx. The
expectation that this will change, nor any effica- Times story, page B3, reported:
cious public insistence that it do so. The crime
level has been normalized. 9 Men Posing as Police
Consider the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. Are Indicted in 3 Murders
In 1929 in Chicago during Prohibition, four gang-
DRUG DEALERS WERE KIDNAPPED FOR RANSOM
sters killed seven gangsters on February 14. The
nation was shocked. The event became legend. It The Daily News story, same day, page 17,
merits not one but two entries in the World Book made it four murders, adding nice details about
Encyclopedia. I leave it to others to judge, but it torture techniques. The gang members posed as
would appear that the society in the 1920s was federal Drug Enforcement Administration agents,
simply not willing to put up with this degree of real badges and all. The victims were drug deal-
deviancy. In the end, the Constitution was ers, whose families were uneasy about calling the
amended, and Prohibition, which lay behind so police. Ransom seems generally to have been set
much gangster violence, ended. in the $650,000 range. Some paid. Some got it in
In recent years, again in the context of illegal the back of the head. So it goes.
traffic in controlled substances, this form of mur- Yet, violent killings, often random, go on un-
der has returned. But it has done so at a level that abated. Peaks continue to attract some notice. But
induces denial. James Q. Wilson comments that these are peaks above “average” levels that thirty
Los Angeles has the equivalent of a St. Valen- years ago would have been thought epidemic . . .
2 MOYNIHAN DEFINING DEVIANCY DOWN 17
A Kai Erikson of the future will surely need to once have been an unchanging supply of jail cells
know that the Department of Justice in 1990 which more or less determined the number of
found that Americans reported only about 38 per- prisoners. No longer. We are building new prisons
cent of all crimes and 48 percent of violent at a prodigious rate. Similarly, the executioner is
crimes. This, too, can be seen as a means of nor- back. There is something of a competition in
malizing crime. In much the same way, the vo- Congress to think up new offenses for which the
cabulary of crime reporting can be seen to move death penalty is seen the only available deterrent.
toward the normal-seeming. A teacher is shot on Possibly also modes of execution, as in “fry the
her way to class. The Times subhead reads: kingpins.” Even so, we are getting used to a lot of
“Struck in the Shoulder in the Year’s First Shoot- behavior that is not good for us.
ing Inside a School.” First of the season . . . As noted earlier, Durkheim states that there
The hope—if there be such—of this essay is “nothing desirable” about pain . . . Pain, even
has been twofold. It is, first, to suggest that the so, is an indispensable warning signal. But soci-
Durkheim constant, as I put it, is maintained by a eties under stress, much like individuals, will turn
dynamic process which adjusts upwards and to pain killers of various kinds that end up con-
downwards. Liberals have traditionally been alert cealing real damage. There is surely nothing de-
for upward redefining that does injustice to indi- sirable about this. If our analysis wins general
viduals. Conservatives have been correspond- acceptance, if, for example, more of us came to
ingly sensitive to downward redefining that share Judge Torres’s genuine alarm at “the trivial-
weakens societal standards. Might it not help if ization of the lunatic crime rate” in his city (and
we could all agree that there is a dynamic at work mine), we might surprise ourselves how well we
here? It is not revealed truth, nor yet a scientifi- respond to the manifest decline of the American
cally derived formula. It is simply a pattern we civic order. Might.
observe in ourselves. Nor is it rigid. There may
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. Defend this statement: “we have been redefining deviancy so as to exempt much
conduct previously stigmatized . . .”
2. What are the themes of this article?
3. Since the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, what types of activities have become
crimes? Why?
ALBQ146_THIO_Part2.qxp 1/5/09 3:37 PM Page 19
PART TWO
POSITIVIST THEORIES
Soon after 7:00 A.M. on April 16, 2007, the campus police at Virginia Tech University
found two students in a dormitory who had been shot to death. About two hours later, the
killer, a Virginia Tech senior, went to the school’s engineering building. First he chained
all the entrance doors shut. Then he headed to a German class and peered in as if he was
looking for somebody. He left but soon returned. Quiet and purposeful, he shot the
teacher in the head and methodically went around the room and took out the students one
by one, pumping at least three bullets into each victim. He then went to three other rooms
to carry out the massacre in the same way. After he killed 32 people, he committed sui-
cide by shooting himself in the temple.1
What caused Cho Seung-Hui to perpetrate these horrendous acts? Various causes
were reported in the media, but the most commonly mentioned ones were his mental ill-
ness and the easy availability of guns in the United States. Such a focus on the causes of
deviant behavior, like Cho’s killing spree and suicide, characterizes positivist theories of
deviance. There are many positivist, causal theories of deviance. The most well-known
examples are shown in the four articles in this part. In the first, “Strain Theory,” Robert
Merton explains how a lack of opportunity to achieve success pressures individuals to-
ward deviance. In the second article, “Differential Association Theory,” Edwin Suther-
land and Donald Cressey attribute deviance to an excess of deviant associations over
conventional associations. In the third selection, “Control Theory,” Travis Hirschi blames
deviance on a lack of control in the individual’s life. In the final piece, “Shaming The-
ory,” John Braithwaite shows how disintegrative shaming causes deviance to flourish.
1
Nancy Gibbs, “Darkness Falls: One Troubled Student Rains Down Death on a Quiet Campus.” Time,
April 30, 2007, pp. 37–53.
19
CHAPTER 3
STRAIN THEORY
ROBERT K. MERTON
The framework set out in this essay is designed to versely located members of the society. The goals
provide one systematic approach to the analysis are more or less integrated—the degree is a ques-
of social and cultural sources of deviant behavior. tion of empirical fact—and roughly ordered in
Our primary aim is to discover how some social some hierarchy of value. Involving various de-
structures exert a definite pressure upon certain grees of sentiment and significance, the prevail-
persons in the society to engage in nonconform- ing goals comprise a frame of aspirational
ing rather than conforming conduct. If we can lo- reference. They are the things “worth striving
cate groups peculiarly subject to such pressures, for.” They are a basic, though not the exclusive,
we should expect to find fairly high rates of de- component of what Linton has called “designs for
viant behavior in these groups, not because the group living.” And though some, not all, of these
human beings comprising them are compounded cultural goals are directly related to the biological
of distinctive biological tendencies but because drives of man, they are not determined by them.
they are responding normally to the social situa- A second element of the cultural structure
tion in which they find themselves. Our perspec- defines, regulates, and controls the acceptable
tive is sociological. We look at variations in the modes of reaching out for these goals. Every so-
rates of deviant behavior, not at its incidence. cial group invariably couples its cultural objec-
Should our quest be at all successful, some forms tives with regulations, rooted in the mores or
of deviant behavior will be found to be as psy- institutions, of allowable procedures for moving
chologically normal as conformist behavior, and toward these objectives. These regulatory norms
the equation of deviation and psychological ab- are not necessarily identical with technical or ef-
normality will be put in question. ficiency norms. Many procedures which from the
standpoint of particular individuals would be
most efficient in securing desired values—the ex-
PATTERNS OF CULTURAL GOALS AND
ercise of force, fraud, power—are ruled out of the
INSTITUTIONAL NORMS
institutional area of permitted conduct. At times,
Among the several elements of social and cultural the disallowed procedures include some which
structures, two are of immediate importance. would be efficient for the group itself—for exam-
These are analytically separable although they ple, historic taboos on vivisection, on medical ex-
merge in concrete situations. The first consists of perimentation, on the sociological analysis of
culturally defined goals, purposes and interests, “sacred” norms—since the criterion of accept-
held out as legitimate objectives for all or for di- ability is not technical efficiency but value-laden
Source: Reprinted with permission of The Free Press, a Division of Simon and Schuster Adult Publish-
ing Group, from Social Theory and Social Structure by Robert K. Merton. Copyright © 1957 by The Free
Press. Copyright renewed 1985 by Robert K. Merton. All rights reserved.
21
22 PART TWO POSITIVIST THEORIES
sentiments (supported by most members of the team is surreptitiously slugged; the wrestler inca-
group or by those able to promote these senti- pacitates his opponent through ingenious but il-
ments through the composite use of power and licit techniques; university alumni covertly
propaganda). In all instances, the choice of expe- subsidize “students” whose talents are confined
dients for striving toward cultural goals is limited to the athletic field. The emphasis on the goal has
by institutionalized norms. so attenuated the satisfactions deriving from sheer
We shall be primarily concerned with the participation in the competitive activity that only
first—a society in which there is an exceptionally a successful outcome provides gratification.
strong emphasis upon specific goals without a Through the same process, tension generated by
corresponding emphasis upon institutional proce- the desire to win in a poker game is relieved by
dures. If it is not to be misunderstood, this state- successfully dealing one’s self four aces or, when
ment must be elaborated. No society lacks norms the cult of success has truly flowered, by saga-
governing conduct. But societies do differ in the ciously shuffling the cards in a game of solitaire.
degree to which the folkways, mores and institu- The faint twinge of uneasiness in the last instance
tional controls are effectively integrated with the and the surreptitious nature of public delicts indi-
goals which stand high in the hierarchy of cultural cate clearly that the institutional rules of the game
values. The culture may be such as to lead indi- are known to those who evade them. But cultural
viduals to center their emotional convictions upon (or idiosyncratic) exaggeration of the success-
the complex of culturally acclaimed ends, with goal leads men to withdraw emotional support
far less emotional support for prescribed methods from the rules.
of reaching out for these ends. With such differ- This process is of course not restricted to the
ential emphases upon goals and institutional pro- realm of competitive sport, which has simply pro-
cedures, the latter may be so vitiated by the stress vided us with microcosmic images of the social
on goals as to have the behavior of many individ- macrocosm. The process whereby exaltation of
uals limited only by considerations of technical the end generates a literal demoralization, that is,
expediency. In this context, the sole significant a de-institutionalization, of the means occurs in
question becomes: Which of the available proce- many groups where the two components of the
dures is most efficient in netting the culturally ap- social structure are not highly integrated.
proved value? The technically most effective Contemporary American culture appears to
procedure, whether culturally legitimate or not, approximate the polar type in which great em-
becomes typically preferred to institutionally pre- phasis upon certain success-goals occurs without
scribed conduct. As this process of attenuation equivalent emphasis upon institutional means. It
continues, the society becomes unstable and there would of course be fanciful to assert that accu-
develops what Durkheim called “anomie” (or mulated wealth stands alone as a symbol of suc-
normlessness). cess, just as it would be fanciful to deny that
The working of this process eventuating in Americans assign it a place high in their scale of
anomie can be easily glimpsed in a series of fa- values. In some large measure, money has been
miliar and instructive, though perhaps trivial, consecrated as a value in itself, over and above its
episodes. Thus, in competitive athletics, when the expenditure for articles of consumption or its use
aim of victory is shorn of its institutional trap- for the enhancement of power. “Money” is pecu-
pings and success becomes construed as “win- liarly well adapted to become a symbol of pres-
ning the game” rather than “winning under the tige. As Simmel emphasized, money is highly
rules of the game,” a premium is implicitly set abstract and impersonal. However acquired,
upon the use of illegitimate but technically effi- fraudulently or institutionally, it can be used to
cient means. The star of the opposing football purchase the same goods and services. The
3 MERTON STRAIN THEORY 23
anonymity of an urban society, in conjunction the cultural prototypes of success, the living docu-
with these peculiarities of money, permits wealth, ments testifying that the American Dream can be
the sources of which may be unknown to the realized if one but has the requisite abilities.
community in which the plutocrat lives or, if Coupled with this positive emphasis upon the
known, to become purified in the course of time, obligation to maintain lofty goals is a correlative
to serve as a symbol of high status. Moreover, in emphasis upon the penalizing of those who draw
the American Dream there is no final stopping in their ambitions. Americans are admonished
point. The measure of “monetary success” is con- “not to be a quitter” for in the dictionary of Amer-
veniently indefinite and relative. At each income ican culture, as in the lexicon of youth, “there is
level, as H. F. Clark found, Americans want just no such word as ‘fail.’ ” The cultural manifesto is
about 25 percent more (but of course this “just a clear: one must not quit, must not cease striving,
bit more” continues to operate once it is ob- must not lessen his goals, for “not failure, but low
tained). In this flux of shifting standards, there is aim, is crime.”
no stable resting point, or rather, it is the point Thus the culture enjoins the acceptance of
which manages always to be “just ahead.” An ob- three cultural axioms: First, all should strive for
server of a community in which annual salaries in the same lofty goals since these are open to all;
six figures are not uncommon reports the an- second, present seeming failure is but a way-
guished words of one victim of the American station to ultimate success; and third, genuine
Dream: “In this town, I’m snubbed socially be- failure consists only in the lessening or with-
cause I only get a thousand a week. That hurts.” drawal of ambition.
To say that the goal of monetary success is en- In rough psychological paraphrase, these ax-
trenched in American culture is only to say that ioms represent, first a symbolic secondary rein-
Americans are bombarded on every side by pre- forcement of incentive; second, curbing the
cepts which affirm the right or, often, the duty of threatened extinction of a response through an as-
retaining the goal even in the face of repeated frus- sociated stimulus; third, increasing the motive
tration. Prestigeful representatives of the society strength to evoke continued responses despite the
reinforce the cultural emphasis. The family, the continued absence of reward.
school and the workplace—the major agencies In sociological paraphrase, these axioms rep-
shaping the personality structure and goal forma- resent, first, the deflection of criticism of the so-
tion of Americans—join to provide the intensive cial structure onto one’s self among those so
disciplining required if an individual is to retain in- situated in the society that they do not have full
tact a goal that remains elusively beyond reach, if and equal access to opportunity; second, the
he is to be motivated by the promise of a gratifica- preservation of a structure of social power by hav-
tion which is not redeemed. As we shall presently ing individuals in the lower social strata identify
see, parents serve as a transmission belt for the val- themselves, not with their compeers, but with
ues and goals of the groups of which they are a those at the top (whom they will ultimately join);
part—above all, of their social class or of the class and third, providing pressures for conformity
with which they identify themselves. And the with the cultural dictates of unslackened ambition
schools are of course the official agency for the by the threat of less than full membership in the
passing on of the prevailing values, with a large society for those who fail to conform.
proportion of the textbooks used in city schools It is in these terms and through these
implying or stating explicitly “that education leads processes that contemporary American culture
to intelligence and consequently to job and money continues to be characterized by a heavy empha-
success.” Central to this process of disciplining sis on wealth as a basic symbol of success, with-
people to maintain their unfulfilled aspirations are out a corresponding emphasis upon the legitimate
avenues on which to march toward this goal. How widely diffused. Were this not so, the stability and
do individuals living in this cultural context re- continuity of the society could not be main-
spond? And how do our observations bear upon tained. . . .
the doctrine that deviant behavior typically
derives from biological impulses breaking
II. Innovation
through the restraints imposed by culture? What,
in short, are the consequences for the behavior of Great cultural emphasis upon the success-goal in-
people variously situated in a social structure of a vites this mode of adaptation through the use of
culture in which the emphasis on dominant suc- institutionally proscribed but often effective
cess goals has become increasingly separated means of attaining at least the simulacra of suc-
from an equivalent emphasis on institutionalized cess—wealth and power. This response occurs
procedures for seeking these goals? when the individual has assimilated the cultural
emphasis upon the goal without equally internal-
izing the institutional norms governing ways and
TYPES OF INDIVIDUAL ADAPTATION
means for its attainment. . . .
Turning from these culture patterns, we now ex- It appears from our analysis that the greatest
amine types of adaptation by individuals within pressures toward deviation are exerted upon the
the culture-bearing society. Though our focus is lower strata. Cases in point permit us to detect the
still the cultural and social genesis of varying sociological mechanisms involved in producing
rates and types of deviant behavior, our perspec- these pressures. Several researches have shown
tive shifts from the plane of patterns of cultural that specialized areas of vice and crime constitute
values to the plane of types of adaptation to these a “normal” response to a situation where the cul-
values among those occupying different positions tural emphasis upon pecuniary success has been
in the social structure. absorbed, but where there is little access to con-
We here consider five types of adaptation, as ventional and legitimate means for becoming suc-
these are schematically set out in the following cessful. The occupational opportunities of people
table, where (+) signifies “acceptance,” (−) signi- in these areas are largely confined to manual
fies “rejection,” and (±) signifies “rejection of labor and the lesser white-collar jobs. Given the
prevailing values and substitution of new values.” American stigmatization of manual labor which
has been found to hold rather uniformly in all so-
A Typology of Modes of Individual Adaptation cial classes, and the absence of realistic opportu-
nities for advancement beyond this level, the
MODES OF CULTURE INSTITUTIONALIZED
ADAPTATION GOALS MEANS
result is a marked tendency toward deviant be-
havior. The status of unskilled labor and the con-
I. Conformity + + sequent low income cannot readily compete in
II. Innovation + − terms of established standards of worth with the
III. Ritualism − + promises of power and high income from orga-
IV. Retreatism − − nized vice, rackets and crime.
V. Rebellion ± ± For our purposes, these situations exhibit two
salient features. First, incentives for success are
provided by the established values of the culture
I. Conformity
and second, the avenues available for moving to-
To the extent that a society is stable, adaptation ward this goal are largely limited by the class
type I—conformity to both cultural goals and in- structure to those of deviant behavior. It is the
stitutionalized means—is the most common and combination of the cultural emphasis and the so-
3 MERTON STRAIN THEORY 25
cial structure which produces intense pressure for society but not of it. Sociologically these consti-
deviation . . . . tute the true aliens. Not sharing the common
frame of values, they can be included as members
of the society (in distinction from the population)
III. Ritualism
only in a fictional sense.
The ritualistic type of adaptation can be readily In this category fall some of the adaptive ac-
identified. It involves the abandoning or scaling tivities of psychotics, autists, pariahs, outcasts,
down of the lofty cultural goals of great pecuniary vagrants, vagabonds, tramps, chronic drunkards
success and rapid social mobility to the point and drug addicts. They have relinquished cultur-
where one’s aspirations can be satisfied. But ally prescribed goals and their behavior does not
though one rejects the cultural obligation to at- accord with institutional norms. The competitive
tempt “to get ahead in the world,” though one order is maintained but the frustrated and handi-
draws in one’s horizons, one continues to abide capped individual who cannot cope with this
almost compulsively by institutional norms. . . . order drops out. Defeatism, quietism and resigna-
We should expect this type of adaptation to tion are manifested in escape mechanisms which
be fairly frequent in a society which makes one’s ultimately lead him to “escape” from the require-
social status largely dependent upon one’s ments of the society. It is thus an expedient which
achievements. For, as has so often been observed, arises from continued failure to near the goal by
this ceaseless competitive struggle produces acute legitimate measures and from an inability to use
status anxiety. One device for allaying these anx- the illegitimate route because of internalized pro-
ieties is to lower one’s level of aspiration—per- hibitions.
manently. Fear produces inaction, or, more
accurately, routinized action.
V. Rebellion
The syndrome of the social ritualist is both
familiar and instructive. His implicit life- This adaptation leads men outside the environing
philosophy finds expression in a series of cultural social structure to envisage and seek to bring into
clichés: “I’m not sticking my neck out,” “I’m being a new, that is to say, a greatly modified so-
playing it safe,” “I’m satisfied with what I’ve cial structure. It presupposes alienation from
got,” “Don’t aim high and you won’t be disap- reigning goals and standards. These come to be
pointed.” The theme threaded through these atti- regarded as purely arbitrary. And the arbitrary is
tudes is that high ambitions invite frustration and precisely that which can neither exact allegiance
danger whereas lower aspirations produce satis- nor possess legitimacy, for it might as well be oth-
faction and security. It is the perspective of the erwise. In our society, organized movements for
frightened employee, the zealously conformist rebellion apparently aim to introduce a social
bureaucrat in the teller’s cage of the private bank- structure in which the cultural standards of suc-
ing enterprise, or in the front office of the public cess would be sharply modified and provision
works enterprise. would be made for a closer correspondence be-
tween merit, effort and reward.
IV. Retreatism
THE STRAIN TOWARD ANOMIE
Just as Adaptation I (conformity) remains the
most frequent, Adaptation IV (the rejection of The social structure we have examined produces
cultural goals and institutional means) is probably a strain toward anomie and deviant behavior. The
the least common. People who adapt (or mal- pressure of such a social order is upon outdoing
adapt) in this fashion are, strictly speaking, in the one’s competitors. So long as the sentiments
supporting this competitive system are distributed the cultural emphasis shifts from the satisfactions
throughout the entire range of activities and are deriving from competition itself to almost exclu-
not confined to the final result of “success,” the sive concern with the outcome, the resultant
choice of means will remain largely within the stress makes for the breakdown of the regulatory
ambit of institutional control. When, however, structure.
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. Identify a situation in which an individual could use two of Merton’s modes of

adaptation simultaneously.
2. What are at least two weaknesses of this theory?
3. Identify and discuss at least three professions that you believe refute the basic
assumptions of this article.
CHAPTER 4
DIFFERENTIAL ASSOCIATION THEORY

EDWIN H. SUTHERLAND
DONALD R. CRESSEY
The following statements refer to the process by define the legal codes as rules to be observed,
which a particular person comes to engage in while in others he is surrounded by persons
criminal behavior. whose definitions are favorable to the violation of
the legal codes. In our American society these
1. Criminal behavior is learned. Negatively, definitions are almost always mixed, with the con-
this means that criminal behavior is not inherited, sequence that we have culture conflict in relation
as such; also, the person who is not already to the legal codes.
trained in crime does not invent criminal behav- 6. A person becomes delinquent because of an
ior, just as a person does not make mechanical in- excess of definitions favorable to violation of law
ventions unless he has had training in mechanics. over definitions unfavorable to violation of law.
2. Criminal behavior is learned in interaction This is the principle of differential association. It
with other persons in a process of communica- refers to both criminal and anticriminal associa-
tion. This communication is verbal in many re- tions and has to do with counteracting forces.
spects but includes also “the communication of When persons become criminal, they do so be-
gestures.” cause of contacts with criminal patterns and also
3. The principal part of the learning of criminal because of isolation from anticriminal patterns.
behavior occurs within intimate personal groups. Any person inevitably assimilates the surround-
Negatively, this means that the impersonal agen- ing culture unless other patterns are in conflict; a
cies of communication, such as movies and news- Southerner does not pronounce r because other
papers, play a relatively unimportant part in the Southerners do not pronounce r. Negatively, this
genesis of criminal behavior. proposition of differential association means that
4. When criminal behavior is learned, the associations which are neutral so far as crime is
learning includes (a) techniques of committing concerned have little or no effect on the genesis of
the crime, which are sometimes very complicated, criminal behavior. Much of the experience of a
sometimes very simple; and (b) the specific direc- person is neutral in this sense, for example, learn-
tion of motives, drives, rationalizations, and atti- ing to brush one’s teeth. This behavior has no
tudes. negative or positive effect on criminal behavior
5. The specific direction of motives and drives except as it may be related to associations which
is learned from definitions of the legal codes as are concerned with the legal codes. This neutral
favorable or unfavorable. In some societies an in- behavior is important especially as an occupier
dividual is surrounded by persons who invariably of the time of a child so that he is not in contact
Source: Edwin H. Sutherland and Donald R. Cressey, Criminology, 9th ed. (Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott,
1977), pp. 75–77.
27
with criminal behavior during the time he is so be, futile, since they explain lawful behavior as
engaged in the neutral behavior. completely as they explain criminal behavior.
7. Differential associations may vary in fre- They are similar to respiration, which is neces-
quency, duration, priority, and intensity. This sary for any behavior, but which does not differ-
means that associations with criminal behavior entiate criminal from noncriminal behavior.
and also associations with anticriminal behavior
vary in those respects. “Frequency” and “dura- It is not necessary, at this level of explana-
tion” as modalities of associations are obvious tion, to explain why a person has the associations
and need no explanation. “Priority” is assumed he has; this certainly involves a complex of many
to be important in the sense that lawful behavior things. In an area where the delinquency rate is
developed in early childhood may persist high, a boy who is sociable, gregarious, active,
throughout life, and also that delinquent behavior and athletic is very likely to come in contact with
developed in early childhood may persist the other boys in the neighborhood, learn delin-
throughout life. This tendency, however, has not quent behavior patterns from them, and become a
been adequately demonstrated, and priority criminal; in the same neighborhood the psycho-
seems to be important principally through its se- pathic boy who is isolated, introverted, and inert
lective influence. “Intensity” is not precisely de- may remain at home, not become acquainted with
fined, but it has to do with such things as the the other boys in the neighborhood, and not be-
prestige of the source of a criminal or anticrimi- come delinquent. In another situation, the socia-
nal pattern and with emotional reactions related ble, athletic, aggressive boy may become a
to the associations. In a precise description of the member of a scout troop and not become involved
criminal behavior of a person, these modalities in delinquent behavior. The person’s associations
would be rated in quantitative form and a mathe- are determined in a general context of social or-
matical ratio reached. A formula in this sense has ganization. A child is ordinarily reared in a fam-
not been developed, and the development of such ily; the place of residence of the family is
a formula would be extremely difficult. determined largely by family income; and the
8. The process of learning criminal behavior by delinquency rate is in many respects related to the
association with criminal and anticriminal pat- rental value of the houses. Many other aspects of
terns involves all of the mechanisms that are in- social organization affect the kinds of associa-
volved in any other learning. Negatively, this tions a person has.
means that the learning of criminal behavior is The preceding explanation of criminal be-
not restricted to the process of imitation. A person havior purports to explain the criminal and non-
who is seduced, for instance, learns criminal be- criminal behavior of individual persons. It is
havior by association, but this process would not possible to state sociological theories of criminal
ordinarily be described as imitation. behavior which explain the criminality of a com-
9. While criminal behavior is an expression of munity, nation, or other group. The problem,
general needs and values, it is not explained by when thus stated, is to account for variations in
those general needs and values, since noncrimi- crime rates and involves a comparison of the
nal behavior is an expression of the same needs crime rates of various groups or the crime rates of
and values. Thieves generally steal in order to se- a particular group at different times. . . . The ex-
cure money, but likewise honest laborers work in planation of a crime rate must be consistent with
order to secure money. The attempts by many the explanation of the criminal behavior of the
scholars to explain criminal behavior by general person, since the crime rate is a summary state-
drives and values, such as the happiness princi- ment of the number of persons in the group who
ple, striving for social status, the money motive, commit crimes and the frequency with which they
or frustration, have been, and must continue to commit crimes. One of the best explanations of
4 SUTHERLAND AND CRESSEY DIFFERENTIAL ASSOCIATION THEORY 29
crime rates from this point of view is that a high criminal behavior or organized against criminal
crime rate is due to social disorganization. The behavior. Most communities are organized for
term social disorganization is not entirely satis- both criminal and anticriminal behavior, and, in
factory, and it seems preferable to substitute for it that sense the crime rate is an expression of the
the term differential social organization. The pos- differential group organization. Differential group
tulate on which this theory is based, regardless of organization as an explanation of variations in
the name, is that crime is rooted in the social or- crime rates is consistent with the differential as-
ganization and is an expression of that social or- sociation theory of the processes by which per-
ganization. A group may be organized for sons become criminals.
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. Using differential association theory, explain how a person could become a drug
user, a prostitute, or an insurance con man.
2. What is the basic premise of differential association theory?
3. Can you use this theory to explain embezzlement? Defend your answer.
CHAPTER 5
CONTROL THEORY
TRAVIS HIRSCHI
Control theories assume that delinquent acts re- for the aggressiveness of those whose attach-
sult when an individual’s bond to society is weak ments to others have been weakened.
or broken. . . . [Elements of the bond are as fol- Durkheim said it many years ago: “We are
lows.] moral beings to the extent that we are social be-
ings.” This may be interpreted to mean that we
are moral beings to the extent that we have “in-
ATTACHMENT
ternalized the norms” of society. But what does it
It can be argued that all of the characteristics at- mean to say that a person has internalized the
tributed to the psychopath follow from, are effects norms of society? The norms of society are by
of, his lack of attachment to others. To say that to definition shared by the members of society. To
lack attachment to others is to be free from moral violate a norm is, therefore, to act contrary to the
restraints is to use lack of attachment to explain wishes and expectations of other people. If a per-
the guiltlessness of the psychopath, the fact that son does not care about the wishes and expecta-
he apparently has no conscience or superego. In tions of other people—that is, if he is insensitive
this view, lack of attachment to others is not to the opinion of others—then he is to that extent
merely a symptom of psychopathy, it is psy- not bound by the norms. He is free to deviate.
chopathy; lack of conscience is just another way The essence of internalization of norms, con-
of saying the same thing; and the violation of science, or superego thus lies in the attachment of
norms is (or may be) a consequence. the individual to others. This view has several ad-
For that matter, given that man is an animal, vantages over the concept of internalization. For
“impulsivity” and “aggressiveness” can also be one, explanations of deviant behavior based on at-
seen as natural consequences of freedom from tachment do not beg the question, since the extent
moral restraints. However, since the view of man to which a person is attached to others can be
as endowed with natural propensities and capaci- measured independently of his deviant behavior.
ties like other animals is peculiarly unpalatable to Furthermore, change or variation in behavior is
sociologists, we need not fall back on such a view explainable in a way that it is not when notions of
to explain the amoral man’s aggressiveness. The interaction or superego are used. For example, the
process of becoming alienated from others often divorced man is more likely after divorce to com-
involves or is based on active interpersonal con- mit a number of deviant acts, such as suicide or
flict. Such conflict could easily supply a reservoir forgery. If we explain these acts by reference to
of socially derived hostility sufficient to account the super-ego (or internal control), we are forced
Source: Reprinted from Travis Hirschi, Causes of Delinquency (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1969), pp. 16–26, by permission of the author.
30
5 HIRSCHI CONTROL THEORY 31
to say that the man “lost his conscience” when he not, if I could, be both handsome and fat and well
got a divorce; and, of course, if he remarries, we dressed, and a great athlete, and make a million a
have to conclude that he gets his conscience year, be a wit, a bon vivant, and a lady killer, as
back. . . . well as a philosopher, a philanthropist, a states-
man, warrior, and African explorer, as well as a
‘tone-poet’ and saint. But the thing is simply im-
COMMITMENT
possible.” The things that William James here
“Of all passions, that which inclineth men least to says he would like to be or do are all, I suppose,
break the laws, is fear. Nay, excepting some gen- within the realm of conventionality, but if he were
erous natures, it is the only thing, when there is to include illicit actions he would still have to
the appearance of profit or pleasure by breaking eliminate some of them as simply impossible.
the laws, that makes men keep them.” Few would Involvement or engrossment in conventional
deny that men on occasion obey the rules simply activities is thus often part of a control theory.
from fear of the consequences. This rational com- The assumption, widely shared, is that a person
ponent in conformity we label commitment. What may be simply too busy doing conventional
does it mean to say that a person is committed to things to find time to engage in deviant behavior.
conformity? . . . [It means] that the person invests The person involved in conventional activities is
time, energy, himself, in a certain line of activ- tied to appointments, deadlines, working hours,
ity—say, getting an education, building up a busi- plans, and the like, so the opportunity to commit
ness, acquiring a reputation for virtue. When or deviant acts rarely arises. To the extent that he is
whenever he considers deviant behavior, he must engrossed in conventional activities, he cannot
consider the costs of this deviant behavior, the even think about deviant acts, let alone act out his
risk he runs of losing the investment he has made inclinations. . . .
in conventional behavior.
If attachment to others is the sociological
BELIEF
counterpart of the superego or conscience, com-
mitment is the counterpart of the ego or common The control theory assumes the existence of a
sense. To the person committed to conventional common value system within the society or group
lines of action, risking one to ten years in prison whose norms are being violated. If the deviant is
for a ten-dollar holdup is stupidity, because to the committed to a value system different from that
committed person the costs and risks obviously of conventional society, there is, within the con-
exceed ten dollars in value. (To the psychoana- text of the theory, nothing to explain. The ques-
lyst, such an act exhibits failure to be governed by tion is, “Why does a man violate the rules in
the “reality-principle.”) In the sociological con- which he believes?” It is not, “Why do men differ
trol theory, it can be and is generally assumed that in their beliefs about what constitutes good and
the decision to commit a criminal act may well be desirable conduct?” The person is assumed to
rationally determined—that the actor’s decision have been socialized (perhaps imperfectly) into
was not irrational given the risks and costs he the group whose rules he is violating; deviance is
faces. . . . not a question of one group imposing its rules on
the members of another group. In other words, we
not only assume the deviant has believed the
INVOLVEMENT
rules, we assume he believes the rules even as he
Many persons undoubtedly owe a life of virtue to violates them.
a lack of opportunity to do otherwise. Time and How can a person believe it is wrong to steal
energy are inherently limited: “Not that I would at the same time he is stealing? In the strain
theory, this is not a difficult problem. (In fact, the Control theories have taken two approaches
strain theory was devised specifically to deal with to this problem. In one approach, beliefs are
this question.) The motivation to deviance ad- treated as mere words that mean little or noth-
duced by the strain theorist is so strong that we ing. . . . The second approach argues that the de-
can well understand the deviant act even assum- viant rationalizes his behavior so that he can at
ing the deviator believes strongly that it is wrong. once violate the rule and maintain his belief in
However, given the control theory’s assumptions it. . . . We assume, however, that there is variation
about motivation, if both the deviant and the non- in the extent to which people believe they should
deviant believe the deviant act is wrong, how do obey the rules of society, and, furthermore, that
we account for the fact that one commits it and the less a person believes he should obey the
the other does not? rules, the more likely he is to violate them.
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. Using control theory as a frame of reference, explain why a city would imple-
ment a program that includes midnight football and other recreational programs;
a kitchen where an entire family can work together with other families prepar-
ing a meal; and a short simple movie, which plays while people are eating,
whose theme reinforces some positive aspect of American life, such as respect-
ing others’ property and treating all people with dignity and respect.
2. What is the difference between control theory and differential association the-
ory?
3. Can control theory be used to explain prostitution? Defend your answer.
CHAPTER 6
SHAMING THEORY
JOHN BRAITHWAITE
Cultural commitments to shaming are the key to than reintegrative in their punishment processes,
controlling all types of crime. However, for all that have not learnt the trick of punishing within
types of crime, shaming runs the risk of counter- a continuum of love, are the families that fail at
productivity when it shades into stigmatization. socializing their children.
The crucial distinction is between shaming
that is reintegrative and shaming that is disinte-
KEY CONCEPTS
grative (stigmatization). Reintegrative shaming
means that expressions of community disap- Interdependency is a condition of individuals. It
proval, which may range from mild rebuke to means the extent to which individuals participate
degradation ceremonies, are followed by gestures in networks wherein they are dependent on others
of reacceptance into the community of law-abiding to achieve valued ends and others are dependent
citizens. These gestures of reacceptance will vary on them. We could describe an individual as in a
from a simple smile expressing forgiveness and state of interdependency even if the individuals
love to quite formal ceremonies to decertify the of- who are dependent on him are different from the
fender as deviant. Disintegrative shaming (stigma- individuals on whom he is dependent. Interde-
tization), in contrast, divides the community by pendency is approximately equivalent to the so-
creating a class of outcasts. Much effort is directed cial bonding, attachment and commitment of
at labeling deviance, while little attention is paid to control theory.
delabeling, to signifying forgiveness and reintegra- Communitarianism is a condition of societies.
tion, to ensuring that the deviance label is applied In communitarian societies individuals are
to the behavior rather than the person, and that this densely enmeshed in interdependencies which
is done under the assumption that the disapproved have the special qualities of mutual help and trust.
behavior is transient, performed by an essentially The interdependencies have symbolic significance
good person. . . . in the culture of group loyalties which take prece-
The best place to see reintegrative shaming at dence over individual interests. The interdepen-
work is in loving families. . . . Family life teaches dencies also have symbolic significance as
us that shaming and punishment are possible attachments which invoke personal obligation to
while maintaining bonds of respect. Two hy- others in a community of concern, rather than sim-
potheses are suggested: first, families are the ply interdependencies of convenience as between
most effective agents of social control in most so- a bank and a small depositor. A communitarian
cieties partly because of this characteristic; sec- culture rejects any pejorative connotation of de-
ond, those families that are disintegrative rather pendency as threatening individual autonomy.
Source: John Braithwaite, Crime, Shame, and Reintegration (New York: Cambridge University Press,
1989), pp. 55–56. Reprinted with permission.
33
Communitarian cultures resist interpretations of vicious. It is not distinguished from stigmatiza-

dependency as weakness and emphasize the need tion by its potency, but by (a) a finite rather than
for mutuality of obligation in interdependency (to open-ended duration which is terminated by for-
be both dependent and dependable). The Japanese giveness; and by (b) efforts to maintain bonds of
are said to be socialized not only to amaeru (to be love or respect throughout the finite period of suf-
succored by others) but also to amayakasu (to be fering shame.
nurturing to others). Stigmatization is disintegrative shaming in
Shaming means all social processes of ex- which no effort is made to reconcile the offender
pressing disapproval which have the intention or with the community. The offender is outcast, her
effect of invoking remorse in the person being deviance is allowed to become a master status,
shamed and/or condemnation by others who be- degradation ceremonies are not followed by cere-
come aware of the shaming. When associated monies to decertify deviance.
with appropriate symbols, formal punishment Criminal subcultures are sets of rationaliza-
often shames. But societies vary enormously in tions and conduct norms which cluster together to
the extent to which formal punishment is associ- support criminal behavior. The clustering is usu-
ated with shaming or in the extent to which the ally facilitated by subcultural groups which pro-
social meaning of punishment is no more than to vide systematic social support for crime in any of
inflict pain to tip reward-cost calculations in favor a number of ways—supplying members with
of certain outcomes. Shaming, unlike purely de- criminal opportunities, criminal values, attitudes
terrent punishment, sets out to moralize with the which weaken conventional values of law-
offender to communicate reasons for the evil of abidingness, or techniques of neutralizing con-
her actions. Most shaming is neither associated ventional values.
with formal punishment nor perpetrated by the
state, though both shaming by the state and sham-
SHORT SUMMARY OF THE THEORY
ing with punishment are important types of sham-
ing. Most shaming is by individuals within The following might serve as the briefest possible
interdependent communities of concern. summary of the theory. A variety of life circum-
Reintegrative shaming is shaming which is stances increase the chances that individuals will
followed by efforts to reintegrate the offender be in situations of greater interdependency, the
back into the community of law-abiding or re- most important being age (under 15 and over 25),
spectable citizens through words or gestures of being married, female, employed, and having
forgiveness or ceremonies to decertify the of- high employment and educational aspirations. In-
fender as deviant. Shaming and reintegration do terdependent persons are more susceptible to
not occur simultaneously but sequentially, with shaming. More important, societies in which in-
reintegration occurring before deviance becomes dividuals are subject to extensive interdependen-
a master status. It is shaming which labels the act cies are more likely to be communitarian, and
as evil while striving to preserve the identity of shaming is much more widespread and potent in
the offender as essentially good. It is directed at communitarian societies. Urbanization and high
signifying evil deeds rather than evil persons in residential mobility are societal characteristics
the Christian tradition of “hate the sin and love which undermine communitarianism.
the sinner.” Specific disapproval is expressed The shaming produced by interdependency
within relationships characterized by general so- and communitarianism can be either of two
cial approval; shaming criminal behavior is com- types—shaming that becomes stigmatization or
plemented by ongoing social rewarding of shaming that is followed by reintegration. The
alternative behavior patterns. Reintegrative sham- shaming engendered is more likely to become
ing is not necessarily weak; it can be cruel, even reintegrative in societies that are communitarian.
6 BRAITHWAITE SHAMING THEORY 35
In societies where shaming does become reinte- are widespread and accessible in the society,
grative, low crime rates are the result because dis- higher crime rates will be the result. While soci-
approval is dispensed without eliciting a rejection eties characterized by high levels of stigmatiza-
of the disapprovers, so that the potentialities for tion will have higher crime rates than societies
future disapproval are not dismantled. . . . characterized by reintegrative shaming, the for-
Shaming that is stigmatizing, in contrast, mer will have higher or lower crime rates than so-
makes criminal subcultures more attractive be- cieties with little shaming at all depending largely
cause these are in some sense subcultures which on the availability of criminal subcultures.
reject the rejectors. Thus, when shaming is al- Yet a high level of stigmatization in the soci-
lowed to become stigmatization for want of rein- ety is one of the very factors that encourages
tegrative gestures or ceremonies which decertify criminal subculture formation by creating popula-
deviance, the deviant is both attracted to criminal tions of outcasts with no stake in conformity, no
subcultures and cut off from other interdependen- chance of self-esteem within the terms of conven-
cies (with family, neighbors, church, etc.). Partic- tional society—individuals in search of an alter-
ipation in subcultural groups supplies criminal native culture that allows them self-esteem. A
role models, training in techniques of crime and communitarian culture, on the other hand, nur-
techniques of neutralizing crime or other forms of tures deviants within a network of attachments to
social support that make choices to engage in conventional society, thus inhibiting the wide-
crime more attractive. Thus, to the extent that spread outcasting that is the stuff of subculture
shaming is of the stigmatizing rather than the formation.
reintegrative sort, and that criminal subcultures
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. There has been a tremendous amount of media coverage of the behavior of some
Catholic priests and their interaction with children. Given the coverage, do you
think reintegrative or disintegrative shaming should be applied? Defend your
answer.
2. What is the value of having a communitarian culture as it relates to the treatment
of deviants in a given society? Explain your response in detail.
3. What type of shaming identified in the article works best with white-collar crim-
inals? Justify your answer.
PART THREE
CONSTRUCTIONIST
THEORIES
Abortion has been legal since 1973, but it is getting harder to get one. Consider Lisa, a
22-year-old unmarried woman who works in a restaurant. Several months ago she was
pregnant and decided to have an abortion. But the abortion provider that was located 15
minutes from her home had just closed down. Only four doctors who performed abor-
tions were left in the entire state of Missouri. The closest one to Lisa’s hometown was at
the Planned Parenthood clinic in St. Louis, an eight-hour roundtrip. Having no car, Lisa
not only had to ask a friend to drive her, but also had to miss two days of work. She had
to take the long trip again two weeks later for a follow-up exam that lasted five minutes.
Her total expenditure, which included the clinic’s bill, the abortion drug, gasoline, food,
and incidentals, was more than $600. “It was all very frustrating,” she said a month after
her abortion. “I only recently paid back everyone I borrowed money from.”1
Besides Missouri, many other states have also made it more difficult to get an abor-
tion. Not only have they created a hostile environment that has led to the closing of many
abortion clinics, they have also imposed legal restrictions on abortion, such as requiring
pre-abortion counseling, a waiting period, and parental consent or notification. In effect,
they treat abortion as a deviant act. So do positivist sociologists. However, to construc-
tionist sociologists, abortion is not a deviant act; it is only deviant as a mental construc-
tion, as a figment of human imagination. Thus, constructionists have developed theories
about how people impute the notion of “deviance” to behaviors such as abortion and what
consequence this has for themselves and for others.
In this part of our reader, we present various constructionist theories. In the first ar-
ticle, “Labeling Theory,” Howard Becker shows how the meaning of deviance derives not
from the act a person commits, but from society’s labeling of an act as deviant. In the sec-
ond selection, “Phenomenological Theory,” Jack Katz provides a tour into the experien-
tial world of deviants, revealing how they feel about their so-called deviant activities. In
the third reading, “Conflict Theory,” Richard Quinney describes what he calls “the social
reality of crime.” The reality is said to comprise the meanings of criminal laws, enforce-
ment of these laws, their violations by relatively powerless people, and the dominant
class’s crime ideology that supports the enforcement of laws against lower-class crimi-
nals. In the fourth article, “Feminist Theory,” Kathleen Daly discusses how societal views
of women make them differ from men in lawbreaking.
1
Karen Tumulty, “Abortion: Where the Real Action Is . . .” Time, January 30, 2006, pp. 50–53.
37
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
symbolic of her rank and estate as housekeeper. And I noticed that
after a first glance at him, she gave Parslewe a steady, knowing
inspection.
“Good morning to you, ma’am,” said Parslewe, with his best old-
fashioned politeness. “I understand we may look round?”
The housekeeper explained. The state rooms, including those once
used by Queen Elizabeth, and the bed in which her Majesty had
slept, were open to inspection. Visitors paid a shilling each; the
shillings were given to the local charities. So Parslewe paid three
shillings, and we all inscribed our names in a book—Parslewe last.
And as he laid down the pen under the housekeeper’s eye, he
turned and looked at her.
“Now, ma’am!” he said. “Have you ever seen me before?”
The woman gave him a quiet, watchful look.
“Yes, sir,” she answered readily. “I remember you. You’re the
gentleman who dined here with my late master some three years
ago, and spent the evening with him. But I never heard your name,
sir.”
Parslewe nodded, and remarking that there was no need to show us
round, he’d prefer to be left to himself, led us into the hall and up a
great staircase to the state apartments. It was evident at once that
he knew the whole place, and for the next hour he was in his
element as guide while we were lost in wonder and admiration at
the things he showed us. And we were examining the very bed on
which Queen Elizabeth had stretched her limbs when the
housekeeper came in, more interested in Parslewe than ever.
“Sir,” she said, with something of deference. “Sir Charles Sperrigoe’s
compliments, and he awaits your pleasure in the morning-room.”
XII
The Palkeney Motto
IT was characteristic of Parslewe that he deliberately finished what
he was telling us about Queen Elizabeth and her visit to Palkeney
before he made any move in the direction of Sir Charles Sperrigoe. I
am afraid we only heard a half of what he said; we were both
conscious that what we might hear downstairs was certain to prove
of far greater interest than anything Parslewe could tell us about the
sixteenth century. Personally, I felt a throb of excitement when at
last he turned away from the queer old chamber in which we stood.
“Well, come on!” he said, “I suppose we must see this chap and
clear things up. Didn’t she say the morning-room?”
He seemed to know where that was well enough, and led the way
straight to it; its door was slightly open, and as Parslewe threw it
wide we became aware of Sir Charles, posted on the hearth, his
large face turned expectantly towards us. Its expression was severe,
pompous, and non-committal, but it changed with startling rapidity
as his eyes fell on Parslewe. He almost jumped, indeed—moved,
recovered himself, gasped.
“God bless my soul!” he exclaimed. “My dear sir, surely we have met
before?”
Parslewe laughed sardonically.
“Aye, surely!” he answered, in his most casual fashion. “Neither of us
difficult to recognise, I should think, Sir Charles. And I understand
you’ve met these young people before, too?”
Sir Charles hastened to acknowledge us—perfunctorily; it was
evident that we were very unimportant factors in the situation
compared to Parslewe, upon whom his eyes were fastened with
strange interest.
“I have had that pleasure,” he said. “But you, my dear sir—we met,
one night, some—is it two, or is it three years ago?—at the Crown,
in our neighbouring town, where, I believe, you are now staying? I
remember our conversation—instructive and—and enjoyable. Dear
me! But I never knew your name.”
“I knew yours,” said Parslewe, with a grin. “That’s just why I
wouldn’t see you when you came to my house.”
Sir Charles stared—this was beyond him. He looked from one to the
other of us; finally at Parslewe. There was that in his expression
which made me think that he was wondering if Parslewe might not
be a little mad.
“But why, my good sir?” he asked soothingly. “Why? Am I so——”
Parslewe laughed and pointed to the panelling over the big fireplace.
There, carved in oak, was the Palkeney coat-of-arms, and beneath it
the motto that had excited my wonder when I first saw it on the
copper box.
“Do you see that?” he asked. “Aye?—well, you see, I have the
Palkeney blood in my veins! And what I please to do, that I do!—
without caring for or consulting anybody. Family characteristic,
Sperrigoe! But I guess you’ve seen it before, eh?”
Sir Charles was still staring at him. He looked like a man who has
unexpectedly got hold of some curious animal and is uncertain what
it is about to do next. But after rubbing his chin a little, he spoke.
“Do I understand you to say that you have the Palkeney blood in
your veins?” he inquired. “Then——”
Parslewe suddenly pointed to the table which stood in the centre of
the room, signing us all to be seated at it; I noticed that he himself
took the chair at its head as with an unchallengeable authority.
“Better sit down and do our business,” he said. Then, as we settled
round the table, Madrasia and I on his right and left hand, and Sir
Charles opposite to him, he put a hand in his coat pocket, drew out
the copper box, and with one of his queer smiles, set it before him.
“Do you know what that is, Sperrigoe?” he asked.
Sir Charles made a wry face.
“The cause of much worry and anxiety to me, my dear sir!” he
answered. “I can see what it is well enough!”
“Aye, and you want to know how I got it, don’t you?” suggested
Parslewe. “So do these young people. I’ll tell you. Old Matthew
Palkeney made me a present of it.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Sir Charles. “You were acquainted with him?”
“Don’t I tell you I’ve got Palkeney blood in my veins?” said Parslewe.
“My great-grandmother was a Palkeney—born in this house. I have
the Palkeney pedigree, and the Parslewe pedigree—at your service,
any time. And when I came to the Crown, on the occasion you’ve
just mentioned, it was just out of curiosity to see this place. I
introduced myself to old Matthew. I’d brought my pedigree with me;
we compared notes and family documents, and enjoyed ourselves. I
dined here with him one night, and we went thoroughly into family
history.”
“He was convinced of your relationship?” asked Sir Charles.
“He couldn’t be anything else,” said Parslewe, drily. “The thing’s
there—it’s fact. But we didn’t dwell overmuch on that, once it was
settled. We were more concerned with our mutual taste for old
things. And the next day the old man drove up to the Crown, when I
was out, and left for me a parcel. It contained this copper box,
which has been in the family for I don’t know how long, and some
six or seven old books which I had admired—a nice present. I wrote
him a nice letter in return, and carried my present home. Not
knowing, mind you,” added Parslewe, with a sudden keen look,
“what this box contained.”
Sir Charles was getting keenly attentive. He looked like a man who
has become sure that something is going to be sprung on him.
“My dear sir!” he said. “What did it contain?”
Parslewe picked up the copper box and tapped it significantly.
“I never knew that it contained anything until some thirty-six hours
ago!” he answered. “I never should have known if you fellows hadn’t
made such a fuss about it. But when you did—when I found out
from Craye here that you yourself were on the prowl, there in
Northumberland, and after me—well, I naturally began to put two
and two together. And it seemed to me that the secret lay with that
man Bickerdale, to whom I’d entrusted the copper box for repair,
and who’d had it in his hands long enough to find out about it more
than I had. It struck me that Bickerdale, not content with what he’d
got out of you for telling where the box was, had discovered
something in it which he was holding back in hopes of a further and
more substantial reward. So I just went to Newcastle and started to
find that out. I did find it out—and though I’m not clear now as to
when Bickerdale found a certain document in the box, I did find out
that he’d not only found one, but had got it! And in Craye’s presence
and in the presence of your man Pawley, to whom I’d just given a
certain piece of confidential information—I forced it out of
Bickerdale. I’ve got it! And it solves the question that’s been
bothering you.”
Sir Charles was getting more and more impatient; his plump white
fingers were drumming on the table. And as Parslewe finished, he
voiced his impatience in a quick, direct question.
“What is this document?”
Parslewe smiled, and turned the copper box over, so that the four
rounded feet at its corners stood uppermost.
“I’ll show it to you now,” he said. “And I’ll show you where old
Matthew Palkeney had hidden it, probably intending before he died
to tell you, Sperrigoe, where it was hidden. Now look here; there’s a
false bottom to this box. You unscrew these knobs so, one after the
other. When they’re unscrewed, like that, you lift this plate; there’s a
thin cavity between it and the inner floor of the box. And here’s the
document. I put it back in the box so that you could see for yourself
where it had been concealed.”
He tossed over the table the envelope which I had seen him take
from Bickerdale. The solicitor picked it up eagerly. He drew out the
sheet of letter paper which lay within, and his sharp, shrewd eyes
had read whatever was written there in a few seconds. He gave a
gasp; his big face flushed; he looked across at Parslewe.
“Good God, my dear sir!” he exclaimed. “Do—do you know what this
—what this—this most important document—is?”
“I do!” replied Parslewe, drily. “But these two don’t.”
Sir Charles turned to us. I think he found some relief for his
astonished feelings in having somebody to announce something to.
“This—this is a will!” he said, in almost awestruck accents. “The will
of my late client, Mr. Matthew Palkeney! Made by himself on a single
sheet of notepaper! But in strict order, duly executed and attested. I
know the witnesses——”
“So do I,” observed Parslewe, with a laugh. “Talked to both of ’em
this morning on the way here.”
“And—and, in short, it is what it is!” continued Sir Charles. “Nothing
can upset it! And in it, in as few words as ever he could use, Mr.
Matthew Palkeney leaves everything of which he dies possessed to—
Mr. Parslewe! Wonderful!”
Parslewe thrust his hands in his pockets.
“I don’t see anything very wonderful about it,” he remarked, coldly.
“We were of the same blood! The old man evidently wanted to—and
he did. But he never consulted me, you know, Sperrigoe.”
“All the more pleasant surprise for you, my dear sir!” exclaimed Sir
Charles. A new mood appeared to have come over him; after re-
reading the will more attentively, he rubbed his hands, chuckled,
beamed on all three of us, and seemed to have had a great weight
lifted off his mind. “My hearty congratulations, sir!” he went on, with
an almost reverential inclination of his head across the table. “A very,
very handsome property you have come into by this, Mr. Parslewe!
One of the most beautiful old houses in England, a charming, if
small estate, and—yes, I should say, as a good estimate, some five
or six thousand a year! Delightful!”
But Parslewe, leaning back in his chair, with his hands thrust in his
breeches pockets, had set those thin lips of his. He looked over the
table at Sir Charles as if he were never going to speak. But he
spoke.
“Aye!” he said, in his driest, hardest tones. “Just so! Maybe! But you
see, I don’t want it. And I won’t have it!”
A dead silence fell on us. Madrasia turned wonderingly towards her
guardian. I was already watching him. As for Sir Charles Sperrigoe,
he flushed crimson—as if somebody had struck him an insulting
blow. He leaned forward.
“You—my dear sir, I am, I fear, inclining to deafness,” he said. “Did I
understand you to say——”
“I said I don’t want it, and I won’t have it!” repeated Parslewe,
loudly. “I should have told old Matthew that if he’d ever asked me
about it. I’m a man of fixed and immutable principle. When I went
out to India as a young man, I made a vow that I’d never own or
take anything in this life that I didn’t earn by my own effort, and I’ll
stick to it! I don’t want the Palkeney estate, nor the Palkeney house,
nor the Palkeney money—I’ve plenty of money of my own, more
than I know what to do with, and a house that suits me better than
this does. If you want to know me, look again at that motto! What I
please, that I’ll do! And I won’t have this—that’s flat!”
Sir Charles’s astonished face regained its normal colour, and he
suddenly laughed with genuine amusement.
“Dear, dear!” he said. “There is no doubt, my dear sir, of your
Palkeney blood—the Palkeneys were always eccentric. But—you’re
forgetting something; a very pertinent something. This place is
yours! Yours! Everything’s yours! I think I should put my—rather
rash and hasty—vow in my pocket, my dear sir!”
Parslewe’s lips became tight again. But they presently relaxed, and
he bent forward to the table again, and began to smile.
“If this place and the whole thing is mine, absolutely and entirely,”
he said in honeyed accent, “I reckon I can do just what I like with it,
what?”
“There’s no man can say you nay!” answered Sir Charles. “It’s—
yours!”
“Then I’ll tell you what,” said Parslewe, with one of his beautiful
smiles and a wave of his hand. “I’ll give it to these two young
people! They’re just suited to each other, and it’ll fit their tastes like
a glove. They can get married at once, and settle down here, and I’ll
come and see them sometimes, and they can come and see me
sometimes at Kelpieshaw. That’s the best way I can see out of the
difficulty. We’ll settle it on them and their children——”
But by this time Madrasia’s cheeks were aflame, and she turned on
Parslewe with blazing eyes.
“Jimmie!” she exclaimed. “How—how dare you? When will you give
up that wicked habit of settling other people’s affairs as if—as if they
were so many puppets? Why—why—Mr. Craye has never even asked
me to marry him!”
Parslewe turned the full force of his grimmest smile on us.
“Well, my dear!” he retorted leisurely. “It’s his own fault if he hasn’t!
I’m sure he’s had plenty of opportunity. But——”
Sir Charles rose to the occasion. He rose literally from his chair,
bending towards Parslewe; he even allowed himself to indulge in a
slight wink at Parslewe.
“My dear sir!” he cooed. “I think—er—if we left our young friends
together, my dear sir! A little—er—informal conversation between
them—eh?—while you and I—shall we try a glass of the famous
Palkeney dry sherry in another apartment, my dear sir? Just so—just
so——”
In another moment he had coaxed Parslewe out of the room; the
door closed on them. Madrasia and I, seated at opposite sides of the
table, stared at each other. It seemed a long time before I found my
tongue.
“Madrasia!” I managed to say at last. “Madrasia!”
“Well?” she answered.
“Madrasia!” I continued. “This is absolutely awful! You know what
your guardian is!—a dreadful man. Nothing will prevent him from
having his own way about—about anything! Whether we like it or
not, he’ll go and do what—what he said he would do just now.”
Madrasia looked down at the table, and began to study the pattern
of the cloth.
“Well?” she said.
“I don’t think it’s at all well,” said I. “Supposing—just supposing, you
know—supposing we fell in with his wishes and—and got married.
I’m just supposing, of course!”
“Well?” she said, again.
“Don’t you see what a dreadful thing that would be?” I said.
She gave me a quick flash of her eye—there, and gone in a second.
“Why?” she demanded.
“People would say I married you for your money,” I declared boldly.
“That would be awful for both of us!”
She remained silent a moment, tracing the pattern of the cloth with
the tip of her finger. Then she spoke—emphatically.
“Rot!” she said.
“No!” said I, with equal emphasis. “Because they would! I know ’em!
And it’s beastly hard on me; it upsets my plans. Parslewe’s upset all
my plans. If I’d only known——”
“Only known what?” she asked.
“Only known that he was going to spring this on us!” I answered,
bitterly. “If I’d only known that, I’d—I’d have——”
“You’d have what?” she asked, as I paused and hesitated.
“Well—I’d have proposed to you this morning when we were in the
hotel garden, or in that carriage, or in the wood, when Parslewe was
ahead,” I answered. “Or yesterday, or the day before, or the day
before that—any time since I first met you. But now—wouldn’t it
look as if I were proposing to the Palkeney estate?”
She suddenly looked up, gave me a queer glance, and rising from
her chair walked over to one of the embrasured windows. I followed
her—and after a moment’s silence, slipped my arm round her waist.
“What on earth’s to be done?” I asked her. “Tell me!”
I got her to look round at last.
“You’re an awful old ass!” she said in a whisper. “I saw the way out
at once. He didn’t say he’d give all this to me! He said he’d give it to
—us!”
“Is it going to be—us, then?” I demanded eagerly.
“Seems very like it, I think, doesn’t it?” she answered, demurely.
So—but not for a little while—we went to tell Parslewe.
THE END
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been
standardized.
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COPPER BOX
***
Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will
be renamed.
Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S.

copyright law means that no one owns a United States copyright in
these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it
in the United States without permission and without paying
copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of
Use part of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™
concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following
the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use
of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything
for copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is
very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as
creation of derivative works, reports, performances and research.
Project Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given
away—you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with
eBooks not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject
to the trademark license, especially commercial redistribution.
START: FULL LICENSE

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free

distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work (or
any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at
www.gutenberg.org/license.
Section 1. General Terms of Use and

Redistributing Project Gutenberg™
electronic works
1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree
to and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your
possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be
bound by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund
from the person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in
paragraph 1.E.8.
1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be

used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people
who agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a
few things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic
works even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.
See paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with
Project Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this
agreement and help preserve free future access to Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.
1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the
Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the
collection of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the
individual works in the collection are in the public domain in the
United States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law
in the United States and you are located in the United States, we do
not claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing,
performing, displaying or creating derivative works based on the
work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of
course, we hope that you will support the Project Gutenberg™
mission of promoting free access to electronic works by freely
sharing Project Gutenberg™ works in compliance with the terms of
this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg™ name associated
with the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this
agreement by keeping this work in the same format with its attached
full Project Gutenberg™ License when you share it without charge
with others.
1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also
govern what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most
countries are in a constant state of change. If you are outside the
United States, check the laws of your country in addition to the
terms of this agreement before downloading, copying, displaying,
performing, distributing or creating derivative works based on this
work or any other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes
no representations concerning the copyright status of any work in
any country other than the United States.
1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other

immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must
appear prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™
work (any work on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears,
or with which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is
accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, copied or distributed:
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United
States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away
or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License
included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you
are not located in the United States, you will have to check the
laws of the country where you are located before using this
eBook.
1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is derived

from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not contain a
notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the copyright
holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in the
United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must
comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through
1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project
Gutenberg™ trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted

with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works posted
with the permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning
of this work.
1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project

Gutenberg™ License terms from this work, or any files containing a
part of this work or any other work associated with Project
Gutenberg™.
1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this

electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1
with active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg™ License.
1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form,
including any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you
provide access to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work
in a format other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in
the official version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website
(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or
expense to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or
a means of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original
“Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must
include the full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in
paragraph 1.E.1.
1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,

performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing

access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
provided that:
• You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive
from the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the
method you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The
fee is owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark,
but he has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to
the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty
payments must be paid within 60 days following each date on
which you prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your
periodic tax returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked
as such and sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation at the address specified in Section 4, “Information
about donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation.”
• You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who

notifies you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt
that s/he does not agree to the terms of the full Project
Gutenberg™ License. You must require such a user to return or
destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
Project Gutenberg™ works.
• You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of

any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in
the electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90
days of receipt of the work.
• You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.
1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg™

electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of
the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set
forth in Section 3 below.
1.F.
1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend

considerable effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe
and proofread works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating
the Project Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works, and the medium on which they may
be stored, may contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to,
incomplete, inaccurate or corrupt data, transcription errors, a
copyright or other intellectual property infringement, a defective or
damaged disk or other medium, a computer virus, or computer
codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.
1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for

the “Right of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3,
the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the
Project Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a
Project Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim
all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR
NEGLIGENCE, STRICT LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR
BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH
1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK
OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL
NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT,
CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF
YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you

discover a defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving
it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by
sending a written explanation to the person you received the work
from. If you received the work on a physical medium, you must
return the medium with your written explanation. The person or
entity that provided you with the defective work may elect to provide
a replacement copy in lieu of a refund. If you received the work
electronically, the person or entity providing it to you may choose to
give you a second opportunity to receive the work electronically in
lieu of a refund. If the second copy is also defective, you may
demand a refund in writing without further opportunities to fix the
problem.
1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO
OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED,
INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied

warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted
by the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any
provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation,

the trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation,
anyone providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in
accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with
the production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™
electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the
following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or
any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or
additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any
Defect you cause.
Section 2. Information about the Mission

of Project Gutenberg™
Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.
It exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and
donations from people in all walks of life.
Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the

assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will
remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a
secure and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future
generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help,
see Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at
www.gutenberg.org.
Section 3. Information about the Project

Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws.
The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West,

Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up
to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website
and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
Section 4. Information about Donations to

the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation
Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without
widespread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can
be freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the
widest array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many
small donations ($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to
maintaining tax exempt status with the IRS.
The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating

charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and
keep up with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in
locations where we have not received written confirmation of
compliance. To SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of
compliance for any particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate.
While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where

we have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no
prohibition against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in
such states who approach us with offers to donate.
International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make

any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of
other ways including checks, online payments and credit card
donations. To donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate.
Section 5. General Information About

Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be
freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of
volunteer support.
Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
edition.
Most people start at our website which has the main PG search
facility: www.gutenberg.org.
This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™,

including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how
to subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.

Instant Ebooks Textbook READINGS IN DEVIANT BEHAVIOR 6th Edition Alex Thio Download All Chapters

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Instant Ebooks Textbook READINGS IN DEVIANT BEHAVIOR 6th Edition Alex Thio Download All Chapters

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Instant Ebooks Textbook READINGS IN DEVIANT BEHAVIOR 6th Edition Alex Thio Download All Chapters

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Full download ebook at ebookgate.

READINGS IN DEVIANT BEHAVIOR 6th Edition Alex

Download more ebook from https://ebookgate.com

Sociology of Deviant Behavior 13th Edition Marshall

Hadoop in Practice Alex Holmes

Alex s Adventures in Numberland Dispatches from the

Hadoop in Practice 2nd Edition Alex Holmes

Behavior Analysis and Design of Steel Work Connections

Readings in Chinese Communist Ideology Wen-Shun Chi

Applied Behavior Analysis Principles and Procedures in

Readings in the Cantos 1st Edition Richard Parker

READINGS IN DEVIANT BEHAVIOR

READINGS IN DEVIANT BEHAVIOR

Allyn & Bacon

Publisher: Karen Hanson

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Allyn & Bacon

2 Defining Deviancy Down

4 Differential Association Theory

12 Serial Murder: Popular Myths and Empirical Realities

13 What Triggers School Shootings?

14 “I Hope Someone Murders Your Mother!”:

16 Intimate Stalking: Characteristics and Consequences

18 How Child Molesters Explain Their Deviance

20 Self-Injurers: A “Lonely Crowd”

21 Being Sane in Insane Places

22 The Emergence of Hyperactive Adults as Abnormal

24 The Stigma of Obesity

25 What Is It Like to Be a Rural Lesbian?

26 “You’re Not a Retard, You’re Just Wise”

28 Flawed Theory and Method in Studies of Prostitution

29 Exotic Dancers: “Where Am I Going to Stop?”

32 “Hey, Don’t Blame Me. . . Blame the Booze”

33 OxyContin: A Prescription for Disaster

34 Damn, It Feels Good to be a Gangsta: Selling Drugs on Campus

36 Online Dating: “I’m Dysfunctional, You’re Dysfunctional”

37 Online Boys: Male-for-Male Internet Escorts

38 Cyberbullying: Offenders and Victims

40 The Neutralization of Professional Deviance among Veterinarians

41 Societal Causes of Political Corruption

42 Enron: Organizational Rituals as Deviance

44 Burglary: The Offender’s Perspective

45 The Immediate Experiences of Carjacking

46 The Good Thing about Workplace Deviance

48 Responses to Workplace Bullying

49 Eating for Two: How Pregnant Women Neutralize Nutritional Deviance

50 A New Way of Fighting the War on Drugs

NAME INDEX 349

SUBJECT INDEX 359

“What Drives the Libyan Suicide Bombers in Iraq?”

Table I.1 A Summary of Two Perspectives

POSITIVIST PERSPECTIVE CONSTRUCTIONIST PERSPECTIVE

Absolutism Deviance is absolutely, Relativism Deviance is a label, a social

Objectivism Deviance is an objective, Subjectivism Deviance is a personal

Determinism Deviance is a determined Voluntarism Deviance is a voluntary act, an

12 PART ONE DEFINING DEVIANCE

1 PFOHL IMAGES OF DEVIANCE 13

shamed, incarcerated, drugged, hospitalized, or institutions in which contemporary power is con-

14 PART ONE DEFINING DEVIANCE