Soc112
  1. Crime is normal and deviance is relative
    • Stop asking "why do they do it?"
    • Get some perspective: rules change over time and space.
    • Deviance is a property of social things.
  2. Social environments create crime, deviance, and delinquency
    • How people behave is strongly influenced by surroundings
    • Socialization, values, worldview
    • Goals and opportunities
    • Stresses, strains, supports
  3. Social control can act as a deviance amplification system
    • Labels and secondary deviance
    • More enforcement, more reporting, more detection
  4. Deviation from rules serves important functions for society
    • Boundaries
    • Solidarity
    • Innovation
  5. "Deviance" can be a form of conflict resolution and rebellion
    • Canary in coal mine.
    • Coming out and fighting back.
    • Change through disobedience.
  6. Every rule is somebody's rule: moral panics, moral crusades, and status politics
    • Rhetoric, claims-making
    • Symbolic politics
    • Moral panics
  7. Social control varies in predictable ways : Social control as a variable
    • Six styles of social control
    • Independent variables predicting social control
    • Social control as independent variable: deterrence and conformity
  8. Organizations present special problems
    • Organizations are not persons – many social control assumptions assume humans, analogies fail.
    • Organizations can be gigantic.
    • Why should organizations be good citizens?
  9. Law is only a small part of the social control system.
    • Most disputes and conflicts are settled extra-legally.
    • Law as tip of iceberg.
    • Norms as one other system.
    • Personal contracts as another.
    • Organizational rules as another.
  10. The Precariousness of Social Control
    • Control gets out of hand.
    • Big brother and surveillance.
    • Prison experiments, obedience to authority experiments.
    • Very easy to think/see like an organization.