Deviance and Crime

Deviance and Crime

Introduction

Deviant behavior involves in violation of social customs which are usually, unacceptable, therefore, a warrant of disapproval agrees by the majority of society. Such behavioral acts can be categorized as crimes during some occasions. Majority of Americans believes that indulging in alcoholism, public nudity, stealing, prostitution etc; as deviant. People who perform such acts known are as deviants (Goode 2004).

Deviant activity is the mode of transferring and exposing through different mediums such as, electronic, print etc; content that consists of violence and other socially unacceptable acts. They represent in a way that the majority of us accept it as entertainment without noticing that we are conditioned to it. Deviant behavior involves adapting behavior which is socially not acceptable and against the social norms and its values, therefore it is widely disapproved by the masses. People who perform such acts are known as deviants. The paper describes four approaches of deviance and crime: functionalist, conflict, feminist and symbolic interactionist.

Sociology Theories

Functionalist

Functionalists believe that every group residing inside a society comprises a set of functional units that contributes towards the well-being and survival of society. It is the duty of every individual to contribute his efforts for the survival of society. However, it is the mechanism of that functional origin that plays a major role in the evolution of the society in to a comprehensible form (Haas, 1964). From functionalist perspective, crime occurs when members of society do not get any opportunities to achieve economic goal. For example, if a person from lower class would not get any opportunity to earn enough amount of money to feed his children, he would conduct crime to get monetary benefit. When people fail to get opportunity of achieving economic goal or monetary benefit, they adopt deviance or conduct crime which let ...