Why People Deviate in Different Ways (From New Directions in the Study of Justice, Law, and Social Control, P 71-100, 1990, Melvin J Lerner, ed. -- See NCJ-121983)

• NCJ Number: 121986
• Author(s): R A Cloward; F F Piven
• Date Published: 1990
• Length: 30 pages
• Sale Source: Plenum Press
• Publication Type: Research (Theoretical)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Critical Issues in Social Justice Series

Annotation

Deviant behavior is viewed as complex social behavior that should be explained in terms of the same sociological perspectives that explain conforming behavior; social forces regulating behavior include societal ideas, resources, norms, and reactions.

Abstract

No theories cope adequately with the question of why people violate different rules. The lack of structural integration is an all-purpose explanation of deviant actions as disparate as crime, suicide, and revolution. What this amounts to saying is that the same thing causes everything. Three precepts should guide any approach to explaining why people deviate. One is that deviant behavior is social behavior and should be explained by the same sociological variables used to explain conforming behavior. Second, like social behavior, deviant behavior is necessarily complex and therefore requires complex explanations. Finally, it may be possible to construct complex explanations by integrating features from different schools of thought about deviant behavior. Following a detailed discussion of societal ideas, resources, norms and reactions and their impact on modes of deviant behavior, the authors conclude that deviant behavior analysis requires an understanding of deviance as a subset of all social behavior and that interdisciplinary research is needed on why people deviate in socially constructive versus socially destructive ways. 73 references.