Summary Deviance, Conformity, and Social Control in Canada - 8 PDF

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Linked to the book Constructions of Deviance: Social Power, Context, and Interaction (ISBN 9781305537118). Also summary with Deviance, Conformity, and Social Control in Canada...

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February 6 Adler p.381-388 – The Social Organization of Deviance

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Best & Luckenbill (1980) noted in their analysis of the social organization of deviants, relationships among deviants can follow many models. Deviant associations vary in their #s of members, the task specialization among members, the stratification within the group, & the amount of authority in the hands of leader/leaders. Rigidity inside deviant groups is related to its insulation from conventional society: the more its members withdraw into a social & economic world of their own, the more they will develop norms & rules to guide them, replacing those of the outside order. Best & Luckenbill outlined a range of ways that deviants may be socially organized: Loners – are the most solitary, interacting with people but keeping their deviant attitudes/behaviours secret. Lack the company of other similar deviants. Serial rapists or murderers commit their acts without the benefit of camaraderie of like others. Recently, they have been able to connect with other deviants’ through the use of internet communities. Use the internet as a way of anonymously connecting with people seeking their company & advice. Some sites (ex: pro-ana/promia = pro-eating disorders) explicitly state that they reinforce & support the deviant behaviour, regarding it as a lifestyle choice. Others (ex: self-injury) try to help users desist from their deviance but may actually reinforce it by providing a supportive & accepting community. These sites transmit knowledge of a practical & ideological sort among people, enabling them to more effectively engage in & legitimate the behaviour. Helps people learn new variants of their activities, how to carry them out, how to obtain medical or legal services, & how to deal with outsiders. These sites tend to be leveling, bringing people together into a common discourse regardless of their age, gender, marital status, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status. They bridge huge spans of geographic distance. These interactions are regularly conducted among a range of regular & moderate users as well as periodic posters & “lurkers” (those who read but do not post). People unable to find real friends (face to face) may come to rely on these cyber-communities. Deviant cyber-communities thus provide a space & mechanism for deviance to grow & thrive in a way that it have not previously had. Colleagues – represent the next most organizationally sophisticated associational form. Participants have face-to-face relationships with other deviants like themselves but do not need the cooperation of fellow deviants to perform their deviant acts. Deviants organizing as colleagues include the homeless, recreational drug users, & con artists. Deviants socially organized as peers engage in their deviance with others like themselves, but no more than a minimal division of labor. Neighbourhood gangs who congregate with their friends generally engage in all of the same types of activities, & only see role specialization when it comes to the leader versus the followers.

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Fascinating to the media & the public is the crew form, where groups of anywhere from 3 – 12 individuals band together to engage in more sophisticated deviant capers then less organized deviants can accomplish. Division of labour usually requires specialized training & socialization. They are dependent on a leader who organizes & recruits them, sets & enforces the group rules, plans their activities, & organizes travel & lodging if they go on the road. The top of this continuum is deviant formal organizations, which are much larger than crews & extend over time & space. They may stand alone or be connected to other, similar, organizations domestically or even internationally. Their affiliations may take the form of what Godson & Olson (1995) call “transnational links,” where they have regular connections to do business or exchange services with other criminal organizations, or they may have a “global scope,” where they conduct extensive operations in various continents through franchised branches of their own organization located in different places, akin to multinational corporations. May have 100 members or more. Ethnically homogeneous, these organizations trade in a currency of violence, are vertically & horizontally stratified, & have the resources to corrupt law enforcement. Legitimate individuals & organizations also engage in deviant activities – white-collar crime. White-collar crime is directly related to opportunities to abuse positions of financial, organizational, & political power. We often tend to associate white-collar crimes with strictly financial activities, but they extend to bodily injury & death as well. The FBI estimates that 19,000 Americans are murdered every year vs. the 56,000 Americans who die every year on the job or from occupational diseases such as black lung & asbestosis & the tens of thousands of other Americans who fall victim to pollution/contaminated foods/hazardous consumer products/hospital malpractice. All examples of criminal recklessness. The FBI estimates the U.S. loses $3.8 billion a year due to burglary & robbery vs. the loss of $300 - $500 billion a year for health care fraud alone. The average sentence for bank robbery is 7.8 years; 2.4 years for embezzling money from the same institution. White-collar crime can be divided into 2 sub-sections: occupational & organizational crime. Occupational crime is pursued by individuals acting on their own behalf. Employees at all levels of organizations may steal from their companies, & we have also seen the rise of embezzlement & computer crime. Corporate executives at such firms as Enron, looted their companies, shareholders, & employee retirement plans of millions through fraudulent accounting, offshore & dummy corporations, & the manipulation of information to live in high style. Individuals in charge of purchasing for their firms also frequently accept bribes to give business to sale vendors. Ponzi schemes defrauded investors by allegedly generating high rates of returns on investments that were secretly generated only by the influx of funds from new subscribers. In the government sector we see people evading taxes through offshore companies & fraudulent tax shelters, often sold to them by top accounting & brokerage firms who charged millions for these services.

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Politicians have been caught selling power, especially those in charge of awarding government contracts. Politicians also sell business to companies (sometimes in no-bid contracts) whose products & services are inferior or if they have financial stake in their operations. Politicians & police officers may also receive individual remuneration for selling immunity from prosecution to criminals & companies, either in direct cash payments or campaign contributions. People connected to the government may also sell their influence. Professionals are not above collecting money for their individual benefit. Top stockbrokers & their clients make money through insider trading. Organizational crime, committed with the support & encouragement of a legitimate formal organization, is intended to advance the goals of the firm or agency. Examples includes environmental crime (#1), false advertising (products are misleadingly alleged to do one thing & either fail or have the reverse effect) & fraud (where companies misrepresent themselves to investors & the general public). Antitrust violations are the 2nd most common types of corporate offenses, where companies engage in monopolistic practices to control the market (Microsoft), artificially subsidizing or cheapening their products or services to drive competitors out of business (microchips, airlines), or conspiring with other companies to set minimum threshold prices for consumers (Samsung, General Electric). Corruption among companies with government service contracts is rife. Big companies have the resources to defend themselves in courts of law & in court of public opinion. Injury & loss of life may result from unsafe working conditions, where governmental regulators let enforcement slide among several drilling organizations to strengthen their business. For every company convicted of polluting the nation’s waterways, there are many others who are not prosecuted because their corporate defense lawyers are able to offer up a low-level employee to go to jail in exchange for a promise from prosecutors not to touch the company or high-level executives. Unsafe products represent another area where companies put their balance sheet above the lives of consumers, figuring that it is cheaper to settle lawsuits against them than to fix their goods. This system continues to thrive because corporations define the laws under which they live. Many politicians abuse the public trust; manipulate information, 7 breaking laws to advance their administrations. Campaign finance represents the 3rd most common area of corporate crime. They profit from a system that effectively has legalized bribery. American international policy is often clearly tied to the interests of the corporate sector. All of these white-collar crimes have led to greater cost, loss of life, forfeit of international prestige, & violation of conventional norms & values than the sum total of conventionally recognized crime & deviance.

Adler p.419-432 – Gender & Victimization Risk among Young Women in Gangs

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Strong evidence that delinquent lifestyles are associated with increased risk of victimization. Gangs are social groups that are organized around delinquency and participation in gangs has been shown to escalate youth’s involvement in crime. Research on gang violence indicates that the primary targets of this violence are other gang members. Thus, gang participation can be recognized as a delinquent lifestyle that is likely to involve high risks of victimization. Recent research has examined young women’s participation in violence & other crimes as offenders.

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Data comes from a survey & semi-structured in-depth interviews with 20 female members of mixed-gender gangs in Columbus, Ohio. Ages 12-17; just other ¾ were African American or multiracial (16/20) & the rest were white (4/20). The sample was drawn from local agencies in Columbus working with at-risk youths, including the county juvenile detention center, a shelter care facility for adolescent girls, a day school within the same institution, & a local community agency. Was a gang/non-gang comparison 7 a total of 46 girls were interviewed. Gang membership was determined by self-definition. ¼ of the way through a 50+ page interview, young women were asked questions about their friends. Then they were asked if their friends were gang involved & then if they were. 21 reported they were gang members & 3 reported being gang involved (hanging out primarily with gangs or gang members). When young women responded affirmatively to being gang members. A series of question about the gang (size, leadership, activities, symbols, etc...) were asked. These girls also participated in a follow-up interview to talk more in-depth about their gangs & gang activities. Using multiple methods, including follow-up interviews, provided a means of detecting inconsistencies in young women’s accounts of their experiences. No serious contradictions arose, the only limitation was the study only consisted of young women.

Gender, Gangs, & Violence Gangs as Protection & Risk 

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Although, gang members suggest that one thing they get out of the gang is a sense of protection, gang membership itself means exposure to victimization risk & even a willingness to be victimized. A # of girls suggested that being a gang member is a source of protection around the neighbourhood. By being in a gang they feel respected by the neighbourhood, that they intimidate others, consider being in a gang empowering. Being in a gang with young men means at least the semblance of protection from, & retaliation against, predatory men in the social environment. Members recognized that they might be targets of rival gang members & were expected to “be down” for their gang at those times even when it meant being physically hurt.

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Initiations rites & internal rules were also structured in a way that required individuals to submit to, & be exposed to, violence. Potential members should be tough, able to fight & to engage in criminal activities, as well as being loyal to the group & willing to put themselves at risk for it. One measure of these qualities came through the initiation process, which involved the individual submitting to victimization at the hands of the gang’s members. This entails taking a fixed # of “blows” to the head/chest or being “beat in” by members for a given duration (ex: 60 seconds). Members were expected to adhere to the gang’s internal rules (which included such things as not fighting with one another, being “true” to the gang, respecting the leader, not spreading gang business outside the gang, & not dating members of rival gangs). Breaking the rules was grounds for physical punishment, either in the form of spontaneous assault or a formal “violation”. Gang victimization is governed by rules & expectations, however, & thus does not involve the random vulnerability that being on the streets without a gang might entail in high-crime neighbourhoods.

Gender & Status, Crime & Victimization 

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Status hierarchies within the Columbus gangs, like elsewhere, were male dominated. Autonomous female gangs, as well as gangs in which girls are in auxiliary subgroups, may be shaped by different gender relations, as well as differences in orientations toward status, & criminal involvement. All the young women reported having established leaders in their gang, & this leadership was almost exclusively male. A # of women stated explicitly that only male members could be leaders. Leadership qualities & qualities attributed to high-status members of gangs— being tough, able to fight, & willing to commit crimes for the gang—were perceived as characteristically male. Young women had fewer expectations placed on them in regards to criminal activities, this tends to decrease girls’ exposure to victimization risk comparable to males since they were able to avoid activities likely to place them in danger. Girls could gain status in the gang by being particularly hard & true to the set. Young women also had a second route to status that was less available to young men. This came via their connections to influential, high-status young men. Many received respect, recognition, and protection because of these connections. Thus, this gender equality could have a protective edge for young women. Young women were less likely to resort to serious violence, such as that involving a weapon, when confronting rivals. Thus, when girls’ routine confrontations were more likely to be female vs. female rather than male vs. female, girls’ risk of serious victimization was lessened further.

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Young women could use gender as a means of avoiding participation in those aspects of gang life they found risky. One-fifth were involved in serious gang violence.

Girls’ Devaluation & Victimization 

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Girls also faced exclusion at the hands of young men or the gang as a whole. The 2 types of crime mentioned more frequently as “off-limits” for girls were drug sales & drive-by shootings. Although this exclusion can be perceived as protective, it also served to perpetuate the devaluation of female members as less significant to the gang—not as tough, true, or “down” for the gang as male members. Some young women found the perception of them as weak a frustrating one. Beliefs that girls were weaker than boys meant that young women had a harder time proving that they were serious about their commitment to the gang. This could lead to the mistreatment & victimization of girls by members of their own gang when they didn’t have specific male protection in the gang or when they weren’t able to stand up for themselves to male members. Young women typically were not seen as a threat by young men, when they did pose one, they could be punished even more harshly than young men, not only for having challenged a rival gang or gang member but also for having overstepped “appropriate” gender boundaries. A related problem was when the devaluation of young women within gangs was sexual in nature. Girls, but not boys, could be initiated into the gang by being “sexed in”—having sexual relations with multiple male members of the gang. Other members viewed the women initiated in this way as sexually available & promiscuous, thus increasing their subsequent mistreatment. The stigma creating a sexual devaluation that all girls had to contend with. Young women who were sexed into the gang were viewed as weak & not “true” members. Deserving of mistreatment & abuse by other members, both male & female. There was evidence that girls could overcome the stigma of having been sexed in through their subsequent behaviour, by challenging members that disrespect them & being willing to fight. The fact that an option as “sexing in” exists serves to keep girls disempowered, because they always face the question of how they got in & of whether they were “true” members. It contributed to a milieu in which young women’s sexuality were seen as exploitable. Male members routinely disrespected girls in the gang by disparaging them sexually. While acts of gang rape are rare, it remains a gender specific act because women are not seen as equals, if they were seen as equals attacks were remain purely physical.

Discussion 

The findings suggest that participation in the delinquent lifestyles associated with gangs clearly places young women at risk for victimization. It seems that young women in gangs have traded unknown risks for known ones. Although, males are not as violent in

their confrontations with rival women as they are rival women. However, when young women are the targets of serious assault, they may face brutality that is particularly harsh & sexual in nature because they are female....