Part 1: Ch. 4

According to the sin-based model society is founded on consensus with most people agreeing about right & wrongExample: 9-11 terrorists considered

deranged but not evil (Said)

Part 1: Ch. 4

Part 1: Ch. 4

From 19th-Century to 1960s: social stability founded on moral order – a common world view that binds people to their families, communities, and to larger economic and political institutions

Today: few sociologists hold such views

Part 1: Ch. 4

Globalization has increased societies based on shared culture rather than on narrow calculations of individual self-interest

A commitment to common moral order more difficult within a culture of strong individualism

Part 1: Ch. 4

Part 1: Ch. 4

Testing the boundaries of established norms can be positive as well as negative

Type of alienation occurs when social regulators begin to splinter, and controlling moral authority of society no longer effective (T.S. Eliot)

Part 1: Ch. 4

Positive: 1950s & 1960s: identifying racism & bigotry as deviance led to social change in which discrimination was stigmatized and censured in legal system

Negative: fail to acknowledge as deviant the increase in out-of-wedlock births and resulting in detrimental effect on black community (Moynihan)

Part 1: Ch. 4

When an individual is caught between loosening moral norms regulating behavior and individual’s own moral misgivings

Identification and stigmatization of deviant behavior functional for society, because it can produce certainty for individuals, and solidarity for group

Dramatic social change through rapid redefinition of deviance can be dysfunctional for society

The door is open for moral panics Part 1: Ch. 4

ExampleAn individual who does not

recognize an extramarital affair as sinful but sees himself or herself as afflicted with a mental illness

The loosening of moral codes of conduct on college campuses

Part 1: Ch. 4

Interviews with over 200 middle-class people

Results: people unified by their increasing reluctance to judge the behavior of others

Wolfe identified this as “Eleventh Commandment: Thou Shalt Not Judge”

Originally predicted 30 years ago by Rieff, who stated that “psychological man” was replacing “Christian man,” where former rejected idea of sin and need for salvation

Part 1: Ch. 4

Hard principles of moral consensus must be constructed

Re-moralization of public discourse necessary in these difficult times where evil abounds

Refusal to acknowledge and negatively sanction deviance exemplifies lost capacity to confront evil and dehumanize us all

What are the implications of (re)defining deviance as disease or “psychologizing” it?

How does anomie lead to moral panics?

Part I Chapter 5

Part 1: Ch. 5

Crime is a legal definition created by the agents of the dominant class in power

Crime is not inherent in behavior but a judgment made by some about others

The greater the number of definitions of crime formulated and applied, the greater the amount of crime

Part 1: Ch. 5

Part 1: Ch. 5

Definitions of crime are composed of behaviors that conflict with the interests of the dominant class, and include legal policies for the treatment of criminals

Definitions of crime change as the interests of the dominant class change

Part 1: Ch. 5

Part 1: Ch. 5

Definitions of crime are applied by the class that has the power to shape the enforcement and administration of criminal law

Criminal law is not applied directly by those in power, but its enforcement is delegated to legal agents; This results in some variation in how

definitions will be applied

Application of the law is also affected by communities’ expectations of law enforcement and administration

Part 1: Ch. 5

Part 1: Ch. 5

Behavior patterns are structured in relation to definitions of crime, and people engage in actions that have a probability of being defined as criminal

Since it is not the quality of the conduct but the action taken against it that makes it criminal, the dominant class tends to exclude its own behaviors from such definitions

Those who have been defined as criminal begin to think of themselves as criminal, increasing the likelihood they will continue to be defined as criminal

Part 1: Ch. 5

Part 1: Ch. 5

An ideology of crime is constructed and diffused by the dominant class to secure its hegemony

The ideas about crime held by the dominant class are incorporated into the social views of crime and criminals

Part 1: Ch. 5

Part 1: Ch. 5

The social reality of crime is constructed by:the formulation and application of

definitions of crime the development of behavior patterns in

relation to these definitions the construction of an ideology of crime

Part 1: Ch. 5

Part 1: Ch. 5

What is meant by the idea that crime is socially constructed?

At what point is crime recognized as behavior that violates norms and laws?

Part 1: Ch. 5