Social control is never perfect, and so many norms and people exist that there are always some people who violate some norms. Formal social control in the United States typically involves the legal system (police, judges and prosecutors, corrections officials) and also, for businesses, the many local, state, and federal regulatory agencies that constitute the regulatory system. These reactions, and thus examples of informal social control, include anger, disappointment, ostracism, and ridicule. We typically decline to violate informal norms, if we even think of violating them in the first place, because we fear risking the negative reactions of other people. Generally, informal social control is used to control behavior that violates informal norms, and formal social control is used to control behavior that violates formal norms. Just as a society like the United States has informal and formal norms (see Chapter 2 “Eye on Society: Doing Sociological Research”), so does it have informal and formal social control. Social control refers to ways in which a society tries to prevent and sanction behavior that violates norms. The fact that both deviance and crime arouse negative social reactions reminds us that every society needs to ensure that its members generally obey social norms in their daily interaction. Crime is behavior that violates these laws and is certainly an important type of deviance that concerns many Americans. Some behavior is considered so harmful that governments enact written laws that ban the behavior. Understand what is meant by the relativity of deviance.ĭeviance is behavior that violates social norms and arouses negative social reactions.Understand why Émile Durkheim said deviance is normal.Define deviance, crime, and social control.
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