SOCY 275 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Parachuting, General Social Survey, Real Crime
22 Dec 2012
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Document Summary
Finding information about deviance is difficult because people are secretive about the deviant acts they commit. Different societies define the same behaviour in different ways: deviance. Banned or controlled behaviour that results in punishment or disapproval. Those who deviate tend to make their own lives more difficult because they are breaking the rules. Most rule breaking is denied or represented as something else: corruption. Illegal gain as a result of power or privilege. There are sometimes only partial sightings of deviant behaviour: unreliable, is not enough information to come to a common understanding. Each theorist describe phenomena differently: eg views on police. At first, police represent justice and focus on delinquents. In another account, police are portrayed as hostile or involved with corruption. Sociological research is constrained by the structures in its own field: not all groups are accessible, whites trying to gain access into black communities, men trying to gain access into feminist groups.
