SOC 1500 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Market Structure, White-Collar Crime, Embezzlement

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOC 1500
• Professor: Michelle Dumas

Document Summary

Power and inequality had an impact on peoples lives. Not the act itself but contextual meaning attached to it which defines if someone is deviant. Questions: who is considered deviant/criminal, how does the process occur, what are the consequences as labeled deviant/criminal. Two types: informal labeling (by family, friends, less severe consequence, formal labeling (police, courts, doctors, teachers) Defined/labeled have less social power than those applying the label, more social power a definer has the greater the consequence. More power can force less powerful to do their bidding. Have power define what"s criminal and deviant. Status degradation (garfinkel, 1956: ceremony (court, charges laid against you, public identity is transformed in a negative way, convicted as criminal public status decreases you are known as a convict/criminal. Becker (1963: the outsiders book author, crime is a label and without the label there is no crime, laws come to be and exercise power over those that don"t have power, concepts.