CRIM 2650 Lecture : Outsiders Notes.docx
20 Apr 2013
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According to howard becker, those who break an enforced rule and cannot be trusted to live by the rules agreed on by a group are regarded as outsiders . These rule breakers may find that those who judge them are the actual outsides. Yet, according to becker deviance is a failure to obey group rules. So deviance is not a quality of the act the person commits, but rather a consequence of the application of other people"s rules and sanctions, to who one is labelled an offender . Deviance is a product of a process which involves the responses of other people to their behaviour. Ultimately, the classification of whether an act is deviant or not depends on the nature of the act, whether it violates some rule, and to some extent what other people do about it.
