Complete Criminal Law One Page Report on Deviant Behavior, law homework help

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Chapter 2 of you text discusses deviant behavior. Using a minimum of (3) external references, do you agree or disagree with the how conflict theorists view the police and what their role is in a social control?

In detail, explain why or why not you agree with the social control theory.

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POLICING AND SOCIETY: A GLOBAL APPROACH cumple if an adult were to be in seal relations with a person belo of responsibility that would violate a more. The violant, if discovered is Way punished both legally a long prison term) and socially labeling and shuning are very important ones that have been codified that is, they have been written and correctional authorities acting in the name of society. At the same time, the in penal codes through legislation, and are enforced by the police, proto, motes that are not awewe understand that we should not drink to ence we were to do this at home and not in public and were reasonably quiet about would not be subject to arrest by the police). Deviance is behavior that is morboch folkways and more an early age that it is de tempe someone who is speaking violation of a and also that it is illegal to steal someone else's money (violation of more that has bem codified as a low). Acts of device that are minor are generally dealt with info people avoid the violach at him or her) while those that are mot of taken seriously and dealt with formally (arrest, charging, trial, sentencing prison tema etc.). It is possible therefore to see that the police are in the business of dealing with me forms of deviance that society has specifically codified in the form of criminal laws. A of deviance that violate criminal laws (or crimes are deemed to be important enough for society to join with the victim in the official reaction against the offender. This is the reason why criminal cases are identified, for example, as "The state of California vera Jones." This is because criminal deviance is seen as a violation against society, From a legal perspective, there are other forms of deviance which are also codi fied, but which the police do not deal with. given that they are only one cog in the system of social control. These are violations of civil laws often involving conflich between individuals living and interacting with each other in society. For example, there are contractual disputes between landlords and tenants, or between employen and employees. While the state is interested in settling these disputes, it does not take the side of either party. If approached by one of them, the state arbitrates and renden judgment finding for either the plaintiff (the complainer) or the defendant (the person alleged by the former to have done something wrong). As a result, civil cases are ally designated in the form "Hernandez versus Smith." Returning to the forms of deviance that the police are specifically required to deal with that is crimes, we can see that there are further divisions in terms of serio ness) among these. Generally, societies accord the highest level of criminal sciousnes to treason, for example, acts that involve the overthrow of the government and col laborating with the enemy in times of war and hostility. Since it threatens the very existence of the reacting government, it draws the most amount of reaction and pun ishments are likely to be severe. More than likely, punishment for treason will include seriousness is given to the acts designated as felonies. The third level of seriousness consideration, and often imposition, of the death penalty. The next level of criminal for misdemeanors. At the bottom of the heap are perty offenses, often called viola tions. Differences in the seriousness with which these offenses are viewed also means that there are differences in the police powers that go along with officially dealing with various incidents that exemplify these levels of crime. POLICE AND SOCIAL CONTROL SO T be Before moving away from the topic of where crime as a form of deviance fits overall in the context of a society's culture and socialization, we should make two associated observations. First, the police as a sector of the criminal justice system) as we have seen, only one possible form of reaction to deviance. Others such as priests and ministers (representing religion) as well as physicians and mental health professionals (representing medicine) may also be (and historically have been pressed into service in this social enterprise. The major difference between the police on the one hand and religious and medical personnel on the other is that the police have a monopoly over the use of force, extending to deadly force, in dealing with deviant behavior (eg. Killing someone in a hostage situation), Clergy and medical profession als are not allowed to use killing as a means of solving problematic situations and, in fact, are encouraged to preserve life, to the extent possible. For much of recorded history, crime was not distinguished from sin and evil, and che dersy were the major group involved in dealing with human beings who were lying cheating, Healing, killing each other, etc. Such behaviors involved moral judg. ments of sinfulness, evil, and immorality from the formal representatives of various religious traditions. Religious means of dealing with these problems took the forms of torture, pain, and sometimes, death for the offender. They justified the utilization of these cruelties on the assumption that the devil or some other evil spirits were the root causes of the bad behavior in question Peter Conrad and Joseph Schneider (1992) refer to the use of medical diagno- ses for nonconforming behavior as the medicalization of deviance. Here, certain forms of deviance, although resulting in criminal acts, are defined as arising out of an individual's illness and pathology. This approach exists side by side with the current conceptions that some forms of deviance are criminal and ought to be dealt with by the police and the rest of the criminal justice system. This means that nowadays, rather than (and also often in addition to arresting and ultimately punishing that individual he or she is seen as needing to be treated for their sickness or ailment. Thus, someone who steals to support his or her drug and/or excessive alcohol consumption habit, is diagnosed and classified as needing specific counseling and medical treatment for their promeness to dependence on these substances Second, police reactions to acts of criminal deviance are not always uniform. For example, the police, in order to arrest a drug seller, may ignore or even support the drug usage of an informant. They may ignore the illegal and severe beating and assault of a criminal suspect by a fellow police officer (see our discussion of Police Deviance in Chapter 13) or those usually committed by persons of high social status (eg, Medicare fraud by physicians). This means that reaction to criminal behavior is often subject to a variety of contextual influences. Of course, everything else being equal, there are certain crimesteg. homicide) that the police are going to react to in a much more forceful manner than others (eg, vice and traffic offenses). It is possible to observe here that even among crimes that are supposed to be major noem violations, there are levels of seriousness in the responses they evoke. These are often based on perceptions shared by members of a society about the seriousness of certain crimes as opposed to others. Some demes of crimes, referred to as high consensus crimes (eg. crimes against persons POLICING AND SOCIETY A GLOBAL APPROACH that later lower priority offenses, or low consensus crimes, are typically public and the police are conflicted about and are controversial politically offenses, gambling, prostitution, jaywalking, etc.). There is often die whether these behaviors ought to be criminalined and whether police to be expended in enforcing such controversial laws. atrol to lated SOCIAL CONTROL: PERSONAL, INFORMAL, FORMAL Sociologists have shown that society inculcate values to its members through of institutions that act as agencies of society in teachings modeling and ing them to behave along expected lines. When we assimilate these values and ance both large les murdering someone che or stealing their money and according to the norms that flow from them, we are less likely to committee wearing our doches backwards in public or cating mashed pots without Sociologists refer to such transmissions of values and norms to individual mes succesful socialization. This is the most efficient and effective form of control ove unconscious rejection of deviant behavior is personal or self-control. An individu who has been successfully socialized by society has developed an internal meches that rejects outright the possibility of his or her engaging in lying, cheating, stealing killing someone else. While it may be argued that self-control is not social, in the sea of involving others, nevertheless it is the values and norms we learn from impormas others that affect us so much that we censor or control our own behavior However, as we know, personal control over deviant behavior sometimes does not happen. If socialization proved to be successful in every case, we would not be calling about dealing with various major and minor forms of deviance, including crimin behavior. To ensure that those who will not or cannot personally control in the words, those who would contemplate) the possibility of engaging in deviant behavior another level of control exists in all societies. This level is known as informal social control. Notice the two features of this term. First, it includes the word "social" means that at this level of control, it is no more a personal matter, others in die have become involved. Next, there is the implication of a lack of formality. This man that it occurs at an interpersonal, interactional level between people who know ead other. This level of control occurs when we do not do something deviant because fear the negative judgments of those who are close or dear to us (what sociologie would refer to as significant others), for example, parents, spouses, ministers, teachers conventional friends, etc. We, therefore, do not engage in deviance since we generale want to be thought of in a positive way by those who are important to us. Obviously, if all people avoided doing anything deviant because they of the negative evaluations of significant others whenever they personally contemplare control. Again, note two characteristics of the term. First, while it occurs socially, it FOLICE AND SOCIAL CONTROL certainly not informalno. Formal social control means that particular individu als and is designed to maintain and order in society become involved in dealing with deviant behavior. These dies include the police (dealing with criminal deviance), mental hospitals (dealing with mental illness, and others. Us ally, these agencies operate on a fairly long-term basis and use personnel (eg, police officers who have a monopoly of powers in reacting to or dealing with a specific form of deviance, that is, crimes Let us we an example that will be familiar to most college students to illustrate the three levels of social control. Think about the way you and your classmates approach the inue of cheating on tots. For some (we hope, all the readers of this text) cheat ing on test would be unthinkable. This is personal control at work. Others would he tempted to cheat, but would fear the negative perceptions of their professor (we know some of you will find this fear of your instructor downright humorous) or their parents if they were caught. Now we have informal social control operating. Yet others among your desmates, would not worry about these negative perceptions, but would be deterred from cheating because they would think about the official consequences if they were caught. They would be punished by their college or university after disci plinary hearing and given failing grades in that course which would then become part of their academic records. Notice the involvement of designated authorities (heads of departments, college deans, student disciplinary committee, registrars) in the formal process of dealing with this form of deviance It should be dear from the above, that the police function as agents of the state (Meloni, 2009) and as authorities of formal social control who deal with particular forms of deviances the violations of major norms for mores) that have been legally codified and are officially enforced by the criminal justice system. At the same time, the police do not have a completely free hand in democracies (as opposed to totalitar- ian and authoritarian countries) to control crime and do wway with deviance using any method or means. As Berg (1992: 3) puts it. "Free societies depend upon a balance between a person's ability to act independently and without fear of official reprisal and person's responsibility not to infringe upon other's abilities to act independently as well." This balance is held ever so gingerly, in the hand of that society's police. POLICING AS FORMAL SOCIAL CONTROL: THREE SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES In Chapter 1, we described three perspectives that sociologists use to analyze and make sense of the social phenomena that exist in any given society. Let us take cach one of these in turn Functionalists are interested in analyzing what any given social institution or practice contributes to that society's continued survival and functioning. From their point of view, having the police around allows ordinary members of society to operate in an orderly way by dealing with criminal deviants and other trouble makers who refuse to follow the rules and repulations of the community that they live in. Given Ric POLICING AND SOCIETY A GLOBAL APPROACH cultural values that the police is the only policy available and operating twenty for day and days work dealing with a host of problems and is that the or will not, they are therefore, wit to the smooth functioning of so police contribute to social order by making sure that people meet intentional sations in everyday life gobeying traffic rules, not robbing orang presence and investigation leading to the arrest and punishment of criminals. The cities and by carrying out other activities such as patrol (a visible reminder activities affirmand the importance of social norms and strengthen impone Conflict theorists believe that society is composed of competing groups and penerally interested in which group benefits from social arrangements, as they If society is in which various groups fight for the control of care who really benefits from having the police around as "social controllers and be almos? Conflict theorists will identify the powerful in society as the one when and to main from having all forms of social control, particularly those invoking the police. Inequalities in surveillance, arest, and in what constitutes police price we major concerns of conflict theorists who therefore conclude that the police are impartial but biased in their enforcement of the law. Typical police activities al always target the poor and the powerless, people who are often the primary focus tempes at controlling deviant behavior. For example, a homeless vagrant, who drunk and snoring in a library, is likely to be removed by the police when complaine are received from the library staff. However, the police will not for cannot do the same to the drunken president of a neighboring bank who is behind closed do in his office. At a more concrete level of regulating individual behavior, is there any satisfactory legal reason why possession of "rock cocaine" (generally associated with the poor and minority groups) is likely to be punished more severely than possession of powder cocaine" (associated with the rich and majority group)? Needless to say, police are much more active and interested in stopping questioning, and arresting sus pectod minority drug traffickers. Reiner (1991) notes that various studies of the police have shown that most of their work consists of maintaining order in public places especially among the less privileged members of society. Thus, the social control of behavior overall, and the involvement of the police, always takes the form of a dagget aimed on behalf of the elite toward the powerless. Parks (1970: 76) notes, for example that the "morality enforced by the police) is always the morality of those in power and it is primarily enforced upon those without power." The third sociological perspective, interactionism, pays attention to the microlevel of human behavior. For them, the many interactions between individu members and social control personnel, such as the police, make of social control. Thus, situational characteristics are very important in figuring our up the how social control of deviant behavior takes place and specifically, how the police operate in their day-to-day encounters with the citizens. Wiley and Hudik (1970 test a variety of interactionisms that focuses on exchange relations in encounters berween the police and the public. Exchange theory holds that interactions between human beings involve various costs and rewards for the parties involved. The study experience
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