Social Control and Deviance, History of

Elizabeth E Mustaine, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, USA

2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Abstract
One of the many founding concepts of contemporary social science that arose during the Enlightenment was the idea that
society could control the behavior of its citizens by using formal mechanisms of social control. Theoretically, by manipulating the magnitude of punishment or pain guilty persons would experience for their deviant behavior, society could stop
offenders before they acted. More specically, since offenders acted in their own best interests, they would think about the
costs and benets of their behaviors prior to acting. Through punishment, society could make the costs of deviant or criminal
behavior outweigh whatever benets miscreants might otherwise accrue. Moreover, this would translate to more general
societal deterrence if the punishments individuals received were certain, swift, and severe. This article reviews the history of
these concepts through to the present day.

One could argue that humans live collectively. Is it because we

are social creatures? Or, do we need each other to survive the
harshness of life on earth? It is likely to be some combination
of desire and necessity as well as a variety of additional explanations. What is important here is that humans have beneted
from the formation of societies and communities in many ways
(e.g., the division of labor, collective efcacy, protection from
outsiders, in-group processes to name just a few). Indeed, early
philosophers noted that the need to form societies and
communities provided so much benet that people were
willing to make sacrices in order to belong. Typically, when
humans come together in groups, these societies/communities
necessarily establish norms and values in order to make life
more predictable and navigable. Of course, the mere formation
of norms almost assures that there will be individuals, who, for
whatever reason are unable or unwilling to meet the standards
and expectations of their fellow afliates, and society must deal
with these nonconformists. Many academic disciplines have
proffered explanations for deviance and social control in order
to better understand this seemingly inevitable group phenomenon. Sociology (and its subeld of criminology) is one such
discipline. Early on, the study of deviance and social control
was seen as fundamental to the understanding of society.
Threats to morality and the social order, and institutional
processes and efforts to control such encroachments were
viewed as vital topics for sociological investigation and
discourse. Later, scholars eschewed the study of deviance, ironically viewing the intellectual discourse surrounding deviance
and social control as not much better than the nonconformists
with which they concerned themselves. As time has passed, the
relevance of deviance and social control has returned, and the
theoretical explanations for them have become more and
more sophisticated. What follows is a brief treatise on the
history and development of sociological discourse pertaining
to deviance and social control.
Prior to the formation of the discipline of sociology, there
were plenty of intellectuals interested in explaining deviance
and social control. Early primitive people lived in a world
where behavior and events were seen as being the result of
otherworldly powers. Plagues, oods, and famines were seen
as divine punishments (Newman, 1978). Religious leaders

International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2nd edition, Volume 22

performed rituals in order to appease these vengeful spiritual

powers. Deviance was seen as the result of possession, and
persons who were suspected of deviant behavior were put
through trials by ordeal in order to determine their guilt or
innocence. Individuals who survived these ordeals were innocent and those who did not survive were guilty, but they were
also dead so the situation had been resolved (e.g., A woman
suspected of being a witch was tied up and thrown into the
water. If she oated she was not a witch; if she sunk was guilty
of witchery). Social control, then, in this environment was
more about punishing guilty miscreants and ridding society
of them (Newman, 1978).
During the Enlightenment, intellectual discourse shifted
and philosophers began to view human behavior and social
events as being the result of freethinking and free will. Beliefs
such as humans being rational, capable of understanding
themselves, and acting in their own best interests took center
stage, thereby shifting views about deviant behavior from being
otherworldly to the result of clear and calculated thinking. This,
obviously, represented a huge change in the underlying philosophy of social control and what societies could do to minimize
unacceptable and harmful behavior. From this view, scholars
from different paradigms formulated theories that explained
deviance and social control using different conceptualizations
and perspectives.
One important paradigmatic shift that developed was the
idea that society could, through serious contemplation, control
the behavior of its citizens by using formal mechanisms of
social control (Beccaria, 1764; Bentham, 1789). Theoretically,
by manipulating the magnitude of punishment or pain a guilty
person would experience for his/her deviant behavior; society
could stop offenders before they acted. More specically, since
offenders acted in their own best interests, they would think
about the benets of their behaviors prior to acting. Through
the threat of punishment, society could force offenders to
consider the costs of their behavior whereby (if assessed
correctly) the pain or cost of committing a crime slightly outweighed the benets of it. Moreover, this would translate to
more general societal deterrence if the punishments individuals
received were certain, swift, and severe. With this perspective,
then, deviance was basically those behaviors that were illegal,

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Social Control and Deviance, History of

because social control was more formulized and was handed

out by the State.
This view that society could impact the behavior of individuals through formal social control mechanisms encouraged
further research on how groups or communities could positively inuence the behavior of their members. Sociologists
saw social control as encompassing all those social practices
and arrangements that contributed to the maintenance of
social order and conformity among social group members,
both formal (e.g., arrest) and informal (e.g., shunning). Early
theorists viewed these processes as a reection of social
consensus, thereby characterizing social groups as harmonious,
consensual, and concordant. Scholars in the late nineteenth
century also viewed social control as the fabric of organized
society. Social control, then, encompassed the tools through
which society formed and maintained harmony.
One problem, however, with restricting the study of deviance to illegalities is that in communities and neighborhoods,
people have varying views about deviance. So, researchers must
contend with the varying views that people have about it.
Because of this, criminologists often nd it difcult to work
within a legal framework. There are two primary reasons for
this. (1) Often what distinguishes whether or not a particular
behavior is legal or illegal is based on a technicality that likely
has no bearing on causation (e.g., manslaughter vs tragic accident is often a matter of perspective). (2) The law groups
various behaviors together that are not similar in terms of causation (e.g., serial homicide, which includes serial murder and
mass murder) (Vold, 1958). For this reason many criminologists focused on the nature of a particular behavior rather
than the legal denition of it. For example, Hermann
Mannheim (1965) posited the view that criminology should
study all antisocial behavior, while Edwin Sutherland (1934)
viewed crime as behavior that was harmful to society.
Thorsten Sellin (1950) dened crime as the violation of
conduct norms, while Schwendinger and Schwendinger
(1977) thought of crimes as violations of human rights.
Continuing, deviance theorists often focused on the violation of cultural, group, or societal norms, rules, and expectations. Where they differed was the formulation of those
norms and expectations. And, an important distinction among
scholars was the difference between primary and secondary
deviance (Lemert, 1951). Primary deviance was committed
by a wide range of individuals in any population, and the
causes of it vary widely. Secondary deviance was deviance
that was committed due to the stigma associated with certain
actions, and the processes that society used to punish and
control it. What most scholars agreed on, however, was that
there was nothing constant about social views of crime or deviance, so pinpointing certain actions as criminal or deviance
over time was a fruitless endeavor. In spite of these denitional
difculties, early sociological deviance theorists typically saw
deviance as the result of pathologies, or things that were
wrong with individuals, communities, or societies.
Alongside the development of the perspective that humans
had free will was a methodological shift in the science of
deviant behavior. Auguste Comte (1865), regularly viewed as
the founder of the discipline of sociology, wrote less about
deviance and social control, but extensively about positivism
as an epistemological perspective. Many theorists were

inuenced signicantly by Comte. And, this shift in methodological stance marked such a tremendous change in the frame
of reference of theoretical discourse that it might be likened
to a revolution. In the earliest years of sociology, then, the study
of deviance was primarily the study of observable or empirically based causes of crime and deviance.
One example of early positivism is Cesare Lombroso
(18351909) who is viewed as the father of the positivist
school of criminology (Lombroso, 1876). Initially, Lombroso
examined several hundred Italian criminals and found they
had physical characteristics that suggested inadequacy and
degeneracy. Such characteristics were asymmetry of the face;
abnormally large or small head size; excessive jaw and cheekbone dimensions; ears of unusual size (e.g., small, protruding
from the head); abnormal nose (e.g., twisted, upturned, attened, beaklike, or having swollen nostrils); eshy, swollen,
and protruding lips; and pouches in the cheek like those of
some animals. These physical characteristics resembled the
appearance of lower or more apelike ancestors; thus the individuals having them were assumed to belong to these earlier
evolutionary forms. Even though Lombrosos theory of the
atavistic criminal has since been debunked, he is important
because he exemplies early efforts to combine theory and
science, the scientic generation of facts that can be explained
by theoretical interpretation. Additionally, later in his career,
he began including psychological and environmental factors
into his deliberations on the criminal man, thereby incorporating multiple factors into his theoretical development.
Another example of positivism was one that considered
more sociological explanations. During the late 1700s to early
1800s societies worldwide were undergoing massive transformations, and these changes led theorists to consider what
changes in deviance would occur due to emerging social
change. To elaborate, during the mid-1800s until the mid1900s American and European sociologists were studying the
large-scale social changes that were taking place (Websdale,
2010). These changes included such immense happenings as
urbanization, industrialization, capitalism, immigration or
emigration, family, and community. These massive social
changes inuenced societies, communities, and individuals in
equally large parts. For example, as the world became more
industrialized, more and more young adults left their families
farms and moved to the city in search of wage labor. This
increased the amount of urbanization, and population density,
which, in turn, changed the way people thought of community. The inux of immigration also changed the face of
communities and neighborhoods and cultural heterogeneity
increased. As more and more people were uprooted from their
traditional lives, many customs fell to the wayside, and people
were thrown into a new normless society. In the more traditional communities, family depended on their neighbors for
food or items they could not produce themselves. In the city,
people did not necessarily know their neighbors or interact
much with them. And, men and women were both seen as
making valuable and necessary contributions to the functioning of the family. But, with the onset of city life, the
close-knit communities that characterized farming areas fell
to the wayside and the economy shifted from one where
a man worked a job that (literally) provided the food and other
items his family needed to one where having a job that paid

Social Control and Deviance, History of

money was a necessity. This, of course, changed traditional

gender roles when men left the home to work, and women
stayed at home to work. Another change that confused gender
norms was that as more young men got jobs in the cities, the
ways in which they could express their masculinity had to
change also. Additionally, the extended family broke up and
the nuclear family became more common. This led to a reduction in the number of children couples had because children
became economic liabilities and no longer free labor. All of
these changes were happening in societies all over the globe,
and even though they brought confusion, anger, turmoil,
uncertainty, and even an increase in the amount of deviance
and crime, most people adapted and conformed to the new
social norms and values.
More sociological causes of crime emerged in Europe during
this time as systematic registries of births, deaths, and other
ofcial records were collected, maintained, and were seen as
relatively accurate. Sociological positivists examined the relationships between crime, poverty, economic depression,
malnutrition, low intelligence, resentment, unemployment,
and relative social inequality, and found that relationships,
while not corresponding 100% of the time, these relationships
did, indeed, provide partial explanations for criminal or
deviant behavior. One issue that arose among these researchers
was how to interpret these relationships. For example, some
saw poverty as a cultural or learned helplessness that causes
crime, while others viewed poverty as a structural limitation
that caused deviance and other socially unacceptable behavior.
This search for the pathological causes of crime, however,
grew unsatisfying for many sociologists, who began to delve
into other ways to explain crime, criminal behavior, and other
forms of socially harmful conduct. By focusing on only those
pathological characteristics of individuals, some emerging sociologists felt that many potentially relevant social factors were
ignored. It was in this climate, the Chicago School of Sociology
was born. Researchers at the University of Chicago in the early
to mid-twentieth century aggressively emphasized a break with
prior (whom they saw as nave) theorists who were too
narrowly focused on individuals and pathologies. Chicago
academics saw the environment as a crucial location for
research, and the research to be necessarily done involved
more rigorous empirical research such as life histories, ethnographic eld studies, and census data.
Early on the Chicago School established its theoretical base
as the city. Scholars in Chicago such as Robert Park et al.
(1925), found the urban environment, with its tremendous
diversity, locational and structural patterns, and varying
cultures and lifestyles to be innitely interesting and researchable. Additionally, they viewed areas within the city as having
their own character, functions, and populations. This led to
the development of their main theoretical proposition which
was that cities were arranged in concentric zones of social
life. The central business district made up the center zone of
social life in the city. It was surrounded by the zone of transition, which was an area inhabited by the poor, the marginalized, and the recently arrived. Next to the transition zone was
a concentric layer of working class residents, followed by the
residential zone, made up of people who had moderate
amounts of money, regular work, and greater ownership of
property. Finally, there was the commuter zone, where people

237

who wanted to ee the largeness, density, and diversity of the

city lived.
Clifford Shaw and Henry McKays longitudinal study of
juvenile delinquency in Chicago bore out this zonal perspective
(1942). Using a very early sort of mapping analysis, Shaw and
McKay constructed a series of maps of Chicago and mapped the
residences of juvenile delinquents and various other community characteristics (e.g., the location of demolished buildings,
the incidence of tuberculosis, and the residences of truants).
They then constructed rate maps which showed the percentage
of the population that was delinquent based on the other mapped characteristics. The analysis of these maps indicated several
important things: that areas with the most delinquency did not
necessarily have the most delinquents; the areas with the greatest rates of social problems and juvenile delinquency tended to
be concentrated close to the center of the city; the areas that had
the highest rates of juvenile delinquency were located within or
immediately adjacent to areas of heavy industry or commerce.
These areas also had the highest rates of structural degradation,
population decline, low economic status, high percentage of
families on welfare, low percentage of families owning their
own homes, high infant deaths, high rates of tuberculosis,
and high rates of adult criminality. In addition, these areas
also had high proportions of black and immigrant residents.
Finally, these patterns held even when the ethnic composition
of the transitional zone changed (e.g., from Irish to Puerto
Rican). These ndings provided solid evidence that delinquency was inuenced, at least in part, by location and urban
culture, and not completely by individual pathologies. Deviance was thus viewed as a product of social disorganization.
Another distinction with the Chicago School was that they
not only had a strong organizing theoretical framework, but
they had an institutional base. This led to an emphasis on
training researchers to continue their theoretical development
via continued empirical research. So, describing and understanding the underlying dynamics of social life in the zone of
transition was another aspect of the theoretical discourse
during the heyday of the Chicago School. The graduate
students of these eminent scholars were tasked with going
into these deteriorated but highly diverse neighborhoods and
gaining access to the worlds of the poor, powerless, and exotic
and telling their stories (often in miniscule detail) through
ethnographic explorations. Such views characterized many of
the books published during this time, which included ethnographies of gangs (Thrasher, 1929), organized crime (Landesco,
1929), the hobo (Anderson, 1923), the prostitute (Reckless,
1933), the taxi-dance hall (Cressey, 1932), the rooming house
district (Zorbaugh, 1929), the immigrant neighborhoods
(Thomas and Zanaiecki, 1920), and blacks (Drake and
Cayton, 1945), just to name a few. This concentration on the
transitional zone as being distinct from other zones led to
the central underlying theoretical theme, which was that
different areas of the city were organized differently.
The white male scholars of the Chicago School interpreted
this differential organization as less organized than other
zones, and thus began social disorganization theory. This
theory, which is still popular today, emphasized that neighborhoods with social characteristics such as lower economic status,
lower home ownership, higher percentages of the population
that are minority or immigrant, higher population density,

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Social Control and Deviance, History of

more vacant or boarded-up buildings, trash and litter on the

street and in yards, higher amounts of victimless crimes (e.g.,
prostitution, drug, or gun sales), higher amounts of vandalism
and property damage, unkempt lawns, and fewer neighborly
interactions were neighborhoods where residents were unsatised with their surroundings, were planning to leave as soon as
money allowed, and cared less for the upkeep of their community since they had less stake in it. Because of this, these residents were also less collectively oriented, so their abilities to
rid the community of negative inuences was compromised,
and they were unlikely to look out for each other and notice
outsiders in their midst (Sampson, 2012). This more apathetic
attitude showed in the condition of the neighborhood, and as
a result, crime and other forms of deviance ourished.
One of the common criticisms of the Chicago School,
however, was that its theorists used their own moral judgments
to explain their ndings rather than sociological analysis. For
example, some critics argued that the social world of gangs,
prostitutes, and those who frequent taxi-dance halls was not
disorganized, per se, it was just organized differently. In this
way, than, it was likely that neighborhoods with greater
amounts of crime were not so much disorganized as they
were differently organized, in ways that allowed crime or deviance to move in and stay.
Another perspective that grew from the idea that humans
had free will, was the Functionalist view of crime and deviance
which maintained that crime was more a way of life for some
groups. In this way, crime and deviance were natural
responses to group and social pressures, and criminals and
deviants were normal. As the founder of this perspective,
Emile Durkheim (1893, 1897) theorized that among the
many social institutions that were functional for society, deviance was an institution that was more complex. Even though
deviant behavior could cause harm to individuals, it was still
functional for society because it forced people to confront their
views about what was acceptable and unacceptable and make
decisions about what actions would be condemned and which
would be absolved. Durkheim argued that without negative
behavior, members of society would not have values or morals
and there would be a breakdown in the ability of society to
regulate the natural proclivities of individuals. This, in turn,
would lead to anomie, or a feeling of being not grounded or
unconnected.
Subsequent functionalists used these theoretical principles
and developed what is known today as strain theory. Strain
theorists, such as Robert K. Merton (1938) and Marshall B.
Clinard (1957) proposed that each society has at least several
social generated pressures or strains that cause criminal
behavior. Not all groups feel these pressures equally, but the
groups that experience them the most severely are the ones
that are most criminal or deviant. This line of theoretical
discourse explains that every culture has some important values
or goals that are accepted by nearly everyone. There are also
institutionally accepted ways or means of achieving these key
goals. However, the structure of most societies does not allow
everyone to actually attain these well-accepted goals. So,
many will be unable to meet cultural expectations, and this
will cause anomie among those individuals as well as in groups
where many members fall short. This is what leads to strain.
Merton argued that there are various ways that individuals

can respond to anomie, depending on that individuals or

groups attitude about the cultural goals and means. In highly
stable societies, individuals will continue to conform, which
is to say they still want to meet cultural expectations using
socially approved means. Most crimes emerge from the
response called innovation. Persons responding this way
continue to want to achieve the cultural goals, but nd they
are unable to do so using acceptable social means, so they
innovate (usually by doing something illegal). Some individuals will use a ritualistic response, which is when they continue
to support cultural goals, but essentially give up on ever
achieving them, and just go through the motions. Retreatists
respond by dropping out of the whole game altogether. Those
who choose this method of adaptation are typically psychotics,
outcasts, vagrants, drunkards, and drug addicts. Rebellion is the
last possible response to the problem of anomie. Here the
person responds to his failure and frustration by replacing
the values of society with new ones. These new values may
be political (over throwing the government), religious (seeking
a new state of spiritualism), or any number of other possibilities. But, in the end the rebel ceases to be a part of society and
lives with an alternate culture, which is likely to be seen as
deviant.
Strain theory has segued into subculture theory and is used
to explain social groups that are deviant or criminal. For
example, theorists explain gang formation as a collective and
innovative solution by a group of underprivileged youth
(Cloward and Ohlin, 1960). A group of religious outcasts
responds with rebellion and physically removes themselves
from society in order to relocate to the mountains of Idaho.
A recent group of immigrants that is unable to nd adequate
work and housing after entering a country forms a community
and economic enclave within an urban area where its members
can work, live, express their unique cultural beliefs, and do not
have to interact much with the larger society.
As a competing perspective, French sociologist Gabriel
Tarde (18431904) expressed the notion that the great level
of harmony in society was as equally worthy of study as penal
philosophy (1890). More specically, Tarde observed that
most citizens behavior was congruent with social norms and
values, suggesting that social control strategies were fairly
successful. For example, when considering deviance, Tarde
wrote that the more interesting sociological puzzle was how
people came to live together closely and in harmony. In other
words, what might be equally, if not more interesting than
explaining nonconformity was to explain such high levels of
conformity.
So, even though deviance was an interesting sociological
phenomenon, what followers of Tarde found equally compelling was the question of why so many people were cooperative,
conforming, and normal, even in times of social upheaval.
Scholars during the early twentieth century wondered what
could account for the reemergence of stability and harmony
in the chaotic modern world (for a discussion of this issue
see Buzan and Lawson, 2014)? And, given that the formal
instruments of social control (e.g., police, governments) were
not the likely answer, because social control could be created
and maintained without the use or threat of force, what institutions of society were the primary contributors to social
stability?

Social Control and Deviance, History of

It is here that sociology provides an assortment of answers.

Religion, education, family, the whole apparatus of socialization, politics, the military, and the reestablishment of social
norms and values were some of the social institutions that
theorists looked toward to understand both deviance and
conformity. This perspective also shaped a long-standing
disposition of sociology which is to analyze biography and
history in order to better understand and provide solutions
to social problems (Mills, 1959). More current scholars of
this paradigm suggest that within these social institutions,
people with a stake in conformity were not deviant (Toby,
1957). The idea here is that most peoples behavior is
controlled through informal social control (e.g., neighbors
and communities issuing in-group or out-group status or
glares, exclusion, and disapproval). Because we are social
beings, we want to t in and be a part of the group. If that is
threatened, we conform to norms and values in order to be
accepted (Nye, 1958). Travis Hirschi (1969) provided an
explanation for why people have a stake in conformity by
noting that there are four elements that increase the social
bonds people have with the members of their families and
communities. These elements are having an attachment (e.g.,
affectionate toward, sensitivity to) to others and their
communities, being committed to conventional society (e.g.,
attending church, doing well in school, getting a job),
involvement in conventional activities (e.g., playing on
a sports team after school, joining the PTA), and belief in
obeying the laws.
Another paradigmatic development that was occurring
alongside the development of the Chicago School maintained
its methodological emphasis on observation, but moved to the
forefront the uidity of deviance and social control. Among
these Social Reaction theorists were Edwin Lemert (1951),
Howard S. Becker (1963), and Erving Goffman (1959), all of
whom became increasingly concerned with the process of
becoming deviant; particularly the part played by ofcial institutions of crime control and community informal social
control. The theoretical gist here is that individuals who
commit a crime or who are deviant once or twice (often
unknowingly or with only minor transgressions) are ofcially
labeled deviant, stigmatized by their communities, and
become ignored and marginalized. This process often results
in a continuation of deviant behavior rather than desistance,
because the individual has developed the identity of deviant
(or criminal), and becomes anomic and disconnected from
society. So, deviance is largely dened by the stigmatizing
and punitive reactions of others. This theoretical discourse,
while originally ignored, became inuential in the 1960s as
some groups cultural beliefs included ideas that governments
and the rich had the power to impose their denitions and lifestyles on to the rest of the members of society. These new
beliefs likely came to pass as a result of individuals who protested the war were attacked by law enforcement ofcers, and
the emerging subcultures of greater drug use and free sexual
expression were frowned upon by more respectable societal
members.
Social reaction theorys intellectual roots are the symbolic
interactionist view of society. Here, the theoretical essence is
that of dramaturgy (Goffman, 1959). Metaphorically, people
act out their lives on a stage in front of an audience and they

239

manipulate the audiences view by using or omitting various

props, language, and settings to establish an impression. The
audience, in turn, sees the props, is aware of the setting, and
listens to the actors use of language and forms an impression.
Dramaturgy, then, is a two-way street, and is not always
predictable. The actor may attempt to control the impression
the audience has of his/her, by using a particular prop, but
the audience may have a different association with that prop,
thereby forming a different impression than what was
intended. These symbolic interpretations are so strong that
individuals often behave toward others according to their
beliefs about these others. For example, Social Reaction
theorists have discussed the impressions society has of the
blind, the disgured, stutterers, strippers, prostitutes, perverts,
addicts, alcoholics, the unwashed, and the unwed
(particularly mothers). The blind, for example, indicate that
people often yell at them, apparently thinking if they are
visually impaired, they must also be hard of hearing.
Additionally, many people think that strippers, prostitutes,
and unwed mothers are morally decient, preferring to focus
on the symbolic meanings of their observable actions rather
than considering their hard-luck circumstances. Many
researchers have looked at common educational practices
that illustrate the bureaucratic process that labels certain
children handicapped or slow and then ushers them into
special education programs.
This theoretical discourse is easily applied to deviance.
People hold many symbolic beliefs about those who behave
unconventionally. Therefore, once someone has been deviant
(primary deviance), the ofcial processing that occurs, and
this leads to stereotypical labeling. Deviant individuals, then,
are viewed as moral reprobates, are shunned, excluded, marginalized, and ignored. This leads to a disconnection from society
and further deviance (secondary deviance). This process can
also take place on a more informal level. For example, if
a boy is caught smoking marijuana in his neighborhood, it
may happen that his neighbors will begin to think of him as
a druggie and stop letting him play with their children, get
worried when he is around, and cross the street to avoid him
when they are walking. This, in turn, would cause that boy to
lose his bond with members of the community and feel isolated from them.
In keeping with this perspective on the world, the methods
of research by these sociologists were to emphasize Verstehen
(Weber, 1946). So, greater understanding could only be had
when theorists examined deviant persons and groups from
their own points of view. Researchers, then, who attempted
to systematize or generalize their ndings on unconventionality, were to be distrusted.
A nal paradigm developing from early criminologists was
heavily inuenced by Karl Marx (1848). Theorists of this
bent, such as George Vold (1958), Richard Quinney (1970),
Jeffrey Reiman (1979), and William Chambliss (1973), drew
on the politics of Marx to establish the foundation for their
theories of crime. Marx argued that in the organized capitalist
state the economy was controlled by the owners of the means
of production. The workers interests were not represented, and
the only way the workers could gain any independence from
the power of the owners was for the state to take over the means
of production. Only when the state was in control would all

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Social Control and Deviance, History of

citizens interests and needs be accommodated. Sociologists in

the 1970s and later, particularly, were greatly inuenced by the
distrust of those in power and the assertion that crime and deviance were a result of social authority and labeling. This perspective harkens from the conict approach to understanding
society, and these theorists used radical discourse to suggest
that the government itself was actually the cause of crime.
The State caused criminal behavior because of its unequal treatment of social minorities, and its self-perpetuating goal of
keeping the rich in control of the government and economy
and the poor downtrodden and demoralized. Here, then,
deviance is variable, as it reects the opinions of the group
that is in power. And, social control is used by those in
power to keep down those who are not.
Scholars took a number of directions when applying Marx
to the study of crime, deviance, and social control. Sellin
(1950) suggested that conict would arise when cultural
subgroups values and norms collided. As society became
bigger and more complex, this collision would be inevitable.
Within simple societies, cultural values and norms often
become law and represent a consensus in society. But, as society
grew and became more complex, subgroups with cultural
distinctions would clash and the more powerful subgroups
would emerge with their values and beliefs represented in
law, while the norms and values of other less powerful cultural
subgroups would become illegal or deviant. An extension of
this thesis was the proposition that groups in society are always
striving for or attempting to maintain their positions of power.
One way that more powerful groups kept their positions of
dominance was to dene others groups as unconventional
and in need of societys efforts of social control. This resulted
in members from less powerful groups being more heavily represented in prisons, and mental hospitals, which, in turn, led to
their greater representation among the homeless, jobless, and
those on welfare.
Subsequent conict theorists raised issues such as how
women (Belknap, 2001), GLBTQs (Comstock, 1991), and
ethnic minorities (Tonry, 1995) were not represented in traditional theories of crime and deviance because their criminal
behavior was different from that of white men and their victimization was ignored, minimized, or ridiculed by ofcial agents
of social control. An example of how the State used social
control to keep the downtrodden down was noted by Michelle
Alexander: many ethnic minorities, particularly Blacks, have
been, for all intents and purposes, removed from participating
in society because they are imprisoned at high rates, and lose
many civil rights as a result (e.g., voting, gun ownership, cannot
run for ofce, have trouble getting jobs) (Alexander, 2010).
Theoretical discourse from this perspective, then, clearly illustrates the great mistrust sociologists of the time had for those
in powerful positions.
For the last 300400 years, sociological discourse on social
control, crime, and deviance has branched out, providing
numerous explanations for such behavior. Each theoretical
exploration has undertaken a paradigmatic shift in the conceptualization of deviance and/or social control, or the methods used
to study such. As such, perhaps the greatest recent contributions
of sociologists to the study of social control and deviance are to
use multifactor theories that pull a few of the most valid parts
of several theories together, particularly those that examine

both individual and society level factors. This also suggests that
multimethod approaches will enhance our understanding of
deviance. Using observation or ethnography as well as surveys
or ofcial data can all be combined to provide more complete
accounts and descriptions of this important social phenomenon.

See also: Communities and Crime; Crime, Sociology of;

Deterrence Theory: Crime; Prevention of Crime and
Delinquency; Punishment: Comparative Politics of; Punishment:
Social and Legal Aspects; Punishment; Religion: Morality and
Social Control; Self-Control Theory and Crime; Social Ecology:
The Chicago School; Social Learning Theory and Crime; Strain
Theories and Crime.

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