Deviance, Law and Crime

Today we're looking at a lecture on deviance, law, and crime. The central puzzle is this: why do wealthy executives sometimes steal billions with barely a slap on the wrist, while someone poor steals a loaf of bread and ends up in jail for years?

So it's not that the crimes cause different harm, but who decides what's a big deal?

Exactly. The lecture defines deviance as behavior that breaks from what's usually accepted in society and violates its rules—like jaywalking or something more serious. It's not just the act, but how society draws those lines, often tied to power and inequality. Different sociological views unpack this, like looking through colored lenses at the same picture.

Okay, so these views show deviance isn't fixed—it's shaped by society. But how does labeling someone deviant pull them deeper?

One view, functionalism, sees deviance as sometimes useful. Strain theory explains that people want success but lack legal ways to get it, so they innovate by breaking rules. Labeling theory adds that once tagged as deviant, they might lean into it. Primary deviance is the first slip. Secondary deviance happens when the label sticks, blocks jobs, and pulls them deeper—like a snowball growing as it rolls.

Huh. That explains the rich-poor gap—labels and power decide the rules.

The lecture connects this to law as society's rule enforcer, patterns of crime like property versus violent, victims, and punishments like deterrence or rehab. It shows how inequality shapes all this. Social stratification stacks society in layers by money, status, and power. People at the top control resources, while those below struggle for basics. It mixes in gender or ethnicity to make inequalities stickier. Max Weber called this "life chances"—your odds of getting ahead based on where you start, like better health or jobs if you're higher up.

So it's a whole ranking system. But can people climb out, or does it trap them?

Social mobility is shifting between layers. Upward means a higher spot, like a better job than your parents had. Downward slides hit harder for women, immigrants, or minorities, often leading to underemployment—using skills way below what you have, like a trained nurse flipping burgers. Poverty splits into absolute—barely covering food and shelter—and relative, above survival but far below average.

Right, so labels block paths, trapping folks in poverty cycles. And this feeds into gender too?

Yes. Society builds ideas about men and women through everyday interactions—like parents or media teaching boys to be tough providers and girls to nurture. This setup, called patriarchy, favors men with more control in families and jobs. Women who work paid jobs still handle most housework and childcare on top—that extra load is the second shift.

So it's learned, not born. How does that play out in violence?

Women face harm mostly from people they know, like partners or family. Repeated abuse by a partner—emotional, physical, sexual—is intimate partner violence, trapping survivors in danger.

Ties to bigger divides. The slides move to global inequality next?

They do, starting with globalization: countries linking up through trade and ideas. Wealthier Global North spots contrast poorer Global South, worsened by neoliberalism where governments step back, letting markets run things. Conflict theory sees this as old colonialism evolving into world-systems, with rich core nations exploiting poor periphery ones. Skilled folks leaving poor places causes brain drain. Refugees numbered over 70 million by 2019. Yet globalization brings gains like better health in the South.

So it widens gaps worldwide. How do the slides link this back to crime patterns at home?

They break crimes into types that reveal class divides. White-collar crimes are illegal acts by middle-class business people, like corporate fraud that costs billions but often goes lightly punished because of connections. Street crimes, like theft or assault, hit poorer areas harder and draw quick police response. Society grants victim status more readily to some, like prominent people, while overlooking others such as the homeless.

Right, same harm but different treatment. What about punishment—beyond locking people up?

Restorative justice has offenders own up and repair harm to victims and community. Retribution fits punishment to the crime's damage, while incarceration protects society by removal. Conflict theory via Marx sees class struggles—owners versus workers selling labor. Workers create surplus value, extra worth bosses keep beyond wages, breeding alienation from their work and others. Disadvantages from being poor, plus woman, plus immigrant overlap and amplify, called intersectionality—like multiple walls blocking the same path.

So layers stack against certain groups, tying back to downward mobility.

Exactly. Strain theory spots the push for success clashing with blocked paths, so people turn to crime as innovation. Poor folks chase the same goals ads sell everyone, but without ladders, frustration brews theft. The slides note more ideas than hard data, focused on Canada. Still, these lenses—from conflict to feminism—show deviance as built by power and labels, not innate, revealing inequality's patterns in crime and mobility. Applying them spots fixes, like opening paths to cut cycles.

Thanks for joining us on ResearchPod.