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Social Deviance and Delinquency
A failure to comply with the norms and rules of behavior established in society is closely connected with a phenomenon called deviance. Sociologists define this term as a persons carrying out some actions that are considered unacceptable by a group. Isolation, treatment, correction, or punishment of the offender belong to the consequences of ones breaking social rules. Deviance can be manifested in the form of deviant, delinquent, and criminal behavior (Akers & Jennings, 2019). In contrast to the natural norms of physical and biological processes, social standards are formed by people and might vary from group to group. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the connection between social deviance and some problems existing in society as well as to identify an actual solution to the issue analyzed.
How Social Deviance Contributes to Social Problems
Deviant behavior aggravates problems existing in society because many of them are associated with a persons reluctance to follow rules. Although social deviance can be both of positive and negative nature, the latter type is prevalent. Regardless of its form which can be either direct or indirect, negative social deviance is aimed at destroying the existing order of things (McIntosh & Rock, 2018). People who practice deviant behavior might try to redistribute social benefits in an inadequate way or achieve their goal without taking into account the interests of others (McIntosh & Rock, 2018). Furthermore, social deviance can involve an unjust solution of problems in favor of one of the interacting parties by worsening the adaptation conditions of the other one. Thus, it might be claimed that deviant behavior worsens social problems of inequality and injustice as well as contributes to criminality.
How Social Deviance Perpetuates Delinquency
One aspect of social deviance might be aggressiveness which is a key point for delinquency. IItis demonstrated mainly in teenage boys; some of them express their protest by breaking social rules. Cruelty can be directed towards younger children, adults, old people, and peers and find its manifestation in mocking, ignoring ones requirements, or even using physical strength (Henry, 2018). At this stage, cases of social deviance resulting from aggression are usually regarded as not dangerous. However, if not solved, the problem becomes more serious; small cases of rules and norms infringement might turn into crimes for they have one general source which is aggression. Hence, social deviance perpetuates the problem of criminality; this is a matter of concern for society.
The solution to the Problem of Social Deviance
On the basis of the above information, it might be stated that soft measures of tackling social deviance are not always effective. A better solution would be to implement strict punishments even for small cases of deviant behavior demonstration that might lead to more serious deeds (Henry, 2018). Even though in a narrow sense, social deviance means such actions that do not entail criminal punishment, in other words, are not offenses, are not unlawful, some ways to tackle them should be found. Violations of social norms can be serious and frivolous, conscious and unconscious; all serious violations, conscious or not, falling under the category of illegal actions, relate to delinquent behavior which should also be punished.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it is important to press the point that one should differentiate between delinquency and social deviance. Alcoholism is a typical example of delinquent behavior; a drinker is a deviant because they are not able to perform social roles appropriately. At the same time, a drug addict is a criminal because drug use is qualified by law as a criminal act. Unlike some examples of deviance, such actions are punishable in the majority of countries. All in all, effective measures for tackling deviant issues should be found for even such actions that are regarded as innocent by law, might become a source for crimes.
References
Akers, R. L., & Jennings, W. G. (2019). The social learning theory of crime and deviance. In Handbook on crime and deviance (pp. 113-129). Springer, Cham.
Henry, S. (2018). Social deviance. John Wiley & Sons.
McIntosh, M., & Rock, P. (Eds.) (2018). Deviance and social control. Routledge.
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