SUNY series in Deviance and Social Control – serie

The Politics and Morality of Deviance develops a theoretical framework and then applies it to four different and specific case studies in an explicit attempt to put the sociology of deviance back into mainstream sociology. It argues that deviance should be analyzed as a relative phenomenon in different and changing cultures, vis-a-vis change and stability in the boundaries of different symbolic/moral universes. It also argues that the legitimization of power should be thought of in terms of a moral order that in turn defines the societal boundaries of different symbolic/moral universes.Mills' concept of motivational accounting systems is utilized throughout the text in order to illustrate how the micro and macro levels of analysis can be integrated.

Explores how standardized images of problems and people inform and shape social services for women who have been assaulted.Arguing that we commonly understand "wife abuse" and the "battered woman" in terms of standardized images of problems and people, the author explores how these images inform and shape social services for women who have been assaulted. Using ethnographic data of shelter work from the perspective of workers, she shows how these standardized images affect organizational structure and how front-line workers make sense of their interventions into clients' lives.

This book examines the conflict theory of social control, particularly the threat hypothesis. It asserts that deviance and crime control are responses to social threats such as criminal acts and riots, and to people perceived as threatening such as minorities and the unemployed. The authors use threat hypothesis to organize the diverse literatures on social control, use new data to resolve crucial issues, and integrate current perspectives to develop the threat proposition. They analyze patterns of deviance and crime control ranging from fatal or lethal controls such as state executions or lynching, to physical restraint such as imprisonment, to beneficient controls such as mental health hospitalization and even welfare.

This is a case study of the violence and disorder that have become endemic in U. S. prisons. The 1980 riot at the Penitentiary of New Mexico was one of the worst riots in prison history. Thirty-three inmates were killed and hundreds were injured. The author demonstrates how this riot, and the growing disorder that preceded it, reflect important shifts in the organizational structure and philosophy of prison management in the U. S.The Penitentiary in Crisis analyzes how shifts in prisoner control strategies disrupted important power relations between inmates and staff and created disorder. The author's experiences as a corrections counselor and planner in New Mexico corrections and his later role as principal researcher for the official investigation of the riot give him a unique perspective for understanding the riot and the prison's organization and history.

Ben-Yehuda presents an in-depth inquiry into the nature and patterns of political assassinations and executions by Jews in Palestine and Israel. Extensive empirical evidence is used to analyze the social construction of violent and aggressive human behavior, using a sociology of deviance perspective. Political assassinations and executions are placed within their particular cultural matrix to describe how this specific form of killing has been conceptualized as part of an alternative system of justice."The taking of a human life is generally regarded as the ultimate evil. Given this fact, it is important to examine and understand how it is explained, justified, and cloaked in a 'vocabulary of motives.' Such acts are, in the author's words, 'socially constructed and interpreted,' dependent on the observer's location in a specific 'symbolic-moral universe.'Moreover, such acts (political assassination specifically) are manifestations of struggles that represent attempts to legitimate these world-views, rhetorical devices that serve to define 'boundary-markers' between such universes - moral crusades that attempt to validate one view vis-a-vis another.This general approach to political assassinations is original. Its application to assassinations by Israelis is original. The fact that the book is empirical marks it off from many speculations on the subject. A number of the author's findings make a distinct contribution.

This book traces the intellectual history of criminology, analyzing the influence of early classical European concepts of criminality and the development of positivist methodologies. It is an original and carefully researched work, adding significantly to our knowledge of the history of criminology. From Cesare Beccaria's Dei delitti e delle pene to Charles Goring's The English Convict, Beirne offers refreshing and challenging insights on the intellectual and social histories of a variety of important concepts and movements in criminology.

This book offers a study of deviance and dispute management in a comparative perspective. Conventional wisdom and professional knowledge assume a clear line between the study of disputes and deviance. The authors provide the basic steps for integrating the study of disputes with research on the sociology of law and deviance. They examine the conditions crucial to dispute analysis: the nature of social and political relationships, informal and formal social control, cost, time, and access to dispute forums.

Theories of criminality and theories of victimization have traditionally been discussed as though they bore no relationship to one another. Yet, a complete explanation for crime must examine both the decision to engage in crime by an offender and the everyday actions of ordinary citizens that increase vulnerability to criminals. The integration of these approaches yields testable models that have greater predictive power than could be obtained by looking only at models of offenders or models of victim behavior. A more general perspective that accounts for both the decision to engage in crime and the selection of particular crime targets is developed and tested.

This book is a biography of the husband and wife team that is largely responsible for developing social problems and social deviance as areas of research. Politics in the discipline of sociology is also examined.

This book is a biography of the husband and wife team that is largely responsible for developing social problems and social deviance as areas of research. Politics in the discipline of sociology is also examined.

A broadly based analysis of good and evil grounded in examination of the conceptual, philosophical, and theoretical bases of the study of evil within the social sciences.Edwin Lemert investigates the possibility that a consideration of evil will provide new power to explanations of deviance. He links classic studies of witchcraft and sorcery to the wider problem of social control. The search for prototypical evil (a view that Lemert rejects) turns to an investigation of sorcery because sorcery involves selfish interest and intentions on the part of the sorcerer, who uses cryptic means to harm a victim that he/she dislikes.The author then examines comparatively the conditions that produce evil actions, and social reactions to them, in a variety of societies; and he reviews explanations that previous scholars have offered for the presence and consequences of evil. A tangential consequence of this method is that the work takes on a strong Melanesian flavor, because so many of the classic studies of sorcery were conducted in that culture area. Lemert argues that the fragmented nature of political organization, rapid shifts in political alliance, and the frequency of competitive rituals involving food combine in Melanesia to produce conditions that favor the development of whole cultures that celebrate forms of animosity and violence.

A broadly based analysis of good and evil grounded in examination of the conceptual, philosophical, and theoretical bases of the study of evil within the social sciences.Edwin Lemert investigates the possibility that a consideration of evil will provide new power to explanations of deviance. He links classic studies of witchcraft and sorcery to the wider problem of social control. The search for prototypical evil (a view that Lemert rejects) turns to an investigation of sorcery because sorcery involves selfish interest and intentions on the part of the sorcerer, who uses cryptic means to harm a victim that he/she dislikes.The author then examines comparatively the conditions that produce evil actions, and social reactions to them, in a variety of societies; and he reviews explanations that previous scholars have offered for the presence and consequences of evil. A tangential consequence of this method is that the work takes on a strong Melanesian flavor, because so many of the classic studies of sorcery were conducted in that culture area. Lemert argues that the fragmented nature of political organization, rapid shifts in political alliance, and the frequency of competitive rituals involving food combine in Melanesia to produce conditions that favor the development of whole cultures that celebrate forms of animosity and violence.

A comparative analysis of one of the most devastating social problems of the contemporary world. Focuses not only on acts of terrorism by terrorists, but with their portrayal and manipulation by others, particularly the media, for social and political purposes.

A comparative analysis of one of the most devastating social problems of the contemporary world. Focuses not only on acts of terrorism by terrorists, but with their portrayal and manipulation by others, particularly the media, for social and political purposes.

Offers a revised liberal political philosophy, arguing that group-based policies are discriminatory and proposing individual-oriented policies in their place.Offering a new way of thinking about liberalism and public policies, this book contends that group-based policies, predicated on all manner of group construction, pervade public policy. Such policies are grounded in group distinctions that include not only race, ethnicity, gender, and age, but current and past behavior, employment status, personal preferences, and numerous statistical and inferential factors. Although many of these policies are considered to be liberal, they are all discriminatory in essence. For example, the Social Security Act of 1935, although regarded as the foundation of modern liberalism, is riddled with group-based policies that are inconsistent with the principle of nondiscrimination. This book examines other examples of group-based discrimination in such diverse areas as public welfare and child welfare, drug and gambling laws, drunk driving laws, criminal justice, and foreign policy.Pelton argues that the true roots of liberalism are found in nondiscrimination and respect for the individual. Doing Justice proposes just that-nondiscriminatory, individual-oriented policies in place of each of the group-based policies that are analyzed. The book's innovative thesis points to a conceptual and political rebirth of liberalism.

Examines the career of sociologist Alfred R. Lindesmith, who argued against drug prohibitions from the 1930s onward, warning of the threat to democracy and advocating more humane drug control laws.Confronting the Drug Control Establishment is a biography of Alfred R. Lindesmith and an intellectual history of his times. A sociologist at Indiana University, Lindesmith believed legal prohibition of addictive drugs was futile and wrote widely on the threat to democracy inherent in such a policy.Lindesmith's career began during the 1930s and developed along with the emerging drug prohibitions in the early and mid-twentieth century. Throughout his life Lindesmith attempted to utilize his research for the creation of more rational and humane drug control laws. His consistent message was that the addict's self-concept is a central element in human addiction. Lindesmith felt that an overriding influence on an addict's self-concept is a fear of withdrawal, which keeps an addict from seeking treatment and becomes a key driving force in the drug problem.

Eminent criminologist Richard Quinney offers his 40-year journey bearing witness to crime and social justice in writings both scholarly and autobiographical.Featuring both scholarly and autobiographical writings, Bearing Witness to Crime and Social Justice follows Richard Quinney's development as a criminologist. Quinney's criminology is a critical criminology which he describes as a journey of witnessing to crime and social justice. Quinney's travels from the 1960s through the 1990s show a progression of ways of thinking and acting: from the social constructionist perspective to phenomenology, from phenomenology to Marxist and critical philosophy, from Marxist and critical philosophy to liberation theology, from liberation theology to Buddhism and existentialism. Along this journey, Quinney adopts a more ethnographic and personal mode of thinking and being. Each new stage of development incorporates what has preceded it; each change has been motivated by the need to understand crime and social justice in another or more complex way, in a way excluded from a former understanding. Each stage has also incorporated changes that were taking place in Quinney's personal life. Ultimately, there is no separation between life and theory, between witnessing and writing.

Eminent criminologist Richard Quinney offers his 40-year journey bearing witness to crime and social justice in writings both scholarly and autobiographical.Featuring both scholarly and autobiographical writings, Bearing Witness to Crime and Social Justice follows Richard Quinney's development as a criminologist. Quinney's criminology is a critical criminology which he describes as a journey of witnessing to crime and social justice. Quinney's travels from the 1960s through the 1990s show a progression of ways of thinking and acting: from the social constructionist perspective to phenomenology, from phenomenology to Marxist and critical philosophy, from Marxist and critical philosophy to liberation theology, from liberation theology to Buddhism and existentialism. Along this journey, Quinney adopts a more ethnographic and personal mode of thinking and being. Each new stage of development incorporates what has preceded it; each change has been motivated by the need to understand crime and social justice in another or more complex way, in a way excluded from a former understanding. Each stage has also incorporated changes that were taking place in Quinney's personal life. Ultimately, there is no separation between life and theory, between witnessing and writing.

Disputes standard explanations of police brutality against minority citizens to offer new insights and suggestions on dealing with this problem.What causes police brutality, and why are minority citizens the primary victims? Social scientists often attribute the behavior to poorly managed police departments, bad cops, or the interests of the powerful in controlling minorities perceived as criminal threats. Malcolm D. Holmes and Brad W. Smith contend that these explanations fail to identify key causes of police misconduct, particularly the use of excessive force. Focusing on the interaction of ordinary social-psychological processes and the disadvantaged conditions of minority neighborhoods, Holmes and Smith develop an integrated model of police brutality that takes into account contemporary theory and research on social identity, stereotypes, and emotions-factors that produce intergroup tensions and may trigger unwarranted acts of aggression. Their approach overcomes existing theoretical difficulties and raises the question of how this complex social problem might be effectively addressed.