NCJ Number
83220
Date Published
1980
Length
266 pages
Annotation
Findings are presented from a study designed to elaborate a theoretical description of the ways in which the moral order functions and the role of deviant behavior and its control in that functioning, based upon data from a study of heroin use and control in a small American city from 1969-73.
Abstract
The primary component of the research strategy was a three-part participant-observation study of heroin use and control. Separate teams studied heroin use and control from the perspectives of the addicts, the law enforcement personnel, and the medical community. The presentation begins with consideration of Durkheim's thesis that morality provides points of common orientation that make sustained interaction possible, particularly interaction between people whose socially recognized self-interests differ. Data produced the following conclusions: (1) the result of doing deviance and social control interactions is the production, reproduction, and modification of moral schemas; (2) Durkheim's theoretical apparatus for describing the moral organization of modern society is, with some modification, acceptable for the description of deviance and control processes; (3) deviance and social control are normal social phenomena and can be analyzed using the same theory as any other aspect of social life; and (4) new research on deviance must focus on the structure of moral schemas and the processes of their creation, elaboration, maintenance, and change. From a policy perspective, the study concludes that the drug crisis in the period studied was a phony creation of a variety of powerful people who felt threatered by the growth of expressive passivist beliefs in the youth culture and revolutionary politics among blacks. There was little substance for the belief that large sectors of the population were about to become addicted to heroin. Tabular data are provided, along with extensive notes and about 180 references. A subject index is also included.