Social Organization of Deviants and Deviance

• NCJ Number: 75669
• Author(s): J Best; D F Luckenbill
• Date Published: 1978
• Length: 38 pages
• Publication Format: Document
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for the Study of Social Problems, San Francisco, California, September, 1978.

Annotation

A framework is advanced for understanding the social organization of deviants and deviance, based on field research identifying different forms of social organization.

Abstract

The 'social organization of deviants' refers to the structure or pattern of relationships between deviant actors in the context of deviant pursuits. The 'social organization of deviance' is the structure of a deviant situation or the pattern of relationships between the roles involved. Research reports suggest that deviants organize in several ways along a scale of rationality. Beginning with the least rational form of social organization, this analysis discusses five forms: (1) loners, who do not rely upon other deviants to live out their deviance; (2) colleagues, who perform their deviant activities alone but associate with others involved in the same type of deviance; (3) peers, who are involved in the socialization of novice deviants, considerable social interaction, and the maintenance of a loose code of conduct; (4) mobs, which are small groups of professional or career deviants organized to pursue specific profitable goals; and (5) formal organizations, which are generally larger than mobs and are more intricately organized to pursue continuing and long-term goals. In the social organization of deviance, situations of individual deviance exist when only one person's presence is required for the deviance to occur. Exchange situations require two or more actors, with each actor performing a deviant role. Situations of exploitation involve two or more actors, with at least one actor playing a deviant role and at least one actor playing a 'normal' role. Interaction in a given deviant situation is affected by the organization of deviants, and deviants in a given form of organization are affected by the social organization of their deviant situations. Both the organization of deviants and the organization of deviance can vary, and such variation is particularly likely among those who are committed to deviance as a way of life. Shifts between forms of deviant situations or of forms of relationships between deviants have major consequences for the interactions between deviants and social control agents. Tabular data, notes, and about 80 references are provided.