major forms of deviance. These are acts that can get you shunned and screamed at
or labeled an “outsider” (Becker, 1966); or they are the sorts of crimes that get you
thrown in prison. These are not matters of mere carelessness: The rules come from
many important agents of socialization, and the penalties for breaking them are
high. With some, like burglary or fraud, you have to consciously plan to commit
the act, and the law distinguishes between those crimes that are the result of inten-
tion and those that could be the result of negligence or even an accident (and we
adjust our penalties accordingly). So why do people break them? And why don’t
most of us break them all the time? What makes a deviant or a criminal? What can
we do about it? These are the central questions to a sociologist because they illus-
trate our concern for social order and control—both when they are present, and
people obey the rules and when they are absent, and people feel unconstrained by
those same rules.
In the first chapter of this book, we suggested that sociologists are always inter-
ested in both sides of this question: How is society possible in the first place (social
organization) and why does it often feel that society is “breaking down” or some
institution is on the verge of collapse (social disorganization)? Recall the example of
the New York City tabloid newspapers featuring screaming headlines about a person
being pushed to his or her death on the subway tracks at rush hour. On the one hand,
sociologists ask: What could possibly bring someone to push someone else, a stranger,
in front of an oncoming subway train? Society, we fear, is breaking down right in front
of our eyes. And yet, at the same time, more than one million strangers ride in those
metal tubes going 75 miles an hour underneath the streets of New York City every
day—crowded conditions with people you don’t know, don’t especially like, and all
sleep deprived and buzzed on coffee. Sociologists also ask: Why aren’t more people
pushed in front of oncoming trains every day? We’re interested in both questions:
Why do most of us conform to social norms most of the time, and why do most of
us decide to break some of them at other times? We want to know: What accounts
for conformity? What accounts for deviance? And who decides which is which?
WHAT IS DEVIANCE? 169Crazy Laws
What we consider deviant changes over time, as peo-
ple change their ideas of what is normal and what is
wrong. As a result, laws prohibiting certain acts are
often enforced long after most people in the society
stopped considering them deviant. Men were fined for
going topless on the beach as late as the 1930s. As of
this writing, it is illegal for a man and a woman who are not mar-
ried or relatives to share a hotel room in Florida (though the
police look the other way during spring break). Some of these laws
are still enforced—sometimes when the local police chief has had
a bad day—but many others are unenforced and probably unen-
forceable. They are relics of long-vanished values, acts that some
lawmakers considered deviant enough to warrant legal penalties:- In Alabama, it is illegal to buy peanuts at night.
- In Colorado, it is illegal for a man to kiss a woman while she
is asleep. - In Florida, unmarried women are prohibited from skydiving
on Sunday. - In Boston, Massachusetts, it is illegal to take a bath unless
you are under physician’s orders. - In New Mexico, it is illegal for women to appear in public
with unshaven legs. - In Tulsa, Oklahoma, heterosexual kissing is permitted, as long
as it lasts less than three minutes. - In Oregon, a man may not purchase alcohol without the writ-
ten consent of his wife.
(All are from Davidson, 1998.)Sociologyand ourWorld