10.2: The Social Construction of Deviance and Crime

Sociological inquiry into deviance and crime begins with the fundamental insight that these categories are not inherent properties of behaviors but are instead socially constructed designations that vary across historical periods and cultural contexts. Émile Durkheim, one of sociology’s foundational theorists, posited that deviance serves important functions for society by clarifying moral boundaries and reinforcing social solidarity. According to this Functionalist perspective, the identification and punishment of deviant behavior strengthen community norms and values, though Durkheim noted that excessive rates of deviance could indicate underlying social dysfunction.

Some extensions of Durkheim’s Functionalist model include Robert K. Merton’s Structural Strain Theory (1938) and the framework of Differential Opportunity introduced by Richard Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin (1960). In Merton’s Structural Strain Theory structural inequalities translate into disparate rates of deviant behavior across racial groups. Merton argued that when there is a disconnect between culturally prescribed goals (such as material success) and the legitimate means available to achieve them, individuals experience strain that may lead them to adopt deviant adaptations. In other words, deviance can be viewed as a break between commonly understood expectations conceived by the larger society, and one’s varying ability (adaptations) to meet those expectations. These adaptations include innovation (using illegitimate means to achieve accepted goals), ritualism (abandoning goals while continuing to follow means), retreatism (rejecting both goals and means), and rebellion (seeking to replace existing goals and means with new ones). When applied to racialized contexts, Structural Strain Theory helps explain how systemic barriers to educational and economic opportunity in communities of color—resulting from historical discrimination, ongoing residential segregation, and labor market inequalities—create conditions conducive to higher rates of certain types of crime.

Richard Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin extended this perspective through differential opportunity theory, which emphasizes that access to illegitimate means for achieving success is also unevenly distributed across communities. In neighborhoods where legitimate economic opportunities are scarce but illicit markets are well-established; individuals may be more likely to pursue criminal adaptations to strain. In this view, misrepresentations of BIPOC communities as backward, degenerative, or even uncivilized are undermined by the realization that various illegitimate economic opportunities and illicit markets are well grounded in these spaces due to systemic disparities—individuals are simply thrust into such environments, as opposed to creating them out of some inherent racial or ethnic flaw.