Social Control, Syllabus

Syllabus - Deviance and Social Control - Spring 2007
Dr. Monsma - home.nwciowa.edu/monsma/deviant/syl.asp

Sociology of Social Control - Fall 2006 - South Carolina

Deviance, Law and Social Control Program - 2004 - University of Wisconsin, Madison

THE PROGRAM
The program in Deviance, Law, and Social Control (DLSC) is designed to train sociology graduate students in the areas of sociology of law, deviance, criminology and social control. Through a combination of classroom instruction, independent directed study, and teaching and research apprenticeships, the program fosters a sound background in general sociology, a thorough understanding of theoretical and empirical issues in the study of law and deviance, and a solid set of technical skills for conducting scholarly research.

Upon graduation from the program, students have gone on to take jobs in the nation's leading sociology, law, and criminal justice programs.

The Deviance, Law and Social Control program builds upon the strengths of the University of Wisconsin's Department of Sociology, which has received top national rankings for both scholarship and training.

Compared to the law and deviance programs at other major universities, Wisconsin's DLSC program is distinguished both by its strong emphasis on Law and Society scholarship and by its commitment to linking the study of law and deviance with more general issues in social and legal theory. Students in the DLSC area develop a solid foundation in core sociological theory and research methods, as well as more specialized expertise in the sociology of law, deviance and criminology. DLSC students have a choice of taking either of two written preliminary examinations: a broad exam in "deviance, law, and social control," or a more specialized exam in "law and society."

The Deviance, Law and Social Control program features a weekly training colloquium, in which faculty and graduate students meet to present research ideas, critically evaluate each other's work, and review recent developments in the field. In addition, the program offers a variety of lecture courses and seminars:
Sociology of Law
Sociology of the Legal Profession
Processes of Deviant Behavior
Juvenile Delinquency
Criminology
Corrections and the Control of Crime
Sociology of Mental Health
Modern American Communities
Seminar in the Sociology of Law
Seminar in Law, Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Seminar in Criminology
Seminar in Deviance
Traditionally, Wisconsin's Deviance, Law and Social Control program has encouraged interdisciplinary training. All of the DLSC faculty pursue substantial interests in other areas of sociology as well -- including organizations, occupations and professions, race and ethnicity, urban sociology, social psychology, methods and statistics, and social work. Faculty members also maintain extensive ties outside the Sociology Department, including linkages with the Department of Psychology, the Department of Political Science, the Law School, the School of Social Work, the Institute for Legal Studies, the Institute for Research on Poverty, the Mental Health Research Center, the Center on Wisconsin Strategy, the Waisman Center on Mental Retardation and Human Development, and the Havens Center. Four members of the Sociology Department faculty have legal training, and three hold joint appointments in the Law School.

Syllabus - Deviance and Social Control - Spring 2007
Dr. Monsma - home.nwciowa.edu/monsma/deviant/syl.asp
Course Description
This class focuses on a sociological understanding of deviance. We will explore how both culture and structure may shape the
prevalence, definition, and reaction to deviance. Various theoretical perspectives will be examined and discussed to see how
deviance may be both understood and even perhaps, predicted. Finally, a number of more “concrete” areas will be examined,
to both see how the theory holds up in real life, and to deepen the understanding of deviance and attempts at social control of
deviance.
Course objectives
This course poses a number of questions about human societies and the boundaries of acceptability. A student who successfully
completes this course

Will demonstrate competency in understanding the sociological study of deviance through study of the course questions and
formulation of answers to the questions.
Will demonstrate competency in core concepts of the field of sociology as they relate to the study of deviance and social control.
Will demonstrate competency in critical thinking.

The specific questions this course poses are:
1. Who or what defines how individuals, groups, or social institutions are deviant or are engaging in deviant activities?
2. How do the various theoretical perspectives help us understand the influences leading to deviance and also help us to
understand attempts at social control?
3. What is the role of power in both the creation of deviance and attempts at the social control of deviance?
4. How does an understanding of deviance and social control shape the understanding of our faith at the same time that faith
shapes our understanding of deviance and social control?
Assigned Texts
Weitzer, Ronald Deviance and Social Control: A Reader
Schedule of Topics:
Topic 1: Course Introduction & Thinking sociologically (the Cliff NotesŠ version)
Topic 2: Defining Deviance
Readings:
Images of Deviance and Social Control
The Saints and the Roughnecks (on reserve)
Topic 3: Constructing and Controlling Deviance
Readings:
Moral Entrepreneurs
Ironies of Social Control
Topic 4: Functionalist Theory
Readings:
The Sociology of Deviance
Television News Magazines and Functionalism
Topic 5: Social Disorganization Theory
Readings:
Deviant Places
Broken Windows
Topic 6: Anomie Theory
Readings:
Social Structure and Anomie
Anomie and Corporate Deviance
Topic 7: Learning Theory
Readings:
Becoming a Marihuana User
The Training of House Prostitutes
Topic 8: Labeling Theory
Readings:
Outsiders
Societal Reaction to Deviant Behavior
Labeling the CIA deviant
Topic 9: Conflict Theory
Readings:
Capitalism, Class, and Crime in America
The Police and the Black Male
Fraternities and Rape on Campus
Topic 10: Deviance in the Media
Readings:
Media Constructions of Crime
Deviants on Talk Shows
Topic 11: The Control of Deviance
Readings:
Politics of Marihuana Decriminalization
Prostitution Control in America
On Being Sane in Insane Places
Topic 12: Becoming Deviant: Identity and Behavior Change
Readings:
Drifting into Drug Dealing
Coming out as a Transgendered Person
Topic 13: Managing Deviance
Readings:
Living with the Stigma of Aids
Situational Ethics and Cheating Among College Students
Denying the Guilty Mind
Topic 14: Fighting Back: Organized Résistance by Deviants
Readings:
The Prostitutes’ rights Campaign
Political Activism Among Disabled and Mental Patients
Gay and Lesbian Movements

Sociology of Social Control - Fall 2006 - South Carolina
SOCY 507 - Syllabus University of South Carolina
Instructor: Mathieu Deflem, Ph.D.
deflem@sc.edu
In its function, the power to punish is not essentially different from that of curing or educating. - Michel Foucault.

COURSE DESCRIPTION
This advanced undergraduate course engages students in the sociological study of the societal construction and response to deviance and crime. The perspective of this course is not centered on deviance and crime, but on the manner in which a society attempts to control deviant and/or criminal behavior. This course, also, deals not only, and not even primarily, with the official treatment of crime through a system based on criminal law, but also with other, more and less informal ways in which deviance and crime are controlled in a society, whether through the behavior of singular actors or large institutions.
The themes of this course involve a broad selection of topics in the sociology of social control. Though in no way attempting to be a complete overview of sociological issues of social control, the course will enable analysis of a variety of themes. First, the course will begin with an overview of theories in the sociology of social control, which will also serve to trace some of the history of the concept of social control in American sociology. Second, we discuss aspects in the historical transformation of social control and punishment from the 18th century onwards. Third, a number of special topics are discussed: 1) social control across borders (international police cooperation); 2) social control beyond the state (censorship and joking); 3) social control on the internet; and 4) control technologies and privacy. Fourth, we conclude by discussing the contemporary culture of control in the United States.
The objectives of this course are to understand some of the specific characteristics of the manner in which sociologists study social control as well as some of the patterns and dynamics of social control in a variety of societal settings.
This course is primarily designed for sociology majors at the junior and senior levels, but other students with sufficient background knowledge in relevant issues are welcome to sign up. A necessary prerequisite for this course is a SOCY 300-level course, or SOCY 540, or consent of the instructor.
Graduate students taking this course have to consult the instructor.
.
OVERVIEW
Introduction
I. Sociological Theories of Social Control
II. On the History of Social Control & Punishment
- The History of Punishment
- Discipline and the Rise of the Prison
III. International Policing and Counter-Terrorism
- Social Control Across Borders
- Policing International Terrorism
IV. Technology and Social Control
- The Internet, Technology and Privacy
- Censorship as Social Control
V. The Culture of Control: Contemporary Conditions

READINGS
The required readings for this course consist of several books and a series of articles. The URL links provide added info about the authors and the books:
BOOKS
1) Foucault, Michel. (1975) 1977. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Vintage Books. ISBN 0-679-75255-2
2) Staples, Williams, G. 2000. Everyday Surveillance: Vigilance and Visibility in Postmodern Life. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. ISBN 0-7425-0078-0
3) Garland, David. 2002. The Culture of Control: Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-28384-4

ARTICLES
The required articles are all online. Some of the readings can only be accessed from University servers or by proxy (USC) in Netscape, or by adding the following prefix to every linked article in a database to which a subscription is required: pallas2.tcl.sc.edu/login?url= e.g. http://www.jstor.org/ becomes http://pallas2.tcl.sc.edu/login?url=www.jstor.org/
Social Control, by Edward Alsworth Ross. American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 1, No. 5. (Mar., 1896), pp. 513-535.
Social Control. IV. Suggestion, by Edward Alsworth Ross. American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 2, No. 2. (Sep., 1896), pp. 255-263.
Social Control. XIV. Education, by E.A. Ross. American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 5, No. 4. (Jan., 1900), pp. 475-487.
Perspectives on the Concept of Social Control, by Robert F. Meier. Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 8. (1982), pp. 35-55.
Bureaucratization and Social Control: Historical Foundations of International Police Cooperation, by Mathieu Deflem. Law & Society Review 34(3):601-640, 2000.
Technology and the Internationalization of Policing: A Comparative-Historical Perspective, by Mathieu Deflem. Justice Quarterly 19(3):453-475, 2002.
Social Control and the Policing of Terrorism: Foundations for a Sociology of Counter-Terrorism, by Mathieu Deflem. The American Sociologist 35(2):75-92, 2004.
Interpol and the Policing of International Terrorism: Developments and Dynamics since September 11, by Mathieu Deflem, with Lindsay C. Maybin. In Terrorism: Research, Readings, & Realities. Prentice-Hall, 2005.
Technology and Social Control: The Search for the Illusive Silver Bullet, by Gary T. Marx. In the International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2001.
Privacy and Technology, by Gary T. Marx. This is a revision of material that appeared in The World and I, September 1990 and Telektronik January 1996.
Rap, Rock, and Censorship, by Mathieu Deflem. Presented at the Law & Society Association meeting, 1993. Revised, 2001.

GRADUATE STUDENTS SUPPLEMENTARY REQUIRED READINGS
Graduate students (M.A., Ph.D.) who take this course have to read all of the three books for this course, the online articles mentioned in the schedule, as well as the following supplementary articles, all of which are available online. Graduate students also have to complete all the exams and they have to write a research paper. This is for graduate students only!

Theory
Reactions to Deviance: A Critical Assessment, by Edwin M. Schur. American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 75, No. 3. (Nov., 1969), pp. 309-322.
Social Control and the Theory of Communicative Action, by Mathieu Deflem. International Journal of the Sociology of Law 22(4):355-373, 1994.
Paul Hirst. Statism, Pluralism and Social Control. The British Journal of Criminology, 1/1/00 (Vol. 40, No. 2) , pp. 279-295; OR: Jock Young. Cannibalism and bulimia: Patterns of social control in late modernity. Theoretical Criminology, 11/1/99 (Vol. 3, No. 4) , pp. 387-407.

History
Surveillance and Criminal Statistics: Historical Foundations of Governmentality, by Mathieu Deflem. Pp. 149-184 in Studies in Law, Politics and Society, Vol. 17, edited by A. Sarat and S. Silbey. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 1997.

Social Control Across Borders
The Boundaries of International Cooperation: Problems and Prospects of U.S.-Mexican Policing, by Mathieu Deflem. Chapter in Corruption, Police, Security & Democracy, edited by Menachem Amir & Stanley Einstein. Chicago: Office on International Criminal Justice, in press.

Censorship
Moral boundaries and deviant music: Public attitudes toward heavy metal and rap, by Lynxwiler and Gay. Deviant Behavior, 1/1/00 (Vol. 21, No. 1) , pp. 63-85.

Technology
Rhonda D. Evans, Examining the informal sanctioning of deviance in a chat room culture. Deviant Behavior, 5/1/01 (Vol. 22, No. 3) , pp. 195-210; OR: Keith F. Durkin, and Clifton D. Bryant, Propagandizing pederasty: A thematic analysis of the on-line exculpatory accounts of unrepentant pedophiles. Deviant Behavior, 3/1/99 (Vol. 20, No. 2) , pp. 103-127.

Privacy
Measuring Everything That Moves: The New Surveillance at Work, by G.T. Marx. In I. and R. Simpson, eds., The Workplace and Deviance. JAI series on Research in the Sociology of Work, 1999.

Culture of Crime Control
Dario Melossi, The cultural embeddedness of social control: Reflections on the comparison of Italian and North-American cultures concerning punishment. Theoretical Criminology, 11/1/2001 (Vol. 5, No. 4) , pp. 403-424.
The Democratic Deficit Revisited: Considering the Politics of Criminal Justice, by Mathieu Deflem. Pp. 111-117 in Politique, police et justice au bord du futur: Mélanges pour et avec Lode Van Outrive, edited by Y. Cartuyvels et al. Paris: L’Harmattan, 1998.