CCJ4938 Deviance Exam 2 Constructing Deviance Moral Entrepreneurs Howard Becker deviant behavior is o Groups of people who have powers and resources that define what o They manufacture and determine which behaviors are considered deviant and usually do so out of having an agenda An example of this agenda can be seen in Reinarman s Social Construction of Drug Scares where he argues that these drug scares were really forms of control on threatening groups To be more specific alcohol wasn t a scare until Catholic immigrants began filling up cities in America during industrialization opiates when Chinese Mongolian vice immigrants began smoking it cocaine when working class African Americans began taking part and marijuana with Mexican Americans Overall Reinarman s argument was that it wasn t a drug scare but a scare against minority groups and moral entrepreneurs used this to assert control over the population Moral entrepreneurs brought upon moral crusades Moral Panic Interest groups focus on an issue and used folk devils to create attention to this issue Interest groups target those viewed as threatening An example can be seen through the satanic link to playing the video game Dungeons and Dragons which was a role playing game in the 80s A father who had killed his family also played this game which created a moral panic that the game influenced violence A contemporary example can be seen through the game knock out the participants in this game would be considered the folk devils Bringing media attention to an issue and social strain by establishing a folk devil to this issue creates moral panic An example can be seen through the Adler s research preschoolers were being sexually abused which caused parents to look at the history and employers of the daycare due to the moral panic of preschool abuse Moral Crusade Just say No Nancy Reagan s program against DRUGS Don t be a fool stay in school Public service announcement for high school dropout prevention Friends don t let friend drive drunk Mother against drunk driving MADD this caused punitiveness in DUIs Vote or Die PDiddy s campaign to get youth to vote Only you can prevent wildfires Smokey the bear forest fires 1944 2001 CCJ4938 Deviance Exam 2 Aspects of Deviance Making Rule creators o Make the rules and define deviant behaviors o Can be done alone or in groups o Those who form legislation and laws Rule enforcers led to control of certain minority groups Moral conversion o Apply rules to specific people in a society e g rules of the drug scare s that o Once rule creators state rules and what is deviant than community members have to also agree these behaviors are deviant An example can be seen in Adler s issues around smoking Smoking is socially constructed from moral entrepreneurs and moral panic caused rule creators to enforce laws In summary rule creators create the rules e g through legislation laws rule enforcers enforce the rules created by the rule creators e g police officers and moral conversion makes up the community members who agree on the rule creator s perception of deviant behaviors The Social Construction of Drug Scares Anti Opium Den Ordinance Although prescription drugs had been widely used among Americans the fir real drug law in the U S was created in San Francisco 1875 regarding the opium smoking Chinese immigrants Mongolian vice in dens The underlying concern was less on the opium smoking and more on the fear of white s coming into contact with Chinese immigrants in these dens People also felt threatened by the Chinese immigrant labor which led to the push for it being illegal to smoke Seven Ingredients of a drug scare example A Kernel of Truth o Assumption that drugs are used in all societies e g humans have ingested fermented beverages since human civilization moved from hunting and gathering to primitive agriculture thousands of years ago Media Magnification o Once a drug has been identified media expands this issue e g Reefer Madness on marijuana scare for youth Political Moral Entrepreneurs CCJ4938 Deviance Exam 2 o In order for a drug scare to become an issue there has to be a political component e g politicians Professional Interest Groups o Interest groups give legitimacy for the issue e g American Medical Association American Pharmaceutical Association churches Historical Context of Culture o Economic cultural class political racial conflicts lead to this idea for why moral entrepreneurs make a claim about a certain drug claim e g Temperance movement Linking a form of drug use to a dangerous class o Certain target groups populations are viewed as dangerous e g Catholic immigrants with alcohol Chinese immigrants with opiate smoking working class males with cocaine Marijuana with youth and crack with minority poor Scapegoating a drug for a wide array of problems o Political blames problems on drugs and use them as explanations for why social problems exist e g without marijuana and LSD there would be no conflict with the youth and their parents nor opposition to the Vietnam War Social Construction of Crack Use during the 1980 s The crack scare did not even begin when smoking crack was on the rise and prevalent in cities but rather when it had actually been dropping The crack scare began in 1986 when freebase cocaine was named crack and sold precooked to minority poor in ghettos The solution to this crack scare was more prison cells versus treatment In addition to this was the scare of crack babies Why is American culture more vulnerable to drug scares Three part to why American culture is more vulnerable to drug scares o They provide a vocabulary of attribution meaning American citizens gain the cognitive satisfaction of having a folk devil on which to blame a range of bizarre behaviors o American society was developed from a temperance culture U S society has been characterized as the land of the self made man which demands self control Since these drugs cause those to experience a loss of control it was feared o On the foundation of a temperance culture advanced capitalism has built a postmodern mass consumption culture that intensifies the problem of self control in new ways Basically our culture provides more ways to indulge and therefore lose self control CCJ4938 Deviance Exam 2 In summary drug scares continue to occur in American society because people must constantly manage the contradiction between a Temperance culture that insists on self control and a mass consumption culture which
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