Tattoos were once a mark of sailors and outlaws in many Western countries; now they are common among teachers and accountants. Smoking indoors was once ordinary; now it can bring a fine. Deviance is the sociological term for behavior that violates social norms, and these examples show its most important feature. Whether an act counts as deviant depends on time, place and audience. Deviance is not the same as crime, which is the violation of formal law. Many deviant acts are legal, such as wearing a swimsuit to a wedding, and some crimes, such as minor speeding, are barely considered deviant at all.

Durkheim: deviance is normal

Durkheim made a surprising claim: deviance is a normal part of every society and even serves functions. Even a community of saints, he argued, would find something to condemn, because offenses would simply be redefined at a finer scale. When people react to an offense, reacting to deviance reminds people of their shared rules and moral boundaries. Public outrage over a scandal tells everyone where the line is. Deviance can also unite a community against a common threat and, at times, push a society to change. Yesterday's rule breakers, from people who taught enslaved people to read to early labor organizers, sometimes become heroes later.

Merton: strain between goals and means

In 1938 Robert Merton asked why deviance is more common in some parts of society than others. His answer, strain theory, pointed to a gap. Societies like the United States teach everyone to pursue the same cultural goal, financial success, but do not give everyone equal access to legitimate means such as good schools and steady jobs. People respond to this strain in five ways. Conformity accepts both the goals and the means. Innovation means accepting society's goals but using illegitimate means to reach them, as in fraud or drug dealing. Ritualism abandons the goal but clings rigidly to the rules, like a bureaucrat who has stopped hoping for promotion. Retreatism rejects both. Rebellion rejects both and seeks to replace them with new goals and means.

Learning and bonds

The American criminologist Edwin Sutherland argued that crime is learned like any other behavior. His theory of differential association, set out in 1939, holds that crime is learned from close others along with the motives and techniques for it. A person who spends more time among people who treat lawbreaking as acceptable is more likely to break the law. Sutherland also coined the term white-collar crime: crime committed by respectable, high-status people in the course of their work, such as fraud or price fixing. He wanted to show that crime is not confined to the poor.

Travis Hirschi turned the question around in 1969. Instead of asking why people break rules, his social bond theory asks why most people do not. Hirschi's control theory explains why most people conform: their bonds to others and to society. These bonds include attachment to family and friends, commitment to goals such as a career, involvement in conventional activities and belief in the rules. When bonds weaken, people have less to lose.

Labeling

Labeling theory focuses on how societies respond to rule breaking. The sociologist Edwin Lemert distinguished primary deviance, minor acts that most people commit at some point without changing their sense of self, from secondary deviance: deviance that follows from accepting a label others have imposed. A teenager caught shoplifting once may be no different from many peers. If he is publicly branded a thief, excluded from activities and treated with suspicion, he may come to see himself as one and act accordingly. Howard Becker argued that deviance is not a quality of an act but the result of others successfully applying a label. Goffman described the stigma that follows such labels, a mark that spoils a person's identity in others' eyes.

Social control

Every society uses social control to encourage conformity. Informal social control works through everyday reactions: a raised eyebrow, gossip, praise, exclusion. Formal social control is carried out by official agents such as police, courts and schools. Informal control does most of the work in daily life.

Worked example: graffiti on the school wall

Fifteen-year-old Alex is caught spraying graffiti on a school wall. Each theory sees something different. Strain theory notes that Alex lives in a neighborhood with few jobs or after-school programs. Differential association notes that Alex's older friends taught the techniques and treat tagging as a badge of skill. Control theory asks about Alex's bonds: a parent working nights, no team or club, little hope of college. Labeling theory warns about the response. If the school suspends Alex and the local news calls him a vandal, secondary deviance becomes more likely. If instead Alex helps paint a sanctioned mural and is mentored by an artist, the label may never stick. The theories are not rivals so much as tools, and together they suggest responses that hold Alex accountable without writing off a young person's future.