Deviance and Social Control Essay

Deviance is part of every culture and society, it is the border line between acceptable and intolerable behavior. Each micro society holds it’s own definition as to what deviant behavior actually is. The deviant is one to whom that label has successfully been applied, deviant behavior is behavior that people label. Through out history, there is no doubt in my mind that deviant citizens have been a contributing part to each generation. It is all relative, a label of deviance remains a label of deviance; the question that remains really is â€Å"what is deviance?†. Being labeled as an outside is not foreign for some people. Matter of fact it is acceptable and a norm to be labeled as deviant for some people. No matter what group of people you deal with through out history or life today, there are social rules written and sometimes unwritten, nonetheless meant to be broken. For example, freshman year I attended St. Rose High School and got caught texting my mom on my cellphone while switching classes. Getting to the point, I ended up losing my phone for a month and getting in a whole load of trouble (I was then silently labeled as â€Å"deviant† for the rest of my time there) for something as simple as texting. If I whipped my phone out in Manasquan High School 99% of the time teachers do not even say anything at all because they could care less. Such a backwards wrong act of defiance should be nationally recognized through out schools everywhere, but it’s not like that. Deviance is defined in so many different ways it not only differentiates from school to school, it changes in the eyes of parents too. For example, Johhny came home at 12:05am on Saturday night, and as a result got grounded for Saturday. Jessie strolled in at 12:30am on Friday night, and came home at 1:00am on Saturday with no troubles at all. What I’m trying to say is deviant behavior is not even a real thing, it is just defined by your surroundings. Am I the victim or the crime for getting all of these detentions? Am I really doing anything that terrible compared to everyone else? A lot of questions come up to me that are so simply understood by me I don’t even want to take the time to write about them or use my breath to express my opinion. In Mr. Roach’s class I wrote a paper in pen instead of typing it because my printer had malfunctioned (affirmed by a note from my dear mother) and Mr. Roach gave me a 0%, even though I did the entire paper by hand. Knowing me, Mr. Marden, of course I then acted deviantly by releasing the word F#@#$. I didn’t even say it towards Mr. Roach or loud so the class could hear it. I just said F%$#*. My act of defiance led to 2 days suspension. Since then, I have been counting every curse word I’ve heard by students and teachers in Manasquan High School sinc e then, and have seriously counted 647 curse words. Not one of those times did another student get F$%&ing suspended for two days. It’s all backwards. Fifty years ago if a girl wore a skirt that showed her knee caps people would assume she was a deviant girl. Nowadays girls wear skirts that show just about everything, and hey I’m fine with that and it seems everyone else is too. Deviant acts are just a definition by each generation. Things that were once unacceptable are now norms. Being gay 200 years ago was the same as being the devil. But now people generally accept it. All around the world deviance behavior is being redefined and rewritten but one thing always stays the same, and that is simply the fact that people will remain being deviant, no matter what the definition actually is. The idea of deviance would not even exist if it wasn’t for those types of people. (probably me too, but I’m just a deviant idiot that has no idea what I’m doing†¦)