Basically, behaviors that are violating the social norms is called deviance. This can either be criminal or non-criminal related activities, (Cohn, Maréchal, & Noll, 2015). Nowadays behaviors like stealing, failing to bathe, alcoholism, drug abuse among others are considered as deviant behaviors.
Understanding deviant behavior is a complex issue now that majority of people considers some behaviors as relative and that it cannot necessarily be classified as a deviant behavior. For instance, in some part of the world, it is normal for women to be circumcised. However, in some part of the world, circumcision of women is a deviant behavior.
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Recently, the news went viral of a politician who was also known to be a servant of the Lord and has been accused by the society to be consulting evil powers to maintain his political seat. Based on this, the two theories of deviant behavior discussed are the control theory and conflict labeling theory. In control theory, Walter stated that deviant tendencies vary depending on the inner and outer controls, (Thompson, 2017). As much as the politician may be free to do anything they so wish, this is restrained by certain values and morals. These morals, the desire to be good and values formed part of the inner controls. On the other hand, the outer controls included but not limited to the presence of police, friends and religious authorities.
Individuals with both the inner and the outer controls will in one way or the other be prevented from violating the social norms. Therefore, social control is developed in childhood stages to avoid deviant behaviors in adulthood.
Moreover, criminal acts are associated with various groups of people especially politicians and business people. To the extent, the society has labeled this group of people to be involved in most crimes. However, in conflict theory, causes of deviance is least explained. This theory basically studies the association that exists between socialization, social control, and deviance behaviors.
References
Cohn, A., Maréchal, M. A., & Noll, T. (2015). Bad boys: How criminal identity salience affects rule violation. The Review of Economic Studies , 82 (4), 1289-1308.
Thompson, J. D. (2017). Organizations in action: Social science bases of administrative theory . Routledge.
