Multimedia and Discussion Questions

Chapter 8: Constructing Difference: Social Deviance

- Video Links
  - The New Asylums
    Many of those incarcerated in the nation’s prisons have a diagnosable mental illness. This program goes inside an Ohio correctional facility that is making an effort to address the mental health needs of prisoners.
  - The Released
    This program is a follow-up to The New Asylums (see above). Filmed five years after the original program it examines how mentally ill ex-convicts fare after release.

Discussion Questions:
1. Explain what you see in these programs in terms of the three elements of deviance?

2. How do power and labeling play into the situations presented in these programs? Is deviance depoliticized in this context?

3. Explain how these situations fit into either, or both, of the models of criminalization or medicalization?

- Amy Winehouse Dead: Why Did No One Help Her?
  News segment from the day following the death of soul singer Amy Winehouse. The clip contains footage from the makeshift memorial that fans created outside of her house as well as a recap of her brief career.

Discussion questions:
1. Consider the statement made in the clip about the relationship of art to substance abuse: “The flipside of genius is addiction.” Do such statements encourage us to expect highly creative people to abuse drugs and alcohol? How might this be an example of a “self-fulfilling prophecy”?

2. Winehouse was said to have had a “disease.” What is the term sociologists use to describe this way of thinking?

- Celebrity Rehab 5: Intake (Full episode)
  Episode from the VH1 reality show Celebrity Rehab. B-list celebrities who are addicted to drugs and/or alcohol “check-in” to a rehabilitation facility. This episode introduces the celebrities and shows the admissions process.

Discussion Questions:
1. Reality television claims to offer viewers an “inside” look at the lives of individuals. On this particular program the information that individuals are sharing with viewers is highly personal and, perhaps, of an embarrassing nature. (Recall Lohan’s statement: “I do not want my family to see this.”) During taping, are the individuals on “front stage” or “back stage”? Use concepts from Goffman’s dramaturgy to consider how “real” the episodes are.

2. During the intake interviews. Dr. Drew asks the patients about their drug/alcohol use and, based on their responses, suggests “reasons” for their addictions. Are these “individualistic” or “social”? Give specific examples.

3. Use the sociological imagination to formulate alternative explanations for why those who are in entertainment industries or frequently in the spotlight might become dependent on alcohol and/or drugs.

- Sex Offender Village
  The stigma attached to the label “sex-offender” is strong and this makes it difficult for those who have been convicted of sexual crimes to reenter society following incarceration. In fact many communities have rules in place that prevent sex-offenders from living in certain areas—within so many miles of a school, for example. Miracle Village was established to address the problem of sex-offender reentry. This video offers a tour of the village that houses up to 100 offenders.

Discussion Questions:
1. What is the importance of the label “sex offender”? Is it always helpful?

2. How does this relate to stigma?

3. Why was this place was started?

4.Who is not accepted into this community?

5. What was your reaction to learning that there is a place like Miracle Village?

- Audio Links
  - This American Life 207: Special Ed
    This program is composed of stories about people who were told that they're different. Some of them were comfortable with it. Some didn't understand it. And some understood, but didn't like it. Act one is a series of interviews with three of the people involved in making the documentary How’s Your News?, about a team of developmentally disabled people who travel across the country doing man-on-the-street interviews. The interviewer talks to two of the developmentally disabled reporters, Susan Harrington and Joe Simon, and to the film's non-disabled director, Arthur Bradford. Act two we hear from a mother and her son. By age seven, he'd had heart failure and been diagnosed as bipolar. And then—after a period as the world's youngest Stephen Hawking fan—he got better. In the third act a woman tells the story of her developmentally disabled brother Vincent, who one day quit his job and then quit everything else, mystifying everyone in his life.

Discussion Questions:
1. Can you find the three elements of deviance in any of these stories?

2. Explain the function of labels in these stories.

3. Are there examples of the medicalization of deviance in these stories? What are they?

- 356: The Prosecutor
  A lawyer in the Justice Department gets the professional opportunity of a lifetime: to be the lead prosecutor in one of the first high-profile terrorist cases since 9/11. But things go badly for him. His convictions get overturned, he loses his job, and he ends up on trial himself, in federal court.

Discussion Questions:
1. How does an absolutist definition compare to a relativist definition of terrorism and how does that fit into this episode?

2. How do labels affect Rick Convertino’s perceptions of the terrorists and how does that play out in the story?

3. Explain the social reality of crime in this episode.

- Digital Music Sampling: Creativity Or Criminality?
  This program explores the practice of “sampling”—using a snippet of another person’s recording, often a drumbeat or hook, as an element in the creation of a new piece of music. Sampling is integral to hip hop and rap music, but many consider it a criminal activity. This segment considers how we define the activity: is it collaboration or theft?

Discussion Questions:
1. What is “fair use”?

2. If the practice of sampling is limited or banned outright, how might this impede creativity and the production of new music? If musicians and DJs are allowed to engage in sampling without getting the permission of artists or compensating the artists, how might this hamper creativity or the production of new music?

3. Note the different terms used in the segment: sampling, collaboration, control, artist, original artist, copyright owner, etc. How do the words we use influence how we define of the activity?

4. Analyze the social and legal issues surrounding sampling from a conflict perspective. How would a structural-functionalist analysis differ from this? Which perspective do you find more useful?

- College and Partying (Think with Krys Boyd)
  Sociologist Thomas Vander Ven talks with Krys Boyd about the reasons college students drink.

Discussion Questions:
1. Vander Ven says that most research on students and drinking has been of a particular type. What is that? How is his work different?

2. What does Vander Ven say about the relationship between drinking and identity?

3. What is a “drinking family”? What does a drinking family do for individual members?

4. What were the social consequences of abstinence observed by Vander ?

5. What is “drunk support”? How is it “gendered”?

6. Are his findings consistent with what you have observed on campus? Elaborate on your answer.

- Web Resources
  Professional Resources
  The study of deviant behavior has long been central to sociology, and it is the focus of affiliates of the American Sociological Association (ASA)
  - Crime, Law, and Deviance
  - Medical Sociology
  - Sociology of Mental Health
  - Society for the Study of Social Problems
    Although their interests extend beyond crime and deviance, members of the Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP) frequently study these issues. The official journal of the SSSP is Social Problems.

> Data Resources

- The Bureau of Justice Statistics
  The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) collects, analyzes, publishes, and disseminates statistics on crime, victims of crime, criminal offenders, and operations of justice systems at all levels of government throughout the United States.
- The National Institute of Justice
  The National Institute of Justice’s Data Resources Program was established to ensure the preservation and availability of research and evaluation data collected through NIJ-funded research.
- The National Criminal Justice Reference Service
  The National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS) is a federally sponsored information clearinghouse for people around the country and the world involved with research, policy, and practice related to criminal and juvenile justice and drug control.
- The Urban Ethnography of Latino Street Gangs
  The Urban Ethnography of Latino Street Gangs site originally focused on Los Angeles and Ventura counties. It has expanded to include studies of street gangs in Albuquerque and Phoenix. The goal of this site is to find solutions, to share an ever-expanding body of data and literature on Latino street gangs, and to locate successful strategies for prevention and intervention with at-risk youths.

> Other Resources

- The Women’s Prison Association
  The Women’s Prison Association (WPA) is a service and advocacy organization committed to helping women with criminal justice histories realize new possibilities for themselves and their families. Our program services make it possible for women to obtain work, housing, and health care; to rebuild their families; and to participate fully in civic life. Through the Institute on Women & Criminal Justice, WPA pursues a rigorous policy, advocacy, and research agenda to bring new perspectives to public debates on women and criminal justice
- The Innocence Project
  The Innocence Project was founded in 1992 by Barry C. Scheck and Peter J. Neufeld at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University to assist prisoners who could be proven innocent through DNA testing. To date, 273 people in the United States have been exonerated by DNA testing, including 17 who served time on death row. These people served an average of 13 years in prison before exoneration and release. The Innocence Project’s full-time staff attorneys and Cardozo clinic students provide direct representation or critical assistance in most of these cases. The Innocence Project’s groundbreaking use of DNA technology to free innocent people has provided irrefutable proof that wrongful convictions are not isolated or rare events but instead arise from systemic defects. Now an independent nonprofit organization closely affiliated with Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University, the Innocence Project’s mission is nothing less than to free the staggering numbers of innocent people who remain incarcerated and to bring substantive reform to the system responsible for their unjust imprisonment.