How Does Society Encourages Deviance

Kai Erikson is a functionalist who believes that deviance is a consequence of modern society. He explains that the deviant and the individuals in the community see the boundaries and reinforce and act on these boundaries. For example, the U.S has laws for crime that they expect residents and nonresidents to abide. These boundaries of the law will be broken by a deviant person just to reinforce them. This is due to the environment the deviant lives in and as a result, it represents the community. In conclusion, a community that rejects the boundaries will have a larger amount of deviants from that community.

In addition, Erikson focuses on why some individual are more likely to commit criminal acts. Erikson believes that the community encourages deviance even though it is punished. He explains that detaining and humiliating the deviant and criminal are encouraging this behavior rather than deterring it. For example, when the criminal is released from being incarcerated the community decides to decline this deviant behavior and criminal feels neglected, …show more content…
Judy Johnson accused of Raymond Buckey of sexually abusing her child. Judy called a detective and told her that other students in the day care had been sexually abused. The detectives sent out letters to the children who were enrolled in the program asking them if their child have any signs of any sexual abuse from Buckey. The parents and other people began to agree to this allegations and began to label these people as evil satanist. This passage relates to functionalism because the Judy proposed the allegation against one of the daycare provider, Raymond Buckey, has left a stigma on Raymond, his family and other daycare centers. This has an effect on the day care because people from the community may not want to put their child in any day care