Week 6 — Readings & Resources · Deviance, Crime & Social Control

Course: Introduction to Sociology (SOC 1) · Silver Oak University (fictional sample) · Prof. Adeyemi
Objective covered: Objective 4 — Analyze social structure, groups, deviance, and social control, applying the three perspectives to interpret patterns of rule-breaking.

How to use this page

Everything here is a link to an external resource — open it in your browser, the same way you'd open a YouTube link. Nothing needs to be downloaded, and there is nothing to buy.

This week's load is a short video + 2–3 brief readings + one data source, grouped by the ideas from the lecture. Read or watch one item per group and you're ready for the quiz; do all of them and you'll be very comfortable. Total time is roughly 45–60 minutes if you do everything, far less if you pick one per group.

Reading order that matches the lecture: ① what deviance and social control are → ② the three perspectives on deviance → ③ reading crime data (the Workshop's raw material).

A habit to start now: before you trust any claim about crime — in these readings, in the news, or from a chatbot — ask the sociologist's questions from class: Is this a rate or a count? Reported crime or a victimization survey? Correlation or causation? Which perspective is this? And remember the tone of the week: we study crime analytically and non-sensationally.

① What Deviance & Social Control Are

Maps to Lecture Segments 2–3. Deviance is the violation of a social norm (relative to time/place/culture); social control is the sanctions — informal/formal, positive/negative — that encourage conformity. Deviance is broader than crime.

Video — "Deviance: Crash Course Sociology #18"
🔗 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGq9zW9w3Fw
Why it earns the click: a lively ~10-minute tour of what social deviance is, how it's relative, how it differs from crime, and how social control works — exactly Segments 2–3. Hosted by Nicole Sweeney.
⏱ ~10 min

Reading — "Deviance and Control" (OpenStax, Introduction to Sociology 3e, §7.1)
🔗 https://openstax.org/books/introduction-sociology-3e/pages/7-1-deviance-and-control
Why it's assigned: the cleanest plain-language version of the definitions we drew on the board — deviance as a norm violation, the relativity of deviance, crime vs. deviance, and social control through formal and informal sanctions. Free to read online in your browser.
⏱ ~12 min

② The Three Perspectives on Deviance

Maps to Lecture Segments 5–6. Functionalist (Durkheim's functions; Merton's strain), conflict (who has the power to define deviance), interactionist (labeling — Becker; differential association — Sutherland; control theory — Hirschi). Keep the theorists straight!

Reading — "Theoretical Perspectives on Deviance and Crime" (OpenStax, Introduction to Sociology 3e, §7.2)
🔗 https://openstax.org/books/introduction-sociology-3e/pages/7-2-theoretical-perspectives-on-deviance-and-crime
Why it's assigned: walks through the functionalist (Durkheim; Merton's strain theory and its modes), conflict, and symbolic-interactionist (labeling theory; differential association) accounts of deviance one at a time, with the same theorists and terms from the lecture — and makes the "each lens reveals something different" point.
⏱ ~15 min

Video — "Theory & Deviance: Crash Course Sociology #19"
🔗 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06IS_X7hWWI
Why it earns the click: returns to the three paradigms and shows how each explains deviance — functionalism (deviance fulfills a function), symbolic interactionism (deviance is constructed via labels), and conflict theory (deviance tied to power and inequality). A perfect audio-visual reinforcement of Segments 5–6.
⏱ ~10 min

③ Reading Crime Data (the Workshop's raw material)

Maps to Lecture Segment 7 and Workshop 6. Learn to tell a rate from a count, police-reported crime (UCR) from a victimization survey (NCVS), and a correlation from a cause. Pick one source to explore before the Workshop.

Data & article — "How have crime rates in the United States changed over the last 50 years?" (Our World in Data, 2026)
🔗 https://ourworldindata.org/us-crime-rates
Why it's assigned: the ideal read-the-data piece — it shows U.S. violent and property crime rates (per 100,000) since 1979, explains why rates (not counts) are the right comparison, notes the FBI definition change for one offense, and closes with a striking perception-vs-reality point (most Americans think crime is rising even as rates have roughly halved since the 1990s — an availability-bias trap). This is the Workshop in miniature.
⏱ ~12 min

Data source — FBI Uniform Crime Reporting: "FBI Releases 2022 Crime in the Nation Statistics"
🔗 https://www.fbi.gov/news/press-releases/fbi-releases-2022-crime-in-the-nation-statistics
Why it's here: the authoritative source for police-reported (UCR) crime change — the 2022 release reports an estimated 1.7% decline in national violent crime vs. 2021 (with murder/non-negligent manslaughter down an estimated 6.1%), drawn from data covering 93.5% of the U.S. population. Explore the interactive data on the FBI's Crime Data Explorer (linked from the page) — and note this is reported crime, one of our two yardsticks.
⏱ ~8 min

Data source — Bureau of Justice Statistics: "Criminal Victimization, 2022" (the NCVS)
🔗 https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/criminal-victimization-2022
Why it's here: the other yardstick — a victimization survey that asks people directly. The 2022 highlights include the key reporting fact for the Workshop: about 2 in 5 (42%) of violent victimizations were reported to police — which is exactly why police (UCR) counts can miss crime and why the two measures diverge. See the Key Findings infographic and the summary PDF linked on the page.
⏱ ~8 min

Optional one-stop reference (free online text)

If you'd like one optional reference to skim, OpenStax Introduction to Sociology 3e is free to read online. Chapter 7 ("Deviance, Crime, and Social Control") covers everything in this week — what deviance and control are, the three theoretical perspectives, and crime and the criminal-justice system.
🔗 https://openstax.org/books/introduction-sociology-3e/pages/7-introduction
Why it's here: a reputable, currently-available reference you can return to in later weeks — entirely optional this week.

Pick-one quick path (≈25 min total)

In a hurry? Do exactly these and you'll be ready for the quiz and the Workshop:
1. Watch Crash Course Sociology #18 — Deviance (group ①).
2. Read Theoretical Perspectives on Deviance and Crime (group ②), keeping the theorists straight.
3. Skim the Our World in Data crime-rates article (group ③) and note the rate-vs-count and perception-vs-reality points.

Heads-up (links rot): these point to outside sites that occasionally move or rename pages. If a link ever fails, tell Prof. Adeyemi and use the OpenStax reference above (and the FBI/BJS home pages) in the meantime. These links are provided for access only — no claim is made about their licensing or reuse terms.