Continuum of Deviant Organizations

¶ … participation in deviant social structures. What makes people commit to a deviant identity? What makes people adhere to the social structures of deviant groups? Why are members of deviant groups so deeply loyal to each other and to the organization? The paper endeavors to offer insight into these questions and more as part of a quest to understand deviant behaviors, deviant organizations, and the construction of identity.

Exploring the Continuum of Deviant Organizations

For this essay, use Best & Luckenbill's continuum of deviant organizations as outlined in the textbook to explain how a person or group could become increasingly invested in his/her deviance. For example, consider how a youth from a gang-impacted area could move his/her way through from less organized to more organized deviant social organizations and imagine how this would ultimately impact his/her identity formation.

The higher the degree of deviant behavior demonstrated to serve and/or participate in the group, the more desired attention and the more loyalty to the group. Behaviors, deviant or otherwise, bond groups together. A team of soccer players bonds through their shared experiences of tryouts, practices, games, victories, losses, and traveling. Those behaviors are not considered deviant and those behaviors bond the team together through shared experience. The military is one of the most well-known examples of bonding through shared behaviors and experiences, deviant or otherwise. Thus, it stands that young men interested in joining a faction of their local organized crime family bonds through the deviant behaviors committed, as well as the shared experience of the consequences, whether the deviance is perceived as a success or a failure. As newcomers to deviant or normative groups commit additional behaviors so as to join the group or to participate in a group newly joined in, the bonds deepen among all members of the gang or family. After a duration of time generally decided by older and leading members of the group, the newcomers are initiated and formally associated with the group, including all of the prescribed and defining activities and behaviors of that group. This is how an individual's identity formation directly links to participation and association with the group.

Those who are members of gangs and other organized crime groups are readily recognizable to each other as well as to outsiders like civilians and law enforcement. Perhaps only the highest ranking members of the organized crime group do not linger in public as much as other members in the group hierarchy. Consider the difficulty professional athletes or distinguished members of the military have in retiring or ceasing activity. These people often have identity crises as they have been members of specific groups for so long that a great deal of their identities are tied up in the shared behaviors and activities of the group, so much so, that they do not know who they are without the group. The same principle certainly holds true for organized deviant social organizations such as gangs, gangsters, drug dealers, hackers, and more.

Question 2 - Describe how these various levels of social structure could impact one's commitment to a deviant identity.

The impact of commitment to a deviant identity because of various levels of a social structure depends on how motivated the individual in question is. A person who is moderately to seriously committed will absolutely commit whatever deviant behaviors are necessary to advance within the ranks of the deviant social organization hierarchy. People who lack motivation may simply be content to maintain basic affiliation and ties to the group. That may be enough to satisfy some people's needs to belong and/or to express deviant desires. There are those who commit deviant behaviors not out of an interest to belong to a particular group, but because that person enjoys participating in deviant behaviors. Other people who may be a part of a group recognized similar or increased levels of deviance in others. In that case, the group may approach the individual rather than the individual approaching the group. One could call it deviant recruiting.

In seriously dedicating oneself to a commitment to a deviant identity, one may want to change one's position within the social structure of the deviant group. There would be a few individuals within various groups who would want to alter the social structure of the group altogether. If those kinds of individuals succeed, they often become leaders in the group and in some cases, of the whole group. Some individuals fail and fall lower into the social structure. Those who succeed will augment their commitment to a deviant identity because the commitment to the deviant identity is what projected them into a greater position of power. Those who fail may still remain committed to the group and to the same deviant identity. Those who fail may also develop another deviant identity -- an identity that seeks vengeance on those that person failed to convince and/or conquer. Whether people successfully alter the social structure to a deviant group to which they belong is irrelevant -- the point is the impact and commitment to a deviant activity in either case will result with a greater commitment to one or more deviant activities. People who do not wish to challenge the structure of a deviant group will still increase their commitment to a deviant identity. It is clear that in order to rise in the social structure and gain social capital, one must commit increasingly daring and successful feats of deviance in the presence of a fraction or the entire group. Whatever the scenario, the social structure of a deviant organization affects a person's commitment to a deviant identity.

Question 3 - Choose a deviant behavior, either from real life or from media, and follow Best & Luckenbill's continuum through with your example.