Deviant Behavior

This book is well written and assembled. For class we would discuss topics only to be fed more food for thought when we saw more material inside the book. This one I wont be selling back, but keeping!

This book gives a very intriguing and exciting look into the world of deviance, for instance what makes a murder a murder or a raper a raper. Good examples, backgrounds, and references. This book will make the endeaver to lecture this course so fun.

This is a well-organized text with plenty of focus on Sociology Theory and clear connections between theorists and history. However, it does not contain any color and has very few visual aides, so for a visual learner like myself, this text is a challenge.

Students that are enrolled in a Deviant Behavior class for Sociology, this is the book you need. If your professor actually uses and teaches directly from the book you better order this now.

I had this book assigned to me to fulfill the requirements of a college level course about 20 years ago. I thought it would be about people we would tend to instantly label "socially deviant". I was wrong--the book changed my way of thinking about the way we label others, how "deviant" the acts of people in socially responsible positions can be, and the effect our tolerance of this behavior can have upon our world as a whole.This is high praise, and well deserved. The only downside (as some may see it) is that, after digesting the book, one is forced to look at the circumstances in one's own life where a choice may be made to act against what, at some level, is known to be "best behavior". Yes, we can each be quite capable of deviant behaviors. When we stop limiting our perceptions regarding just what "deviant behavior" is, the better we understand that attending to our own ethical standards with diligence and awareness can address some of the "deviance problems" our society suffers most from--those that emerge not from any "underclass", but from the ranks of the so-called middle and upperclasses. They can be the breeding ground for some of the most pervasive and insidious problems afflicting society as a whole, and the hardest to control. The suffering brought on by "white collar" or corporate criminality/negligence is as great as acts deemed to be more obviously abnormal, and every bit as real. But many know nothing of this, because, as Thio states, who is watching the watchdogs? And those who know, often for many reasons fail to act. Thio roots out a true human dilemma, and challenges us to examine it.This book was so memorable that I have quoted its premise frequently in business and other contexts, and here I am --searching to see if it is still available. I am glad it is.