Outlaws and Deviants

Ok, so I finally got around to posting my first blog on this site. Between work, school, and raising three little daughters, my time is booked solid. By way of introduction, I work full-time for the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections as Chief of Projections and Population Statistics in the Bureau of Planning, Research, Statistics, and Grants. At the same time, I'm working on my Ph.D. in Criminology & Criminal Justice at the University of Maryland (#1 Crim program in the country I might add). But more importantly, my wife and I are raising our three daughters who are all currently under the age of three (yeah, I know, we have our hands full).

But enough about me. I want to move on to my blog. I set up this blog in hopes of stimulating discussion with other brilliant minds out there on issues related to what we study in the discipline of criminology. I couldn't find a similar blog out there (let me know if you know of one), and I thought it would be both fun and intellectually stimulating to set this up. So join me.

For this first blog on this site, I'm actually gonna cheat a little bit and re-post a blog that I posted last night on another site. Yesterday there was a piece on the New York Time's Freakonomics blog entitled "Who Are The Outlaws? A Freakonomics Quorum" (http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/16/who-are-the-outlaws-a-freakonomics-quorum/). In this post, a few individuals who "know a bit about outlaws" were asked to answer the following three questions: (1) Does America still have an outlaw group, (2) If so, why do you consider them outlaws, and (3) Does society need outlaws? One of the "experts" who responded was Chris Uggen, a professor from the University of Minnesota who should be familiar to criminologists. Here's what I wrote in response to his piece:

"I’m writing in response to Chris Uggen’s section in this piece on “outlaws”. As a Ph.D. student in Criminology at the University of Maryland, I’m obviously familiar with Uggen’s work and was both excited to see him writing here on this blog and interested to see what he had to say. His answer clearly demonstrates an affinity to the “status characteristic” hypothesis of labeling theory (e.g., the writings of Tannenbaum, Erickson, Becker, etc.). The part of his response that piqued my curiosity was his statement that “our standards for outlaws are relative, not absolute; they change over time and social space”. I agree that this is the case. However I’m more interested in the “should”. In other words, should this be the case? Is there a definitive standard outside of our time and space from which to we should define deviancy, where does this standard come from, and should we as a society move from our current relativistic definitions of deviancy to such an absolute standard if it exists? The problem with our relativistic definitions of deviancy (or outlaws), as I believe Uggen hints around, is that some are considered deviants (or outlaws) in their own time but are viewed down the corridors of history as heroes and saints. Some of my own personal heroes were considered outlaws during their own time. I do believe that there is an absolute standard of deviancy that separates from our human, relativistic definitions of deviancy and would be interested in engaging in discussion with anyone interested in the topic. I also believe, as Durkheim did, that deviancy is normal to a society. I believe that human nature is towards deviancy as opposed to conformity. In true “social control” fashion, I believe the question to be answered by theorists/researchers is why we’re not all deviants (or delinquents/criminals, as is the question most often addressed by social control theorists in the field of criminology).
The second concept that I believe is a natural extension of a discussion of “outlaws” (or deviancy) is the concept of redemption. Uggen makes a brief mention of redemption in his last paragraph. This is a concept that is making a come-up in our field, especially in the area of what is referred to as restorative justice and prisoner reentry. I believe we as a society need to better understand and embrace the concept of redemption. As Thomas Hill put it, how can we as a society promote moving one from “hell-raiser to family man”? Some of my mentors in the field discuss this in terms of “desistance” from delinquency/criminal behavior. I wonder, can one go through a process of desistance from deviancy and what does that look like? This is a topic that I’m fairly certain Uggen would be interested in based on his publications. Again, I’d enjoy engaging in a discussion on the topic."

So who wants to discuss this with me? Any outlaws out there? What do you think of the concept of an absolute standard of deviancy? What about the concept of redemption?