Deviant Behavior

INTRODUCTION

Deviant behavior can be defined as a type of behavior that is socially disapproved and violates significant norms and expectations of a certain society. The study of deviance is the foundation for criminology in sociology which called be said to be the study of crime and effects on the society. The movies called Shawshank redemption, serves as reference of this assignment. Shawshank redemptions has many sociological themes, others being subliminal and others being perceptible.

The movie covers various topics from culture, socialization, social structure, groups, and deviance, it also covers two major theories in sociology namely; the functionalist theory and social conflict theory, these theories of deviance elucidate who becomes deviant and the reason why they do.  (Denita, 2008).  This assignment, however, strains its focus on highlighting positive and negative terms in which deviants portrayed and their own self-perception, and also what happens to deviants at the end and to explain whether jail is a suitable place for rehabilitation and  to give insight of whether those that went to jail can have positive impact on the society.

 POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE TERMS DEVIANTS ARE PORTRAYED

POSITIVE TERMS

The theory of different association highlights the interaction people have with their peers and others in their environment (Crossman, 2017). This theory can then be supported by the character in the movie known as Ellis Boyd “Red” Reddings (the guy the deviants went to when in need of certain goods). He is portrayed to be a respected individual by his inmates of the prison society and using functionalist perspective it can be argued that Red offered stability to the rest of the inmates as his services to other inmates brought upon an environment where there is comfort and some sort of hegemony. The character of Brooks (is a senior inmate who spent 50 years at Shawshank prison), is also a good example of Functionalism Theory as he was in charge of making sure that the prison library functions well and provide the inmates with necessary reading material to keep them occupied and sane.

Andy is an intelligent individual who before being imprisoned for murdering his wife and her love, served as vice president of a Portland Maine bank. Using his skills and knowledge from being a banker to help the prison warden’s with their financial problems.  As a result of that he gained a favor in the sight of the warden he was allowed to write letters to the department of correctional services to get the necessary assistance to improve the services offered.

NEGATIVE WAYS

When the viewers are introduced to Warden Samuel Norton, they introduced to this individuals who upholds the rule of law as he portrays himself as a law abiding citizen. He tells the prisoners that he only “believes in two things, discipline and the Bible”. However, as times goes by, his true colors start showing, he shows that he is a corrupt individual who exploits prisoners (power play) and Andy’s accounting skills, and a murderer as he instructs the guard to kill Tommy.

The warden’s behavior can be understood using Conflict perspective, the warden uses his position in the prison’s hierarchy to make prisoners work in his “inside-out program”. It is with this program where Norton starts exploiting prisoners, making them work in all the public projects for free while he is getting money for it (Denita, 2008). Equally he uses this project to extort and receive bribes from other contractors who compete with him, these bribes would in return ensure that Norton withdraws his bid from a certain project. This thus means corruption has taken place and corruption is a criminal offence and those who partake in it display a deviant behavior.

Even though Andy is a protagonist of this movie and was a victim of an unjust legal system, he developed some form deviance i.e. theft.  Using his accounting skills he embezzles the “warden’s money” (which is criminal offence that one can serve from 5 to 20 years for). This money was laundered by both Norton and Andy, but mainly Andy as he was the one handling the finances of the warden and other guards, money laundering is also a criminal offence in which if found guilty one may face a sentence of up to 14 years.

Andy’s behavior is accounted for by Edwin Sutherland’s theory, it is with this theory that we get to understand that during his 19 years stay at Shawshank, Andy went through a process of cultural transmission, during this process an individual learns to be criminal through the constant interaction with those who are deviant (Fulcher & Scott, 2011). Hence Andy said that he had to go to prison to be a crook as on the outside he was an honest man, who was as straight an arrow. His deviant behavior was further portrayed by his ability to manipulate the prison’s system which led ultimately to his escape, he maintained a routine every day and his routine was what helped him escape without any suspicion.