Comparative Deviance: Perception and Law in Six Cultures

by Newman,Graeme R.

• ISBN13: 9781412807692
• ISBN10: 1412807697
• eBook ISBN(s): 9781351527316
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2008-02-29
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Comparative Deviance represents a systematic attempt to survey public perceptions of deviant behavior cross-culturally: in India, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Yugoslavia, and the United States. There is extensive diversity in both law and perception concerning such deviances as taking drugs, homosexuality, and abortion, yet there is evidence for a basically invariant structure in perception of deviance across all cultures. Within the countries studied in this volume, Graeme Newman discovers that the strength of religious belief and urban rural background accounted for major differences in the perception of deviance-when differences were identified.

Author Biography

Graeme Newman is Distinguished Teaching Professor in the School of Criminal Justice at the State University of New York-Albany Marvin E. Wolfgang, until his recent death, was professor of criminology and law at the University of Pennsylvania

Table of Contents

Introduction to the Transaction Edition	p. ix
Preface	p. xvii
Foreword	p. xix
Paradigmatic Origins of the Research	p. 1
Deviance, the Public and the Criminal Law	p. 9
Foundations of Deviance Perception	p. 28
Measuring Perceptions of Deviance Cross-Culturally	p. 52
The Sampling of Cultures	p. 69
Comparative Perceptions of Deviance	p. 113
The Structure of Deviance Perception	p. 154
Sociological Correlates of Deviance Perception	p. 188
The Criminal Law and Its Sanctions in Six Cultures	p. 212
Subcultural Perceptions of Deviance	p. 249
Conclusions: Towards Unity ... and Diversity	p. 277
References	p. 299
Appendix	p. 317
Index	p. 322
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