Chapter 2 - Theorizing Justice

• Understanding that social problems are linked to personal ones helps tackle injustice and achieve substantive justice.
• Justice studies connects poverty and inequality to health issues and criminal justice involvement, highlighting that not everyone has the same advantages.

Social Problems

• Justice system cases should be viewed as representative of broader social issues.
• A social problem's causes and solutions are found outside the individual, rooted in society's structures and institutions.

Sociological Imagination

• Analyzing individual issues as social problems requires the "sociological imagination".
• The sociological imagination links personal experiences to the larger societal issues within a specific time and place.
• Assessing social structures helps change life opportunities in the future.
• Viewing issues as merely personal obscures vulnerable groups needing assistance for a just society.

Theoretical Perspectives Overview

• A theory explains behavior with a framework, not mere description.
• Theories can be seen as schools of thought.
• No single theory is universally superior or incorrect; evaluation depends on explanatory power.

Structural Functionalism

• This theory views society as interconnected parts or structures, each with functions for the system as a whole.

• The elements include norms, roles, institutions, and values, which all work together to maintain a functioning society.

• Society resembles a living organism with parts maintaining balance and equilibrium.

• Functions in society are of two types, manifest and latent

• Manifest functions are intended goals that are formally set like schools educating youth.

• Latent functions are unintended and almost always informal like incarceration promoting gang involvement.

• Dysfunction happens when social organizations do not fulfill their functions, resulting in social problems.

• Crime is a social issue that occurs because of how families were weakened during shifts in social solidarity and social institutions.

Structural Functionalism and Theories of Crime

• Deviance reinforces social norms by criminalizing inconsistent behavior, stigmatizing non-conformists.
• The theory focuses on norm violations as disruptions of natural order, an indication of social change.
• Anomie is a state of unregulated social norms, leading to normlessness.
• Anomie occurs when the overemphasis on material wealth and the underemphasis on equal opportunities are not aligned.
• Anomie produces strain on those with lower status
• An overarching goal is to create equal access to resources and opportunity for societal participation.

Conflict Theory

• Conflict theory is focused on power, oppression, and exclusion.
• Conflict arises from groups competing for power and resources within capitalism.
• Capitalism is an economic system that has private ownership of production means like buildings and labor.
• The goal of capitalism is profit.
• Society divides into unequal classes of workers versus business owners.
• Capitalists control the economy and have influence in media and politics.
• Capitalism is unjust at its core.
• The economically powerful influence the kinds of behaviors considered criminal.
• Other conflict theorists emphasize conflicts arising from opposing values among groups.
• Oppression is the exclusion of subordinate groups from participating in society dominated by powerful groups.

Symbolic Interactionism

• Symbolic interactionism focuses on how society shapes individuals and their identities.
• This theory states that identity is shaped by social interaction and that social behavior is based on the meanings attached to behavior
• Actual behavior is less important than meaning attached to behavior.
• Social problems are seen as behaviors defined as such, leading people to view them as major concerns.
• People's concepts of themselves and their society affects their behavior
• Labelling theory states behaviors is problematic if labelled as such
• A behavior is labelled as deviant by dominant groups disapproving of another group's behavior.
• Individuals labeled/stigmatized as criminals after conviction
• Deviant labels might deny opportunities, causing a deviant self-concept and acting accordingly.

Feminism

• Feminism aims to "denaturalize" assumptions about gender

• Feminism analyses all issues from a gendered power dynamic

• Gender relations are patriarchal, giving men privileged access and viewing masculinity as superior to femininity.

• Feminism seeks to understand and reduce inequality, challenging fundamentally unjust male-dominated societies.

• Patriarchy is the domination of women by men

• Domination occurs when men occupy key positions in the economy and politics with privileged access, attitudes that privilege masculinity, and attributes such as strength and aggressiveness that is seen to be superior to those of women.

Post-Structuralism

• Privilege is key, replicated in all social structures and interactions with ubiquitous power.
• Power is the control of behavior and exists beyond state or government purview, affecting all life aspects.
• Mechanisms of control are exposed through "deconstruction".
• "Discourse analysis" deconstructs interactions, revealing language and sense-making practices.
• Post-structuralists expose mechanisms of power through which groups are oppressed by dissecting society.
• Mechanisms of power and oppression are often thought as "natural"
• When these mechanisms are not questioned, the "discourse of denial" is in effect as the structures of oppression and domination appear natural.
• Discourses of denial need to be questioned and replaced to help those marginalized in society as well as achieve social justice.
• Questioning and exposing structures of oppressions is an ethical practice.

Neo-Liberalism and Justice Summary

• The social structures in society build inequity and create doubt in it’ social justness.
• Viewing problems as social issues encourages responses to alleviate them.
• Discourse analysis reveals that the social justness of a society depends on policies to alleviate those problems and focus on strengthening the community, allowing for a making a society more socially just.
• Discourse analysis exposes privilege embedded in language in texts.
• Often the people enjoying privileges are not fully aware until revealed by those who do not have privileges.