Case Two: “Guards Suffer at TYC: Officers’ complaints center on risks posed by lack of staffing.” The Dallas Morning News. (April 1, 2007).

What makes this article by Swanson and Ramshaw particularly interesting is the fact that it represents one of the many circumstances that occurred as a consequence of the exposure of the sex abuse scandal that was described in Case One. In this article, Swanson and Ramshaw report that the internal environment of the youth prison has become even more deviant since the youth sex abuse scandal was made public. The journalists explain that prison guards have been the latest victims of crimes massive deviant behavior, this time at the hands—and feet—of the adolescent inmates who were victimized by the prison’s administrators. The simple reason that is explained for the deviance in which juvenile inmates have abused guards mercilessly, causing profound physical and psychological harm, is that the environment is one that is inordinately stressful for all of the people who are involved in it. The reasoning of this argument is as follows: The youth in this crime are stressed because of the abuse they have suffered and the threat of retribution for exposing it to the public, so they act out against the representatives of power, guards, who themselves are stressed because they are overworked, understaffed, inadequately trained, and underpaid. This results in a closed-loop cycle of violence that is attributed exclusively to the stressors of the environment in which these disparate groups find themselves together.

Again, however, such an explanation is limited and inadequate. It fails to consider questions such as, Does a stressful environment automatically predispose an individual to deviance or criminal behavior? The answer to this question cannot be yes, for such an answer fails to explain the decisions and actions of the vast majority of people in stressful environments who do not demonstrate such maladaptive behavior. Explanations for deviance that rely upon the environmental or stress-theory exclusively are lacking in a comprehensive analysis of the etiology of deviant behavior. Given that the majority of people under stress do not act out and perpetrate egregious crime or acts of deviance against other members of society, particularly society’s most vulnerable citizens, there must be other reasons for deviance that are not identified by these types of arguments.

Case Three:      “TYC to Free 522 in Days.” The Dallas Morning News. (April 3, 2007).

This article, also part of the series on the youth sex abuse scandal in a West Texas juvenile detention facility, is important to analyze because it alludes to the consequences and implications of a discourse about deviance that is limited to the extent that it is partial. In this article, Ramshaw reports that 522 juvenile inmates who have completed sentences but who have been held unnecessarily are to be released. The article also addresses the fact that almost all of the detention facility’s administrators, whether directly or indirectly involved in the perpetration of sex abuse against juvenile inmates, have been summarily dismissed from their positions. The glaring gap in Ramshaw’s article reflects the equally glaring oversights of the officials who have been in charge of investigating and responding to the sex abuse scandal. When the true causes of deviance are not identified, or are only partially identified using a single theoretical framework for explaining etiology of maladaptive behavior, it is impossible to implement effective responses that will address the structural variables that contribute to the deviance. Such is the case in the matter of the prison sex abuse scandal. All of the stakeholders involved who have the authority to address and redress the problems of deviance in this situation are only looking at part of the cause of the deviant acts, those variables which are most obvious. While it is important to dismiss officials who abuse their power, especially against people who themselves are comparatively powerless, it is even more important to consider why the deviance flourished on an individual and community level in the first place, and what mechanisms and strategies can be used to prevent such deviance in the future. For example, in this article Ramshaw reports that an investigation of 1500 prison employees revealed that more than 100 had felony records, a fact which was previously unknown by administrators in charge of hiring and employee retention. This fact supports the writer’s argument that social deviance is a combination of personal and environmental factors. In this case, individual employees clearly had personal deficits that predicted deviant behavior, yet the environmental deficits in terms of screening potential employees were inadequate, fostering the potential for deviance to emerge. Finally, the stresses of the environment activated the deviance. One sees, then, how the emergence of deviance is not attributable to one single factor; rather, it is a complex confluence of variables, all of which must be understood if deviance is to be addressed meaningfully and effectively.

Binary discourses are, by their nature, limiting. The theories of social deviance can be incredibly useful for explaining, understanding, and responding to deviance, but only when they are understood in dynamic interaction with one another. The theories posited by sociologists to explain the etiology of deviance need not be mutually exclusive. Rather, the theories of social deviance can be complementary. Each theory has its strengths and its limitations. As critical receptors of public discourse about deviance, and as active participants in that discourse, we have a responsibility to force the conversation out of these binary oppositions. Failing to do so is only likely to perpetuate deviance and result in well-intentioned but ineffective solutions to serious social problems.

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Works Cited

Ramshaw, Emily. “TYC to free 552 in Days.” The Dallas Morning News. Retrieved on September 28, 2008 fromhttp://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/040307dntextycrelease.2635a59a.htm

Swanson, Doug J. “Youth Jail Sex Abuse Reported: Complaints About Staffers Ignored, Covered Up, Investigation Reveals.” The Dallas Morning News. Retrieved on September 28, 2008 from http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/texassouthwest/ stories/DN-tycsex_18pro.ART.North.Edition1.20f6dc0.html

Swanson, Doug J., and Emily Ramshaw. ““Guards Suffer at TYC: Officers’ complaints center on risks posed by lack of staffing.” The Dallas Morning News. Retrieved on September 28, 2008 from http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/texassouthwest/ stories/040107dnprotycguards.3e18392.html