Deviant Behavior Choices: Explanation of the Rational Choice Theory

In 2004, the American people are not altogether aware of from where some of their pop-culture slogans actually have their roots. For example, one of the most popular daytime television shows, in the United States, is the Dr. Phil Show. Millions of Americans hear Dr. Phil repeat, day after day, that children should know, with absolute certainty, what the outcome of any behavior is going to be. Very few Americans are aware that Dr. Phil's philosophy is based on Rational Choice Theory, or that they are slowly being converted to the Rational Choice Perspective on Deviance. Whether such a conversion bodes well for the future of families in the Untied States is not within the scope of this paper. This exploration is for the purpose of investigating the rational choice perspective on deviance.

Rational Choice Theory

Beccaria and Bentham (Shvarts, 2002) were the early developers of Rational Choice Theory. The logic of Rational Choice Theory takes the following path toward examining and explaining human behavior.

1. Human beings are rational individuals.
2. Being rational involves having the ability to make a means/end calculation.
3. People freely choose all behaviors based on their own means/end calculations.
4. Means/end calculations include cost/benefit analyses, usually involving a pleasure/pain component.
5. Final behavior choices maximize individual pleasure.
6. Behavior choices can be controlled through an understanding of the potential punishment for the behavior, should it contradict what is socially or legally acceptable.
7. Society has created laws and placed, in the hands of the state, the responsibility for implementing the punishments for breaking the laws.
8. Individuals who choose deviant behaviors should be guaranteed swift, severe, and certain punishment for their rational choice of the behavior. (Shvarts, 2002)

Prior to the 1950s, life was not always easy. Feeding families and trying to stay healthy consumed the daily lives of most Americans. However, with the 1950s and early 1960s, came a degree of prosperity and both the time and money necessary to focus on a number of social issues. This was the era during which positivist research began to search for the root causes of deviance. Theories, some would say excuses, abounded, with each focusing on some environmental, biological, or social reason being the cause of the deviant behavior (Shvarts, 2002) . Individual responsibility was lost in the shuffle and Flipp Wilson made millions on television with the line: "The Devil made me do it!"

The problem with theories of deviance that gave the individual an excuse for their behavior soon became all too visible. Rehabilitation programs, coupled with lack of personal responsibility for one's actions, exploded onto the American social scene; and, with them, the crime rate, during the next two decades, also exploded. As a result, older theories, especially Rational Choice Theory, were revisited (Shvarts, 2002) . The logic associated with Rational Choice Theory is simple enough for most individuals to understand and internalize. Therefore, Rational Choice Theory has replaced many of the feel-good, excuse heavy theories of the 1960s through the 1980s.

A Culture of Deviance

Let us, for a moment, accept that Rational Choice Theory is absolutely correct. If that were so, then all that would be necessary to create a Utopian society would be to raise at least one generation under the strict tenets of this theory and all would be well. However, it has now been more than 15 years since researchers have turned their attention back toward Rational Choice Theory. Dr. Phil is on television for an hour a day, extolling the benefits of raising children under this theory. Yet, the crime rate, at least in the United States, continues to rise.

If Rational Theory is correct, then the American society seen today is a direct reflection of rational decision-making within the confines of the social system in which rational human beings find themselves. Could this be true? What would a model of such a society look like? What would lead otherwise rational beings into deviant behavior in such numbers?

According to Rational Choice Theory, the rational individual or criminal considers a specific behavior in light of the social context in which he or she is living. The individual makes his or her means/end calculations based on an assessment of possible outcomes of both deviant and non-deviant behavior. According to the model below, it is seldom, if ever, possible to have a positive outcome for non-deviant behavior. Therefore, the rational individual chooses deviant behavior as the only means of meeting their needs. This is, admittedly, an extreme case, in which the environmental situation rewards deviant behavior, while punishing non-deviant behavior. However, at many levels of American society, this model does exist and it is not outside the bounds of reality to postulate that at least some of the escalating crime statistics in the United States today can be traced to the mixed political messages given to the population, as a whole.

If Shvarts' (2002) model of the American society is accepted without question, then Flipp Wilson's television lament could be altered to cry "The government made me do it!" and research would be right back in the position of looking for an outside catalyst to explain and excuse deviant behavior. This very well may be a situation in which it may never be known whether the environment, biology, or some other force came first, with respect to deviant behavior. Yet, that absolves neither research nor society of the responsibility to continue searching for an answer to this dilemma.

Rational Choice Theory and Deterrence

Keel (2004) shifts the focus of his investigation from what causes deviance to what can be done, by society, to stop deviance. In order to do this, Keel (2004) presents a number of types of deterrence, and suggests that it may be possible that the type of deterrence may also play a part in determining the choices criminals and, by extrapolation, others choose to make. According to Keel (2004), the major types of deterrence include:

1. General Deterrence: If there is no fear of apprehension or punishment, people will engage in criminal activities. Focus is on preventing future behavior.
2. Specific Deterrence: The crime has been committed and the punishment is determined to be the appropriate punishment for that specific offense. Focus is on ensuring that past behavior does not happen again.
3. Incapacitation: The criminal cannot be trusted to refrain from past behavior and society must be protected from him or her.
4. Retributive Theory and Just Desert: Informing the population of what the norms are and what the punishments will be; and that the same punishment will be given to all who commit the same deviant behavior.

Keel (2004) delineates a number of problems with Rational Choice Theory in modern American society, not in the least of which is the guarantee of swift, severe, and certain punishment for criminal deviant behavior. It seems, according to Keel (2004), the more severe the punishment, the less likely it is that a jury will impose it, regardless of the severity of the crime. If this is the case, then are not criminals, once again, being given mixed messages and making their behavioral choices on the basis of those messages. Under modern Rational Choice Theory, as implemented in the court system of the United States, murder can actually become a viable behavioral choice because the odds of having to suffer the maximum punishment are low. The same is true, according to Keel (2004), with respect to apprehension. It seems that, when police departments are overloaded with work, i.e. when the crime rate is exceptionally high, the rate of arrests goes down. When crime rates go down, arrest rates go up. Therefore, using Rational Choice Theory, a criminal can choose to commit crimes during times when rates of crime are high and have a reasonable expectation not only of not being sentenced to the maximum punishment, but of not even being arrested in the first place.

Keel (2004) also discusses capital punishment and whether it is an actual deterrent to the choice to commit those deviant acts for which it is the prescribed punishment. It seems that, historically, immediately following an incident of capital punishment, those types of offenses are reduced in number, but only briefly. Following this brief reduction in the number of capital crimes, they then soar to even higher rates, before eventually returning to what is considered to be a normal rate of capital offenses. The odd statistic that has always plagued the issue of whether capital punishment actually does deter capital crimes is the fact that the incidence of capital crimes drops in those states that abolish capital punishment. There has never been an explanation for this phenomenon, and certainly not one within the construct of Rational Decision Theory (Keel, 2004).

Labeling Theory

It may be that no one theory is inclusive enough to describe deviant behavior in modern society. Becker (1967) describes deviant behavior with a more forgiving view in which society places labels on individuals and the individuals then may either accept or reject the labels. According to Becker (1967), society is made up of four distinct groups of people. First, there are those who do not break the rules and are not labeled. Second, there is a group that accepted society's rules, but are falsely accused of being deviant. Third, there is a group that are true deviants and are labeled as such. Finally, there is a group that is deviant, but are not labeled. These are called secret deviants. In many cases, those who exhibit deviant behavior believe the rules are wrong and/or immoral and make a conscious choice to break them, knowing the price they will pay. These individuals are willing to accept the punishment because they believe they have the moral high ground.

On the other hand, those who are true deviants have a choice to make. In all probability, they began their life of deviance in small ways. At some point in time, they had to make a choice of whether to escalate their deviance into the realm of crime or simply continue on as little more than social irritants. If the society in which these individuals live has already labeled them and if they can find no means of ending the ongoing punishments that are part and parcel of that label, then there is no inducement for them to attempt to become a member of one of the other three groups (Becker, 1967).

Becker's (1967) stratification of each of the deviant groups is, in all likelihood, closer to the truth of what is occurring in modern society than many of the other social theories of deviance. Becker uses marijuana users as a means of explaining his labeled groups. Some break the rules on moral grounds, such as for medicinal purposes, and go on to be radical political figures, lobbying for the legalization of marijuana. Some go on, however innocently, to become dealers and then, deliberately, to become criminals. Becker (1967) suggests that these behaviors are the direct result of having been labeled as a deviant and of having accepted the label and calls such individuals moral entrepreneurs.

There are many examples of moral entrepreneurs in American society. Suppose an individual was labeled a deviant at a young age. Suppose this individual engaged in all manner of criminal activities, with impunity, and was, for the most part, a secret deviant. However, the behavior patterns were already established. At this point, this individual believes he can get away with anything because he has never paid a price for his deviance. Now, let us suppose this individual has a dramatic conversion to another group of moral norms. Will this individual give up the types of behaviors that came with the life-long label to become a rule keeper? Or is it more likely, when someone says "Mr. President. Now we know that God is in the White House," that the individual will answer with "Thank you"? This is not to say that individuals cannot change labels as they mature. It is, however, to note that, having once accepted a label and having been immersed in its deviant subculture, it is extremely difficult to reign in one's mindset and change groups in mid-stream (Becker, 1967).

Conclusion

Modern society, especially modern American society, is a complex organ that functions, sometimes, to the utter amazement of sociologists and psychologists around the world. Rational Decision Theory would hold the individual solely responsible for their actions. Other theories would make excuses for the individual, blaming anything and everything for having made it impossible for the individual to have become anything other than a deviant. Governmental administrations are dysfunctional, seemingly leaving even the most moral American in a position where they have no other choice than to behave in a deviant manner because the so-called system leaves them with no positive options. A reading of the literature would seem to suggest that the complex nature of society today will need a complex attempt to form a theoretical solution that is more inclusive than any of the single theories that currently exist. Where does a society draw the line? Where does it begin to hold individuals accountable for their actions? At what point does a society stop funding rehabilitation efforts that do not work? For that matter, at what point does a society insist on reform in its judicial and law enforcement agencies? Only Lemert (1951) and Becker (1967) admit that there might be more than one cause of primary deviance. Other theorists all proffer their theories as complete. All of these issues, taken together, imply that deviance in American society is apt to become far worse before it becomes better.

References

Becker, H. (1967). Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance. NY: Free Press.

Keel, R.O. (2004). Rational choice and deterrence theory. Retrieved: October 8, 2004, from: http://www.umsl.edu/~rkeel/200/ratchoc.html

Lemert, E.M. (1951) Social Pathology: Systematic approaches to the study of sociopathic behavior. NY: McGraw-Hill

Shvarts, A. (2002). Russian Mafia: The explanatory power of Rational Choice Theory. International Review of Modern Sociology, 30(1). Retrieved: October 8, 2004, from: http://www.yorku.ca/irjs/Archives/irms30-1.htm