Deviance, social control, drug abuse and crime…

Core facts

Deviance: conduct that departs from social norms enough to draw disapproval. Marshall Clinard (Sociology of Deviant Behavior, 1957): deviance is behaviour in a disapproved direction that goes beyond the tolerance limit of the community.
Deviance vs crime: every crime is legal deviance, but not every deviance is a crime (rudeness, eccentric dress, heavy drinking at home).
Deviance is relative: it varies with time, place, group and who does it.
Primary and secondary deviance: Edwin Lemert, Social Pathology (1951). Labelling: Howard Becker, Outsiders (1963). (Detail in SOC-BC-04 and CR-CB-04.)
Social control: term from E.A. Ross, Social Control (1901). Informal: family, custom, religion, gossip. Formal: law, police, courts, prisons. (See SOC-BC-04.)
NDPS Act: Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985, in force 14 November 1985. It replaced the Opium Acts (1857, 1878) and the Dangerous Drugs Act, 1930.
Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB): set up in March 1986 under section 4(3) of the NDPS Act; under the Ministry of Home Affairs.
PITNDPS Act, 1988: preventive detention of drug traffickers.
Article 47: the State shall try to bring about prohibition of intoxicating drinks and drugs injurious to health, except for medicinal purposes.
26 June: International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking.
Nasha Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan: launched 15 August 2020 by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment (nodal ministry for drug demand reduction).
CPTED (Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design): C. Ray Jeffery, 1971. (Asked in 2023.)
Defensible space: Oscar Newman, 1972.
Broken windows: James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling, The Atlantic Monthly, March 1982.
Situational crime prevention: Ronald V. Clarke (UK Home Office Research Unit, late 1970s and 1980s).
Routine activity theory: Cohen and Felson, 1979.

Explained

1. Understanding deviance

Positive deviance: departure from norms in an approved direction (a whistle-blower, a saint, a genius). Negative deviance draws sanctions.
Durkheim: deviance is "normal" and even useful: punishing it marks the moral boundaries of a group (see SOC-WT-01). Kai Erikson (Wayward Puritans, 1966) developed this boundary-maintenance idea.
Stigma: a discrediting mark that spoils identity, Erving Goffman, Stigma (1963).
Moral panic: exaggerated public alarm about a group seen as a threat ("folk devils"), Stanley Cohen (1972), on the Mods and Rockers in Britain.
Primary deviance is the first rule-breaking act, which the person explains away. Secondary deviance follows when the person accepts the label and organises life around it. This is why probation and diversion try to avoid labelling first offenders.

2. Control as a barrier to deviance

Kind	Agents	Means
Informal	family, peers, caste, religion, neighbours	praise, ridicule, gossip, ostracism
Formal	legislature, police, courts, prisons, probation	laws, arrest, sentence, supervision
Internal	the person's own conscience	guilt, self-respect

Control theories of crime ask why most people do not offend: Reckless (containment, 1961) and Hirschi (social bond, 1969). See CR-CB-04.

3. Alcoholism

Alcoholism: repeated drinking that harms health, work or relationships, with loss of control and dependence. WHO treats it as a dependence syndrome.
E.M. Jellinek (The Disease Concept of Alcoholism, 1960): alcoholism as a disease, with phases pre-alcoholic → prodromal → crucial → chronic.
Alcoholics Anonymous: a self-help group founded in 1935 at Akron, Ohio (USA); the "twelve steps".
Link with crime: drink is a common factor in assault, domestic violence, road deaths and offences committed under its influence.
Law: public drunkenness that annoys others is punished under BNS section 355 (old IPC 510): up to 24 hours' simple imprisonment, fine up to ₹1,000, or community service. Intoxication as a defence: only if involuntary (BNS 22, old IPC 85); voluntary intoxication is no excuse (BNS 23, old IPC 86).

4. Drug abuse and the NDPS Act

Causes: peer pressure, curiosity, stress, family conflict and poor parent–child communication, easy supply, and synthetic drugs from the pharmaceutical industry. (A 2023 A–R item tested two such causes.)
Narcotic drugs (coca, cannabis, opium and their products) vs psychotropic substances (listed synthetics such as LSD, amphetamines, diazepam).
Cannabis under the Act means charas and ganja (flowering or fruiting tops); bhang (leaves and seeds) is outside the definition of ganja.
Graded punishment by quantity (since the 2001 amendment), e.g. sections 20–22:

Quantity	Rigorous imprisonment	Fine
Small	up to 1 year (6 months before the 2014 amendment)	up to ₹10,000 (or both)
More than small, less than commercial	up to 10 years	up to ₹1 lakh
Commercial	10 to 20 years	₹1 lakh to ₹2 lakh

Section 27, consumption: up to 1 year or fine up to ₹20,000 (or both) for cocaine, morphine, heroin and similar; up to 6 months or ₹10,000 for other drugs.
Section 64A: an addict charged with consumption or a small quantity gets immunity from prosecution if he volunteers for de-addiction treatment and completes it.
Section 39: the court may release an addict convicted under section 27 for de-addiction treatment instead of sentencing him.
Section 33: the Probation of Offenders Act and CrPC 360 (now BNSS 401) do not apply to NDPS convicts, unless the offender is under 18 or the offence is under section 26 or 27. (Asked in 2023: probation "cannot be granted" for NDPS crimes.)
Section 37: offences are cognizable and non-bailable; bail for offences under sections 19, 24 and 27A and for commercial quantity only if the court is satisfied the accused is not guilty and will not offend on bail.
Section 31A: death penalty possible for a repeat offence involving large quantities; since 2014 it is discretionary.
International base: Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs (1961), Convention on Psychotropic Substances (1971), UN Convention against Illicit Traffic (1988).

5. Crime prevention

Three levels (Brantingham and Faust, 1976): primary (whole population and environment: lighting, education), secondary (at-risk groups and places), tertiary (known offenders: probation, treatment, rehabilitation).
Social (developmental) prevention tackles root causes: poverty, schooling, family. Situational prevention reduces opportunities at the place of crime.
Situational crime prevention (Clarke): rests on rational choice (offenders weigh effort, risk and reward). Its techniques fall under five heads: increase the effort, increase the risks, reduce the rewards, reduce provocations, remove excuses.
Routine activity theory (Cohen and Felson, 1979): crime occurs when a motivated offender and a suitable target meet in the absence of a capable guardian.
CPTED (Jeffery): change the built environment to reduce crime. Common principles: natural surveillance, natural access control, territorial reinforcement, maintenance.
Defensible space (Newman): from a study of New York public housing. Four elements: territoriality, natural surveillance, image, milieu. High-rise blocks with anonymous corridors had more crime.
Jane Jacobs (1961) earlier argued for "eyes on the street": busy, mixed-use streets are safer.
Broken windows: visible disorder (broken windows, graffiti, public drinking) signals that nobody cares and invites serious crime, so fix small disorder early. It inspired "zero tolerance" policing in New York in the 1990s.
Community policing: police and residents work as partners to find and fix the causes of crime. (Asked in 2023.)

AP angle

Anti-arrack movement: began in 1992 in Dubagunta village, Nellore district, led by rural women, after an adult-literacy lesson; it led to a ban on arrack from 1 October 1993.
Total prohibition was introduced in Andhra Pradesh in January 1995 (N.T. Rama Rao government) and lifted in 1997.

Common traps

✗ "CPTED was proposed by Oscar Newman." ✓ C. Ray Jeffery (1971). Newman gave defensible space (1972).
✗ "Broken windows theory was given by Cohen and Felson." ✓ Wilson and Kelling (1982). Cohen and Felson gave routine activity theory (1979).
✗ "Primary and secondary deviance are Becker's terms." ✓ They are Lemert's (1951). Becker is linked to labelling (Outsiders, 1963).
✗ "Moral panic was given by Albert Cohen." ✓ Stanley Cohen (1972). Albert Cohen gave the delinquent subculture theory.
✗ "NDPS Act, 1986." ✓ 1985. The NCB was set up in 1986.
✗ "An NDPS convict can always get probation." ✓ Section 33 bars probation unless the offender is under 18 or the offence is under section 26 or 27.
✗ "Bhang is ganja under the NDPS Act." ✓ Leaves and seeds (bhang) are excluded; ganja means flowering or fruiting tops.
✗ "Every deviance is a crime." ✓ Only deviance forbidden by law is crime.

Quick revision

Deviance: beyond the community's tolerance limit (Clinard); relative to time and place.
Lemert 1951: primary vs secondary deviance; Becker 1963: labelling; Goffman 1963: stigma.
Stanley Cohen 1972: moral panic; Kai Erikson: boundary maintenance.
NDPS Act 1985; NCB 1986; PITNDPS 1988; Article 47 prohibition.
NDPS: small / intermediate / commercial quantity; s.27 consumption; s.64A immunity for addicts in treatment.
NDPS s.33: no probation except under-18 or s.26/27 offences.
Jellinek: disease concept of alcoholism; AA 1935.
Prevention: primary, secondary, tertiary; Clarke: situational prevention.
Jeffery 1971 CPTED; Newman 1972 defensible space; Jacobs "eyes on the street".
Wilson and Kelling 1982 broken windows; Cohen and Felson 1979 routine activity.

Go deeper: Deeper, Mains writing (beyond what APPSC Paper I usually asks)

Deeper Advanced

Displacement critique. Blocking one opportunity may move crime elsewhere. Reppetto (1976) listed five kinds: spatial, temporal, tactical, target and functional. Studies usually find displacement is partial, and often there is a diffusion of benefits to nearby areas (Clarke and Weisburd, 1994).
Broken windows criticised. Critics say New York's fall in crime also matched national trends, and aggressive order-maintenance can turn into harassment of the poor and minorities. Supporters reply that disorder and fear of crime still matter.
Second-generation CPTED adds social factors (community cohesion, connectivity, culture) to the physical design of the first generation.
NDPS reform debate. Section 27 still criminalises users. Policy since the National Action Plan for Drug Demand Reduction treats users as victims who need treatment; section 64A's immunity is the legal bridge. The 2021 amendment fixed a drafting error in section 27A (financing of illicit traffic).
Labelling and youth. Treating a young drug user as a criminal may create secondary deviance; diversion to treatment, counselling and family work fits both labelling theory and section 39.

Mains writing Mains writing

Frame: deviance is socially defined; control and prevention should aim at reducing harm, not only at punishing.
Points:
- Informal control (family, community) is weakening with urbanisation, so formal control is overloaded.
- Drug abuse needs a health-first approach: treatment, section 64A immunity and de-addiction centres, with strict action against traffickers.
- Situational prevention (CCTV, lighting, safe public transport) is cheap and quick but must be paired with social prevention.
Way forward: CPTED in urban planning and Smart City projects, community policing, school-based drug education, and probation instead of prison for first-time minor offenders.

Medha AI writes its own notes and checks them against the sources listed. Medha AI is an independent preparation service. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to APPSC, TSPSC, MPSC, UPSC or any other commission or government body.

2.1.5 Deviance, social control, drug abuse and crime prevention

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