Deviance is the act of violating the societal norms. Any society that upholds good morals, there ought to be deviants present. This is because deviants will only be present in places and circumstances where there are people out to control them. They therefore act to oppose those that attempt to govern them especially through power threats. Deviants are thus mostly criminals of offences such as thefts, murders, smugglers and even the low weighted crimes like music piracy. Elite deviance on the other hand is a subdivision of deviance that is committed by the people with authority in the society and causes moral, financial and physical harms such as cynicism, frauds and illness respectively.
Elite deviance has consequential impacts of race and class bias in the criminal justice system of any nation among other effects (Millegan, 1999, p.1). Different societies have their own way of defining elite deviance, for example the United States have less stringent rules on elite deviance as compared to most countries of the globe such as Canada. In the united sates elite deviance is ignored which is not the case in other global nations who recognize it as a crime.
Thus the US elite deviance is different from the global elite deviance in a number of ways. For one, some forms of elite deviance are allowed in the US and especially among the rich and powerful people of the society. Global deviance considers all deviance as crimes despite the status of the criminal. In the US, elite deviance is not a crime until it has caused harm on third parties.
For example, in the case of a celebrity was once accused of masturbating in adult film but since his actions never caused any harm to anyone or cause damage to the society his case was nullified as a criminal offence. This is not the case in other global nations since the aforementioned act would be violating the societal norms and hence it would be branded a criminal offence punishable by law (Moon, B, et al, 2009, p.102). All in all, the global and the US elite deviants are similar in that they are the powerful people of the society who have authority which they can use to commit crimes. In addition, despite the differences and ignorance in the US elite deviance, it is by law considered to be a criminal offence just like any other.
Impacts of an “unjustified” and “justified” stigma on a person’s well-being
Stigma can be defined as a psychological condition in which an individual feels neglected by facing opposition from other members of the society. Stigma in an individual will in most cases arise if the individual is deviant. There are several reason that can cause stigma in an individual for example HIV Aids, mental illness, leprosy, physical disabilities just to mention but a few. If the stigma is unjustified, it will have impacts on the well being of an individual. Unjustified stigma may thus have impacts of lowering the self-esteem of an individual, poor academic achievement, distress, fear and discouraging the patients to seek medical attention when essential.
Justified stigma on the other hand occurs when an individual is aware of the condition they suffer from and have accepted it. Justified stigma has positive impacts on the well being of a person in that it may make the stigmatized individuals to increase their performance, upgrade their self-esteem, seek medical attention for the sick and also make them happy and resilient of the negatively perceived experiences.
Reference List
Millegan, K. (1999). Elite Deviance. Web.
Moon, B, et al (2009) General strain theory, key strains, and deviance. Journal of CriminalJustice 37: 98-106.