The highly readable articles in this comprehensive anthology explore the essence of deviant behavior—its construction, explanation, commission, and control. Substantive introductions to each section and to each article allow the book's component parts to stand on their own depending on instructional needs. Topic-specific Internet websites are also provided.
Bruce Jacobs has selected an eclectic cross-section of compelling readings. The book's theoretical coverage draws from classic as well as contemporary approaches (e.g., lifecourse, general strain, institutional anomie, feminist), with an emphasis on the latter. The empirical selections on forms of deviant behavior are engaging, ethnographic, and timely. Coverage includes:
* Child Prostitution
* Robbery of Drug Dealers
* Impersonal Homosexual Sex
* Internet Pornography
* Petty Shoplifting
* Eating Disorders
* Life on Death Row
* Racial Profiling
* Ritalin and the Drugging of Children
* Sex Tourism
* Athletes with Physical Disabilities
* Violence Beyond the Law
* Cyberspace Crime
* Use of Cameras, Drug Tests, and DNA Analysis to Monitor Deviants
Additional Features:
* The section on deviant identity management emphasizes the acquisition and management of stigma.
* The researching deviance section features the process by which scholars conduct deviance research (both ethnographic and survey)—as well as how they identify and infiltrate settings, negotiate dilemmas and contradictions, and secure valid data.
* The section on deviance and social control covers profiling, life sentences, judicial discretion, and surveillance.
* Gender is incorporated throughout the book as a crucial mediating variable. Feminist perspectives are included, as well as approaches that focus on masculinity and deviance.