Organizational Reaction to Social Deviance

Book excerpt: This study in criminology, sociology, and the US Military, explores changes in the meaning and production of deviant populations in American military settings since 1941. It is designed to highlight the operation of an ethos of control as armed forces and society undergo historically unstable accommodation and conflict. The author examines time series data on organizational reaction to deviance in military settings ('Bad Paper Discharges,'¥ courts-martial, and administrative controls) in light of central characteristics of military settings (the social composition of officer and enlisted ranks, force levels, technological changes in war hardware and the distribution of risks faced by various kinds of soldiers). Propositions from the deviance literature concerning 1) the constancy of punishment, 2) the duration, intensity, and priority of sanctioning, and 3) cohesion and stress are examined in military contexts to discern the changing social control climates therein. Some sources of the shift are located in the role that risk plays in the system and the function of the officer corps as agents of social control. In short: the character of social institutions is knowable, in part, by studying the manner in which deviants therein are controlled, stigmatized and expelled. An extensive bibliography is provided.