CHAPTER 5 Deviance and the reaction of society

A GENERAL THEORETICAL APPROACH IN THE sociology of deviance has been undermined by a persistent argument in behavioral science that has polarized two groups. On one side, there are those who advocate the study of pressing social problems as the means to the ends of social science. Mills delivered one end of the polemic by implying that to use any other approach was to lose oneself in trivial and inconsequential activity.' The roots of this tradition are varied. They range from a reaction to detached, ivory-tower scholasticism of nineteenth-century central Europe to the humanistic origins of the 'social sciences and the fight against the dehumanizing tendencies of a too-scientific view of human behavior.

On the other side of the pole is the argument that detachment from pressing moral problems is the best assurance of reliable and valid research.2 According to this view, there is always the danger that a social observer who has a moral axe to grind will use the sharp edge to chop away, consciously or not, at data contrary to the desirable moral position.

Without here trying to resolve in favor of one or the other, it is important to point out some of the consequences of these arguments for the development, or underdevelopment, of theory in the sociology of deviance.

First of all, those who are wary of moral commitments to pressing moral issues and social problems have been professionally hypersensitive in their avoidance of social problems research at all costs. In the desire not to be stigmatized among their scientific peers as choosing and pursuing a problem out of moral indignation or fervor, they have overreacted in the same way some black sociologists and psychologists overreact in avoiding "black" social and psychological problems. Indeed, there is a striking parallel here that is no accident, since young black professionals are strongly advised by the professionally conscious to stay away from the racial data. (The same Black is advised by the "social problems" group to involve himself in research on Blacks and to become actively engaged in the internal moral issue of our time.) The first point is that those most interested in general theorizing are usually those least interested in pursuing research on social problems.
Second, those who have dealt with deviance and "problems" have tended to wed themselves to the particular problem being studied at the expense of general theorizing. There are a few notable exceptions to the preceding generalizations.3 So there emerges the peculiar development that those typically engaged in the empirical study of social problems have had the least interest in general theorizing about deviance; while those who typically have the greatest interest in theorizing keep arms' distance from deviance research for fear of nonprofessional contamination.

In fact, of course, our understanding of deviance will advance only (I) when deviance research is emancipated from an exclusive consideration of particular provincial, apolitical social problems and (2) when the overly professionalized sociologist recognizes the necessity of incorporating "problems" into a larger framework. A more general approach would free itself from the stultifying wedlock to criminality, alcoholism, and dope addiction, but unashamedly incorporate these problems for inquiry and analysis as theoretical considerations demand. The reaction of members of a society to particular forms of conduct provides a general theoretical framework for both traditional social problems and other forms of deviance.

Sociologists have had considerable trouble accounting sociologically for the lack of uniform deviation along those social variables selected to explain deviance. If being a young male from an ethnic minority, living in an urban slum, and so on, "explain" the deviance, how does one explain that all others in those categories are not deviants, asks the psychologist .4 An attempt to address this problem while remaining within a social-structural explanation brought forth the notion of differing access routes to opportunities for deviance.' However, as might be expected from the preceding summary of polar camps, such explanations have been restricted in their use to traditional social problems in deviance. Merton,6 Cohen,' Cloward and Ohlin,8 and Sutherland,9 have been used almost exclusively in regard to the traditional social problems of juvenile delinquency and highly selected criminal violations. These positions have not been expanded or extrapolated for use in questions of generic deviance.

The notion of societal reaction as a framework for a more generally applicable theory of deviance began to pick up momentum in the last decade and a half. This growth is largely attributable to the seminal ideas set forth by Lemert10 and Garfinkel." They have been recently applied by Becker12 and Kitsuse.13 There are two critical components of reaction that deserve attention in the development of integrated theorizing about deviance. The first is the question of why and how certain actions evoke the social response against the deviant act. Empirical interest is directed toward the process by which members of a group assume the posture of the normal population and the subsequent process by which abnormality is conceived.

The second component concerns the question of how the person or group labeled as deviant responds to others' characterization of his (or its) deviance. These two components are in continual interplay, and it is only in an analytic sense that they can be separated into clearly distinguishable elements.

In the study of deviance, there are several tactics that an observer might use. Historically, sociologists concentrated upon the deviant himself. They drew a lengthy profile of the life of the hobo, the prostitute, the thief, and the delinquent gang member, to name but a few. These portraits were often in case history form. They were extensive, and contributed in their own way to the study of deviance. From the point of view of a theory of social reaction to deviance, the major shortcoming of these studies was that they only implicitly and incidentally touched upon the normal-typical social response to the deviant.

A second tactic in the approach to deviance therefore, focuses upon the reaction of the typical-normal member to the deviant. The method of study is almost never the case history, but instead is broadly based survey research. Hundreds or thousands are sampled from a community and questioned as to their experiences with (and attitudes and behavior toward) men they conceive to be outcasts.

A third tactic would be to focus upon the exchange between the population preempting the title of normal and the population designated as deviant. What is it that happens characteristically between them? That is the most difficult approach because it deals with an empirical will-o'-the-wisp, "exchange," and so it must be examined in much closer detail before we proceed to the empirical study for which it may provide a framework.

The Exchange between Deviant and Normal

To use an analogy to the present problem, the discipline of social psychology is concerned with the exchange between the individual and the relevant group in his environment. Analytically, social psychology is concerned with the exchange itself. However, when it comes down to the empirical matter of the actual research, an election is usually made as to which party to the exchange will receive greater emphasis. Thus, there is a wing of the discipline which concentrates upon how the personality is influenced by the group ; while another wing concentrates upon how the group structure is changed by certain personalities.

The study of the exchange between the normal and the deviant has similar implications in the choice of emphasis that is usually made. Because the power relationship is so one-sided in favor of the normals, there has been a tendency to look almost exclusively at their effect, via sanctions, upon the deviants. Most of the theorizing in this area has looked upon the degree of effectiveness of the reaction. Durkheim was among the few to look at the other side of the coin when he discussed the integrating "function" of crime and punishment for a social order.14 By punishing the dissenters and the dissidents, a society reaffirms in clear and decisive action that which is normal and permissible. Punishment not only has the more obvious purpose of reminding other would-be deviants of the undesirable consequences of deviance, but the affirmative statement of what is right and wrong reinforces the beliefs of the participants. If, as in seventeenth-century England, pickpockets are hanged in public, people get support for the notion of what a "bad thing" picking pockets really is.

These are consequences of the exchange; but what of the exchange itself? One must look not only at the process by which the normal sanctioning reaction comes about but also at the reaction of the person designated as deviant.

Whereas men only make an either-or distinction between normal and abnormal in their conception of deviance, in fact there is a long continuum with (a) different degrees of deviance and (b) different times in the career of a deviant when he reaches various points on that continuum. Also, one of the striking things for one who studies deviance is the discovery that most "deviants" usually appear as normal as the next person except in that one area in which they are attributed deviance. In the preceding chapter, the importance of this one area was emphasized because, in the mind of the "normal" man, the "one bad area" of the deviant's life explains him totally as a person. The error of the normal man is profound. Its effect, by stages, in time and by degree, is to make the deviant himself come to believe in his own totally deviant character. But presently the problem is only to outline the form of the exchange between normal and deviant persons and populations.

First, concerning the different stages in the career of the deviant : We have come to conceive of the drug user as one who self-administers some mind-transforming drug and, in that single act becomes "that kind of man." However, as was pointed out in Chapter 3, there are many detours off the road to addiction even after the user has traveled some way. An important theoretical development in the understanding of social deviance would explain at what point members of a society decide that one really becomes a deviant. The answer for the social observer does not lie in the mind of the drug user. (The self-conception of the deviant is of interest to the sociologist for other reasons, which remain to be explored.) Nor does the answer lie in some truth which transcends the social existence of men. We need no more ask the question "Was there sound if no one heard it" than we need ask the question of whether someone is really a deviant if no one knows it.' 5 Instead, the answer to the question resides entirely in the time and nature of social knowledge and social response to the deviance. What is of paramount interest in this approach is not what stage the deviant is in, but at what point is he isolated and identified. For example, one may be on his first marijuana cigarette when he becomes socially known as a drug addict,' 6 while another may be addicted to morphine and yet have no stigma or identification as a deviant. The difference in the two cases is not a consequence of what they do, but is perhaps an arbitrary reaction by particular persons in the community or society.

In order to illustrate this point let us set up a hypothetical case of two individuals, A and B, who behave alike to the point of having consumed like amounts of marijuana and heroin. Further, let us assume that the one difference between the two is that A's drug use becomes generally known, while B's is unknown. We may now leave the hypothetical world and review developments without straining the imagination. At that point when A's usage becomes known, we must abandon the notion that A and B can continue to behave alike. The reaction to A in the larger society will be hostile and sanctioning. It will as well generate "explanations" of his deviant behavior that are attacks upon A's psyche and his morals. If A accepts these explanations, the reaction of the society will produce in its turn a response that "documents" the explanations and accusations, and `justifies" the sanction.' 7

As for B, the matter of his normality or social deviation takes a quite different road from that of A. The unidentified drug user, B, can live a normal communal life among his fellow men.' 8 Despite the fact that this society emphasizes the psychological and sociological character of his deviance, in order to identify the addict, we do not address his psychic or social behavior, but we must resort to the skill of the chemist and ask him for a chemical test. That is an admission of extreme importance to psychological and sociological theories about the deviance of the addict. He cannot be identified as a deviant by either laymen or social scientists observing the quality of his actual social behavior. He is identified instead by a technician who claims no competence and need know nothing about psychic and social matter.

It will be argued by some that this inability to identify the behavior is unnecessary because use of the drug is itself a demonstration that the user needs a crutch. This is a circular and tautological argument, as illustrated by a simple example:

Let us review the proposition that anyone with a scar on his toe has inadequacies of personality and can not cope with reality unless he scars his toe. When my proposition is criticized because it is unbelievable, i simply reply that 1 know that these persons have the psychological crutch of toe-scarring because "if you just take off the shoes and socks any fool can see the scar."

In a similar fashion, there is circularity in the assertion of the personal inadequacy of the drug user. "How do you know?" I ask, and the reply is, "Look at his arm; you see the needle-marks can't you?"
Physical marks or Nalline tests are used to designate the addict, but there would be no need for such tests if the behavior of the addict were distinctly deviant. With some forms of mental illness and alcoholism for example, the behavior of the deviant can be identified in and of itself. While there is more agreement on who is a drug addict than any other form of deviance, that agreement rests upon the social knowledge of the physical aspects of addiction and not upon the social behavior of the drug user. Whether a drug user is noticed and labeled is thus dependent not upon behavior caused by the drug, but upon the degree to which the user can prevent the society from looking for the marks on his arm or administering physical-chemical tests. It should be obvious that a drug user or addict with a high income can camouflage his "deviance," while the low-income user is exposed, by circumstances of the market, to law enforcement authorities. Our hypothetical case, B, can thus go along behaving normally and remaining totally unidentifiable until or unless chemical tests or arm-punctures (both physical) are discovered. In the following study of drug addicts who are apprehended, we will see how explanations, theories, and characterizations of apprehended addicts make the assumption that this is the addict, and that these explanations account for why the addict behaves in a certain way.

Although there are in fact different stages in the career of the deviant, labeling members of the society do not recognize these variations, either in degree or in time. One either is a moral deviant or he is not, in terms of the nature of society's reaction. One either is a prostitute or not, either a drug addict or not, and so on. That some are said to be "on the road to being a prostitute," is the moral equivalent of being a prostitute. Despite this, the moral deviant himself usually clings tenaciously to the idea that `just a little nip now and then" doesn't make him a full-fledged alcoholic, addict, prostitute, gambler, or whatever the nip happens to be. This early stage can be prolonged in the mind of the deviant for a period extending far into that time when everyone around him regards him as, indeed, full fledged. So long as he remains in this stage, and some addicts do even after they have been caught and institutionalized, he firmly believes that there are avenues through which he can reestablish himself in society. It is suggested here that, as long as deviants hold this belief they might be able to do so, but for the categorical either-or reaction of critical members of the society, which makes their own efforts in this area irrelevant and superfluous (unless they have independent wealth and/or powerful friends, in which case they would most likely not have been institutionalized in the first place). When the deviant abandons the belief that he can return to the society of "normal" men "whenever he wants to;" when he comes to believe that his own deviance sets him apart qualitatively from his fellow man, he has moved into a stage where his rehabilitation can only come about through some revelation or conversion that takes on a quality of the spiritual, supernatural, or messianic. The addicts in Synanon are almost uniformly of the later period, or from another point of view, of the latter type of deviant.19 Those who have studied Synanon have noted how in some form there is a religious quality in the "conversion" away from the drug evil. In order to join Synanon, one must not only give up drugs, but also renounce all associations that are connected with drugs, be they friend or family or foe. What is more important, he must agree to do things which would probably have been morally objectionable to him before entering. He must go through what Garfinkel has called a"Degradation Ceremony" that strips him of the appearances of his former deviance.20

Synanon has been successful with some addicts in the sense that they have not relapsed into drug use for extended periods. However, the organization makes no claim to being effective with addicts in general, and for good reason. First of all, an addict must regard himself as being in the latter stage of deviance described above in order to admit to himself that he requires such a drastic transformation that he is willing to submit to conversion. If the findings reported in the subsequent chapters are at all suggestive of this quality among drug users, it is more common than not to believe that one's self can return to normality without such a transformation. Further, even among those deviants who have the self-conception of being totally different from the rest of the world, only a small proportion would be willing to undergo the kind of voluntary, drastic life-style change that Synanon demands. Therefore, from the vantage point of those who would most like to "rehabilitate" the deviant to an acceptable and normal life, there is cause for pessimism because of the strong and categorical social reaction to moral deviance. The danger lies as well in the categorical response of the persons labeled deviants. Examples are numerous: the stigmatized drug addict who sees that there is no use in his abstinence because he will never be accepted again by nonusers; the slum-dwelling Black who sees that no matter what he does he will be excluded from full participation in the society; the newly migrated lower-class white youth who concludes that the teacher is against him whatever he does. And they all have their parallel reactions: bitterness and hostility directed both outward and inward; the creation of their own groups offering refuge from a hostile society. Black cultural nationalists, tough gangs, and the "hippie" addicts—all are convinced that they have experienced the world in a way that makes them superior to the ordinary, normal man; but alternately they experience doubts about the burden of social deviance, and wonder whether they would live more comfortably if the world had let them be "normal".

Narcotics Use and the Reaction of Society

Drivers suspected of being under the influence of alcohol are required to submit to a chemical test in some parts of the country and the world, in order to determine to what degree alcohol is "influencing" them. This test is not completely valid, because it sets a standard maximum, and individuals vary considerably around that standard in their ability to remain clear-headed. No matter. A test is required. The point that should be emphasized, however, is that only those behaving in a suspicious manner are subjected to such a test. (To the extent that breath and other circumstantial evidence point to high alcoholic consumption, that too could qualify as behavior, but it is the driving behavior to which I have primary reference.)

Heroin addicts on parole are also required to submit to a chemical test to determine if they are under the influence of heroin. There is one important difference. There is almost nothing in the behavior of the addict per se which evokes this reaction. In short, it is the imputed quality of being an addict rather than the actual behavior of the addict that generates distrust. Thus, when addicts themselves attempt to set up self-help houses or farms, the surrounding communities are hostile and obstructionist.

Addicts who have banded together to try to offer help to each other in the tradition of Alcoholics Anonymous have found remarkable resistance in many urban communities. People give lip-service to self-help, but when addicts band together and try to rent a house, as Synanon has done in several cities, the surrounding community lets out an indignant sound that reverberates for months.

People in these areas excuse their own hostile behavior on the grounds that if the Synanon program is unsuccessful in even a few cases, the addicts will prey upon the community for money to supply their habit. A vicious circle is joined because this attitude itself insures that the addict can never be readmitted to the society of nonusers by any effort of his own. It is consequently not the reaction of the individual addict that is critical to the success of rehabilitation, but the reaction of particular elements of the society.
Any change in the social interpretation of narcotics use will be a result of a change in public policy. Public policy, in turn, is generally a reflection of the actions of the most agitated and aggressive segments of the citizenry in concert with the most powerful. In the preceding chapter, the reaction of legislators in the state of California was noted. In the next section, focus turns to an analysis of some of the views of college students toward the heroin addict.

Some College Students' Views of the Addict

There are many good reasons for using college students as indicators of enlightened public opinion. They are among the most educated 25 per cent of the population. More significant, a nation's leaders are drawn from colleges and universities, with business, banking, government, the military and even the church recruiting their highest ranking personages there. Tonnage has been written on that subject, and no tedious documentation is required to note the significance of the students' interpretation of various aspects of life.

Before they had received a lecture on any material relating to deviance, a class of 120 students in introductory sociology were asked to write a few paragraphs on what they considered to be the major causes of drug addiction.21 Following are selections from several of the most representative responses:

1. The person who turns to drugs is a person who is incapable of facing the problems of life. It is the insecure person who is experimentative with a medicinal-type "cure-all" that doesn't actually solve his problems but simply makes him less aware of them. Drug addicts are basically cowards and/or non-conformists. The coward uses drugs to aid him in his flight from facing reality. The non-conformist is experimenting with the forbidden . . .
2. Drug addiction is caused by emotional instability. It is merely one way in which the insecure person attempts to get security and happiness. The degree of addiction in the total population is partly determined by police action and import laws. The main problem, however, lies with the individual's ability to cope with life and with his desire to do so.
3. I feel that a person with a highly disordered mind, lacking the notion of reality and an inability to face, or perhaps conform to his society, will seek an escape through dulling his senses with drugs. The cause of his inability to cope with his life's problems would probably stem from vastly incompleted emotional maturation due to either improper guidance or some kinds of inaladjusting features in his childhood.
4 I think curiosity and a desire to escape from reality are two of the major causes of a person becoming a drug addict. Curiosity as to the sensations that are experienced under the influence of narcotics probably is an important factor in inducing an individual to try taking narcotics. But curiosity isn't enough; otherwise many more people would be trying it. There must be, in addition, a desire to escape, if only for a while, from the boring and painful aspects of existence... .
5. The major causes of drug addiction are insecurity; search for a thrill; not enough strength of character to realize the end of the means used for a pleasure; selfishness in not realizing the pain it causes others around who care, such as relatives or just people who could use the services of the addict (before he is such); idleness resulting in a lack of alertness to the needs of others; fear of facing the future or simply the present; an attempt to escape what consensus calls "reality;"... .
6. The major psychological force leading to drug addiction is a desire for escape. The drug addict is one who because of some real situation—either in his environment or in his self—has become too much for him to bear and so he wants to take a vacation from reality in the use of narcotics... .
7. In becoming a drug addict it would seem likely that social pressures by one's peers would initiate addiction. The curiosity to see what it is like, combined with the desire to be one of the group might be responsible for an individual's first step toward addiction.

At another point in this work, it is noted that the view of the causes of a problem is also a charter for the problem's solution.22 For example, if you have a crop that is dying from drought and you believe that the drought is caused by the anger of the gods, it follows that your conception of the solution is chartered into pleasing the gods. Whether you perform a rain dance, offer a goat in sacrifice, or offer prayers simply demonstrates the substantive form that the idea takes. In a similar manner, if someone believes that drug addiction, alcoholism, and prostitution are caused by devils possessing men, then the solution conceived is calling out the devils. Finally, if you believe that drug addiction is caused by weakness of moral character and psychological disturbance, then the solution is equally chartered by that conception.

The different examples listed above are not intended to suggest that one is more real than another, or that all are equally false. The degree of empirical validity in the examples has nothing to do with their heuristic value: the conception of the cause of a problem determines the way in which its solution is seen. Whether the cause is "ludicrous" or "reasonable," is, to repeat, another point entirely.

The preceding statements are verbatim reports of some college students' ideas of how drug addiction comes about. The perpetual theme throughout these, and the other hundred responses, is the view of the addict as one who is fleeing reality. His flight from the real world is seen as resulting from an inability to face problems with equanimity, from emotional immaturity, and occasionally from weakness, cowardice, and lack of morality. The idea of escape is an interesting charter for solution. It will bring with it the idea that the addict's problem will be solved when he learns to "cope" with the real world, adjust to it, and shun the idea of escapiq from it.

The attempt to solve the problem is one of the most important of the social reactions to a given form of social deviance.

As we shall see in the next chapters, this idea of escape and the rebuilding of the personality plays a large role in contemporary attempts to rehabilitate the drug addict. This attempt to solve the problem involves one of the most significant of the society's reactions to deviance, and will be explored more fully. In the present chapter, however, the concern is with a different reaction of the society; the normal sanctions in everyday exchanges.

In all but one of the cases listed, the college students place the source of the addict's problem within himself and charge him with the deficiency of some trait that "normal" people possess. The path to addiction is regarded as within the control of the individual. Note that the addict should, by the college students' reckoning, face the realities of his problems even though those realities might be objectively extremely difficult. That is a moral pronouncement, whether one agrees with it or not. Its moral element is the conviction that one ought not try to escape from the problems and challenges of conscious existence. That the explanation for the deficiency is in psychological terms in no way deflects the "ought" quality of the moral pronouncement. "Men should not steal !" When a man is caught stealing, even if his behavior is explained in terms of some psychological disturbance, his theft is treated as a moral act.23 (This is the dilemma of modem criminal law prosecution in its attempts to place responsibility upon the shoulders of a man who has committed a crime. If he is reasonable and responsible, how is one to explain his crime except by recourse to notions of evil and malice?) The behavior eventually gets labeled immoral; the same can be said for the behavior of the drug addict. As soon as men strongly invest in the idea that it is only appropriate to "face reality" in a certain way, then to avoid or escape will be regarded in moral terms. The need to flee from some deep-seated psychic imbalance does not alter the moral conception or the moral base. Some of the responses are not even phrased in terms of neutral causation. One calls the addict a coward, and another refers to infantile development of the mind.

The conception of the causes of addiction is very much related to the conception of "the kind of person" an addict is. If he is "immature, and is incapable of facing reality," he is certainly not the kind of person that you would want to hire for a job, much less to live near you or marry into your family. There is an aversion to associating with drug users because they are "not the kind of people that one can depend upon." Consequently, the addict is systematically excluded from pursuing the kind of life that "normal" people lead, once his deviance becomes a matter of public knowledge.

The reaction to the deviant is a direct outgrowth of the conception men have of him. This is not only true of his treatment and rehabilitation, as the next chapters illustrate, but also of the kinds of contacts people have with the deviant outside of rehabilitation centers and prisons. In the following study conducted by John Kitsuse and described in greater detail elsewhere,24 seven hundred individuals were interviewed as to their responses to certain kinds of deviant behavior. The respondents were each asked if they had ever' known an illiterate, an alcoholic, a drug addict, a sexual deviant, and other deviants, a total of ten being named. Kitsuse describes the problem in this manner:

The objectives of the interview were threefold: It attempted to document (i) the behavior forms which are interpreted as deviant, (2) the processes by which persons who manifest such behaviors are defined and (3) treated as deviant. Thus, in the construction of the interview schedule, what the interviewees considered to be "deviant" behavior, the interpretations of such behavior, and the actions of subjects toward those perceived as deviant were addressed as empirical questions. Labels such as alcoholic, illiterate, illegitimate child, and ex-convict were assumed to be categories employed by persons in everyday life to classify deviants, but the behavioral forms by which they identify individuals as deviants were treated as problematic.2 s

When the respondent indicated that he had known a drug addict, he was asked to recall the most recent encounter with that person.

He was then asked, "When was the first time that you noticed (found out) that this person was a (drug addict)?" followed by "What was the situation? What did you notice about him? How did he behave?" This line of questioning was focused on the interaction between the subject of the alleged deviant to obtain a detailed description of the situation which led the subject to define the person as (a drug addict).26

Following are some descriptions and interpretations from persons in "normal" or everyday contact with drug addicts:

Case No. 1
Q: Have you ever known anyone who was an opiate addict? A: Yes.
Q: How did you come to know this person?
A: My husband had an old aunt whom we brought over to a Mrs. — to take care of—Mrs. — was a fine person and we like her very much. We didn't know where her husband was but she did have a son. When my husband and I would go over to see his aunt, we met Harry.
Q: How well did you know this person?
A:... no one could know him well. He was non-communicative. I knew him when he wasn't in jail.
Q: What do you mean by "he was non-communicative?"
A: I mean he slept all the time—and once when he wasn't sleeping, I tried to say hello and be pleasant but he just grunted.
Q: How often did you see him? A: Once a week.
Q: When was the first time you noticed or found out that he was an opiate addict?
A: I suspected something was the matter because from the very first whenever my husband and I went over there he was sleeping on the couch. Not on his bed—but in the middle of the living room on a couch. This was most disconcerting and annoying.
Q: Did you have any other reasons to believe he was an opiate addict? A: I didn't think that just because he was sleeping he was an opiate addict... . But I first noticed that something about him was different—because he was asleep in the middle of the room—and not on his bed.
Q: Did you notice anything else strange about him?
A: Yes, his eyes, when he was awake, were very glassy and starry. And when he walked he shuffled along.
Q: When was the first time you were positively sure or found out he was an opiate addict?
A: About 6 months after we met him he was arrested for stealing dope.
Q: Who told you, or how did you find out? A: I read it in the papers.
Q: Will you tell me about it? A: Yes.
Q: What was the situation?
A: This is what continuously happened. Mrs. always covered up for him. Then when he stole dope she would bail him out of jail to get him back into society, although he was arrested all the rest of the time.
Q: But what exactly was the first situation that made him out to be a dope addict?
A: He stole dope from a doctor's bag and the police found it on him.
Q: After he was first bailed out and home what did you notice about him?
A: He was the same as ever. He was always sleeping and would only grunt now and then. But otherwise he was the same. His mother always said he slept because he was tired.
Q: What was your reaction when you found out?
A: I thought a great deal of his mother, so of course, I was disappointed. She loved him and he was the only thing she had. Here was this woman who had nothing in the world but her son.
Q: What was your reaction toward him as a person?
A: I didn't have any personal reaction toward him because he was an addict ; I was just mad at him because it was so disconcerting to have someone sleeping in the middle of the room when one is paying a call or I was also worried about my husband's aunt who lived under the same roof. So—no personal feelings.
Q: Then you had absolutely no personal feeling about him at all but only felt sorry for his mother?
A: Well—I thought him too dumb to do any harm. I felt a dislike toward him only because of what he was doing to his mother. Would you like to know my theory of him? Well, he was an orderly in the army so therefore he could get it easily. I think he probably experimented with it or was curious about it—and it got to be a habit. Or else he is suffering from shock—poor boy!
Q: Why do you think so?
A: I don't know just a guess.
Q: But what about his friends—how did they react? A: He had none.
Q: You mean he was always alone? A: Yes.
Q: How did you personally treat him?
A: Just as I had always treated him before I knew. When he was awake I would always try to be pleasant.
Q: What was it that you noticed most about him?
A: That he slept all the time. He was always in a shell. Very unsociable. Very unsociable. Mrs. never made any apologies for him—I thought this irregular, too.
Q: What did you make of that?
A: It was hard to recognize. I accepted Mrs. but after this started wondering what kind of a person she was.
Q: Why?
A: Because she always covered up for him.
Q: Did this change your attitude of sympathy toward her? A: No—but after a while I began to feel sorry for him.
Q: Why?
A: I don't know—perhaps because he was so pathetic looking

Case No. 2
Q: Have you ever known anyone who was an opiate addict? A: Yes.
Q: How did you come to know this person? A: I went to college with him for a year.
Q: How well did you know this person? A: Very well.
Q: How's that?
A: We lived in the same dorm and we saw each other quite a bit. We also used to play in a jazz combo together.
Q: How often did you see this person? A: Everyday.
Q: How's that?
A: Well, if I didn't see him around the dorm I would see him around the band room.
Q: When was the first time you noticed that this person was a dope addict? A: I can't remember the very first time I noticed it, but I had suspected him of it for quite some time.
Q: How's that?
A: Well he acted peculiar at times.
Q: How's that?
A: Well he just acted like a `junky." His eyes always seemed to be puffed up, and he appeared to be nervous at times.
Q: How did that affect you?
A: It didn't really bother me because I had seen other guys like that before.
Q: Did you actually know that he was a dope addict?
A: Yes, I felt that I had seen enough of it to know when a guy was taking the stuff
Q: Can you think of an instance where he made you feel that he was a dope addict?
A: No, I just observed him over a long period of time.
Q: What else did you notice about the person? A: He was very involved in his music.
Q: What did you make of that?
A: Nothing really, because I knew he was pretty wrapped up in his music. I guess all musicians are like that.
Q: When did you find out he was a dope addict? A: I just asked him one day and he told me.
Q: What did you think of that?
A: It just confirmed my suspicions.
Q: Then what happened?
A: Nothing, it didn't bother me as long as he didn't bother me.
Q: Then what did you do?
A: I just kept my distance from him.
Q: How's that?
A: I only saw him when I had to, during practice and occasionally in the dorm.
Q: When was the last time you saw this person? A: In 1956.
Q: What was the situation?
A: I was packing my bags to go home from school for the summer and I saw him around the dorm.
Q: What did you notice about the person? A: Nothing. He seemed the same to me.
Q: How's that?
A: Pretty quiet and to himself.
Q: What did you think of that? A: Nothing.
Q: Then what did you do?
A: Nothing, he just kept going without speaking so I kept going too.
Q: What happened to the person?
A: I don't really know for sure, but I heard that he was playing in some band in Detroit.

Case No. 3
Q: Have you ever known anyone who was an opiate addict? A: Yes.
Q: How did you come to know this person?
A: He was a good friend of my father. After he graduated from medical school he moved out of town. It was after he moved that he began taking dope.
Q: How well did you know this person?
A: Well, I knew him through my father. He had moved out of town while I was very young, and he came back for a visit. That's when I met him. I had heard a lot about him from my parents. I guess that he was quite a good doctor.
Q: How often did you see this person?
A: I saw him just that one time that he came to visit us, but like I said, I had heard a great deal about him.
Q: When was the first time that you found out that he was a dope addict? A: It was last winter. Around the end of January or first of February.
Q: Would you tell nie about it?
A: I was having dinner with my parents and we got to talking about various fields of medicine. Then they asked me if I remembered this fellow. When I said that I did, they told me that he had been taking dope and was now in a hospital for the cure.
Q: What did you make of that?
A: I was very shocked, I just couldn't believe it.
Q: What did you notice about this person?
A: He was very handsome and a very good dresser. He was very distinguished-looking. (The subject then interjected that he was between thirty and thirty-five years old.) He was friendly and a good conversationalist.
Q: Did you notice anything else?
A: Nothing bad. There just wasn't anything bad to notice about him.
Q: What happened to him?
A: As far as I know he's still in the hospital, and is still under treatment for his addiction.

Case No. 4
Q: Did you know your sister very well.
A: No, we were separated when we were young. I lived in Evanston, she lived in New York with a half-brother. We met again when we were older—in 1939 or 4o. She came to visit me for a week or so. That's when I discovered she was a dope addict.
Q: How did you discover it.
A: She was sometimes very jolly and other times quite melancholy. I was working while she was visiting, so I didn't see her much during the day. Well, a neighbor told me one day that she thought she must be taking dope, because she went out early in the mornings and came back acting strangely. That started me wondering. So when she was alseep I looked at her arm, and sure enough there were places where she had been getting the needle. I spoke to her about it, but shortly after that she left. I didn't know she was dead until 6 months later when I got a letter from my uncle telling me. It had affected her speech. She had an impediment I guess. How she got it or when I don't know.
Q: Do you mean you don't know how she got the dope.
A: That's right. I didn't see her for 15-zo years. We had only written. occasionally. We weren't close at all.
Q: Can you tell me how she acted when she first came to visit you.
A: Wild. Not normally happy, just wild. When she laughed it was almost an hysterical laughter.
Q: Can you give me an example of what you mean.
A: She talked wildly about things she's had in New York that I knew she couldn't have or have done. She told me all the time about how wonderful she was—unusual bragging like that.
Q: What did you think about that.
A: Two weeks wasn't long enough to really find out what the score was. She wanted to play records all the time, and sing and dance—all by herself! She was really wild and loud.
Q: What did you make of all this.
A: I wondered if she really was a dope addict. At first I thought it was her way of life to be so wild. Then I thought she must have lived an awful life, until my neighbor said something. Otherwise she might have gone home without my knowing it. I didn't know what to look for. It hadn't occurred to me that she might be taking dope. The dope must have been the cause of her speech being impaired. I never said anything to her about it. I wrote to her later and never got an answer, so I don't know about why she started it or anything. They did say that's what killed her though.

Case No. 5
Q: Have you ever known anyone who was an opiate addict? A: Yes, I have.
Q: How did you come to meet him?
A: He was a musician. We used to have jam sessions after school (high school), and he used to come to a few of them ... not real often ... I didn't like to use him very often.
Q: How well did you know this person?
(This question brought a good laugh and an air of forced casualness. The subject's speech became hurried and slightly flippant.)
A: Not real well ... Like we didn't bum around together, if that's what you mean. I had as little to do with him as I possibly could.
Q: How often did you see him?
(The subject started to answer, hesitated, apparently recalling something he'd omitted saying. He stumbled until finally getting together everything he meant to say.)
A: Not very often ... wait ... let me change the answer to that question of how I met him. I used to take guitar lessons from him before the sessions I mentioned, so I guess for about a year I saw him at least once a week.
Q: When was the first time you noticed or found out that he was a drug addict?
(Here again the subject seemed to be unusually "casual." He repeatedly laughed throughout his answer and spoke much less formally than he had been, using more slang and jargon that is generally associated with drugs and their users.)
A: He smoked the stuff at first, then he started using the needle. He was about 25 when I was taking lessons. He lived with his parents and I used to go to his house for lessons. He'd always be wearing this T-shirt. One day I noticed the marks on his arm. He never took the stuff in front of me or anything like that.
Q: What did you notice about him?
A: Like I said, I had a lesson. When he came in for the lesson he seemed funny.
Q: In what way?
A: Oh, you know . a glassy stare ... and his movements were kind of jerky.
(The subject's attitude was one of slight irritation. He answered as though it was unnecessary, that I should know how drug addicts acted.)
Q: What happened?
A: We were together about a half an hour ... he seemed real uneasy and nervous ... finally he told me that I could make the rest of the time up later, or he wouldn't charge for the full lesson, or something ... in any case he couldn't finish the lesson now ... he had to take off.
(He then paused and added something in an "off-the-record" remark with a forced but knowing smile.)
I knew he was going to get a shot. He probably had the stuff in the next room ... the crazy fool!
Q: You mentioned that you had heard that he smoked drugs before using a needle. Did you know that he was using drugs before you had the lesson you just mentioned?
A: Yes, I think so.
Q: Do you remember the first time that you heard or found that he was using drugs?
A: I don't really remember the first time I might have heard about him, but I think I remember the first time I saw him smoking them.
Q: Would you tell me about it?
A: Well, I'm not sure exactly ... it was a good six years ago, but it was before the lesson I told you about. I saw him at a jam session. He was smoking it then.
Q: How did you know?
(He seemed very irritated that I should question his ability to recognize
marijuana when he saw it. His answer was antagonistic and challenging.)
A: I could smell it! I was real close to him at the session. The stuff stinks, you know ... smells like raw hemp. I asked the guy next to me and he said it was marijuana. I even casually asked him (the person in question) ... he said he took it once in a while. It was none of my business ... I didn't want to get involved with him or the junk.
Q: What did you notice about the person when you saw him then?

A: You mean with the drugs?
Q: Yes.
A: Nothing. He seemed erfectly calm and normal. He just played and was generally quite indifferent. You couldn't tell there was anything wrong with him by looking at him.
Q: What did you do when you found out he was smoking marijuana?
A: Nothing really ... I just stayed away from him. Like I said I never had much to do with him anyway ... I just used him for a few sessions ... I didn't really care what he did so long as he didn't mess up when he was playing.
Q: When was the last time you saw him?
A: About four years ago ... I just happened to see him teaching guitar at a studio.
Q: Do you remember anything about the meeting?
A: There's nothing to remember ... I just saw him there ... we didn't say anything to each other ... I don't think he even saw me.
Q: What happened to the person?
A: You mean since I last saw him? I really don't know.

Case No. 6
Q: Have you ever known anyone that was an Opiate Addict? A: Yes.
Q: How did you come to know this person?
A: He was the brother of one of my closest friends.
Q: How well did you know him? A: Fairly well.
Q: What do you mean by fairly well?
A: Oh, we knew each other to say hello, and well enough to go out and have a beer on occasion. I'd say we were out with each other about every other week.
Q: What did you do when you were out together?
A: Well, we went to shows and had a few beers or something like this. His brother was always along, and occasionally he asked to come along with us.
Q: When did you first notice that this person was an Opiate Addict?
A: Well, when I first saw him he was just a regular guy. We talked about sports and girls, nothing in particular. Well he seemed in a fairly depressive mood when we were talking, because everything seemed to be on the negative side to him. After a while, I was waiting for his brother to come home, he went to the john, and came back a little later as happy as a little lark. Well, at first I thought that something was a little screwy, because a trip to the can doesn't make a person as happy as this one. So jokingly I asked him if he always got this much relief after going to the john, and he just laughed. Then he told me while we were watching television why it was that he got this great feeling. He just came right out and told me that he was taking the needle.
Q: What did you then notice about the person?
A: Well, he didn't seem to be the kind of guy that used this dope, and I really didn't believe him until he showed me the place where he had given himself the injection. Other than that though I would have never guessed such a thing at this time, because he seemed normal to me before he had gone into the bathroom.
Q: What did you make of that?
A : Well, at first I didn't really know what to do. It was one of those things that you read about, or that you see in the movies; but it was something that you really expect to happen to you, but not here. Another thing was that I felt that this guy was a little nutty, and that I didn't want anything more to do with him. The reason for this being that I had always thought of dope as being smuggled in and held in secret, and when I actually came upon a case where a person was using it I felt a little weird.
Q: What do you mean when you said that you felt a little weird?
A: Well by this I mean that I was afraid and that I sensed that something must be a little wrong mentally with him if he used dope.
Q: Then what did you do?
A: Well in the future I avoided him, because I thought that he might convince me that this was really great stuff and that I might just try it someday and end up getting hooked. I also told his brother, and he said that he knew it, but didn't report it because he was afraid of getting the family in trouble with the police. Then I just left the situation alone, because I didn't want to get messed up in itself myself.
Q: When was the last time that you saw him? A: About the middle of June.
Q: What were the circumstances?
A: Well we were at a party, and he was there. He seemed to be at pretty good terms with everybody, and I was surprised that he wasn't really in the dumps as far as things go with addicts.
Q: How do things go with addicts?
A: Well, it has always seemed to me that the picture painted of the dope addict has always been one of a person that does really crazy things, or who is in such a state of sickness that he can't really do anything.
Q: Well then what happened?
A: About the end of the party he went home, and as I was leaving for a vacation, I didn't see him anymore, but I got a letter from another friend of mine at home saying that this guy is now in jail for stealing money from a store. Probably trying to get money to buy some more stuff.

In its own manner, each of these cases illustrates the point that the observer must use some extraneous indicator to designate the addict. In each case, the "normal" who is reacting to the "deviant" is convinced that he has actually used some valid technique for identifying and addict. In fact, however, such indicators as "glassy and starry eyes" (Case i) and "puffed up and nervous" (Case a) are only reconstructions that are never used as indicators of addiction before the fact. When asked the telling question of how they actually found out, finally, about the drug addiction of the party, the respondents use such legitimizers as "I read it in the papers," (Case r) and "I looked at her arm" (Case 4).

There is no instance of self-confidence on the part of the persons reacting to the deviance in assessing the actual behavior of the drug user as being identifiably distinct from the behavior of any normal member of the society. The remarkable feature of instances like the first case is the fact that being arrested for stealing dope is the identifying behavior.

The most significant part is the reaction itself, however, in terms of what the observer does once he finds out. Perhaps the most liberal and tolerant of these cases is the college student (Case No. 2) who simply decided to "keep his distance" and "see him only when he had to." Others range from a categorical dismissal to avoidance as complete as possible.

In one of the examples included, the addict is a person who is a respectable professional (Case No. 3). He has none of the appearances of "the addict" that is the stereotype in the mind of the person recalling his experience. Thus, he is capable of expressing that he was shocked and amazed to learn that this "young, handsome, and professionally successful" person could be a drug addict. The disbelief that was expressed upon first learning of the addiction is an excellent illustration of two important points that have been made so far. First, except for being told by others, the observer can not detect on his own observation whether the addict is deviant or not in his behavior. Second, the moral overtones of drug use have developed to the point that only people who have the appearances of being unrespectable and underprivileged can be thought of as reasonable candidates for the title of drug addict.

The heart of the problem of social reaction to deviance lies in the last case (7). A normal social relationship is undermined by the knowledge of the "deviant" qualities of one of the parties. The girl had a romantic interest in the person whom she thought was "normal," then allowed hearsay and the characterization of others to break off the relationship. There was nothing intrinsic to what occurred between them to reveal any deviance, but the external moral implications of the association were sufficient to cast them apart.

In the remaining chapters, this relationship between moral judgment and the reaction of various segments of the society will be explored in greater empirical detail. The focus now shifts to a study of an institution which is the embodiment of societal reaction to the deviance of the drug addict—incarceration.