Edward Sagarin

Guilty Until Proved Innocent: Wrongful Conviction and Public Policy

Few problems can pose a greater threat to free, democratic societies than that of wrongful conviction—the conviction of an innocent person. Yet relatively little attention has been paid to this problem, perhaps because of our understandable concern with the efficiency and effectiveness of the criminal justice system in combatting crime. Drawing on our own database of nearly 500 cases of wrongful conviction, our survey of criminal justice officials, and our review of extant literature on the subject, we address three major questions: (1) How frequent is wrongful conviction? (2) What are its major causes? and (3) What policy implications may be derived from this study?

Positive deviance: An oxymoron

By general agreement among sociologists and other specialists, and by speakers of the English language, deviance refers to rule‐breaking and other nonconformity which is viewed in the society in a negative way, and hence reacted to with scorn, hostility, punishment, or an effort to effectuate change. Deviance is a special type of deviation, but the two terms are not interchangeable. The concept of “positive deviance” is and should remain an oxymoron or self‐contradicting phrase, because it would obfuscate rather than clarify, would collapse into one group two ends of continua that have nothing in common except that they do not meet in the middle, and would deprive social analysts of the opportunity to determine why and with what consequences people depart from the normative in a manner that elicits dire consequences, as well as why a more conforming public reacts with hostility to some forms of behavior and statuses. The traditional and accepted concept of deviance should be retained, as it links the stud...

Incest: Problems of definition and frequency

Research into factors pertinent to incest is hampered and confused as a result of lacking clear‐cut definitions. A distinction is made here between consanguine and affinal relationships, and it is suggested that biological consequences as well as psychological problems allegedly resulting from incest could be more clearly determined, and the effectiveness of the incest taboo, its origin and psychological internalization could be studied more effectively. Instances from literature are cited to exemplify these concepts.

The First Eight After Furman: Who was Executed with the Return of the Death Penalty?

The death of Gary Gilmore before a firing squad in 1977 marked an end to a ten-year period in the United States without an execution. Eight executions took place between January 1977 and September 1983. All those put to death were male, the youngest was 24 years of age, seven of the eight were white, guilt was established in all cases with near certainty, the crimes were particularly heinous, and several asked for death. The first eight to be executed thus had characteristics designed to mute the protest against the death penalty. The authors contend that if executions are resumed on a large scale, this pattern cannot be maintained.

Deviance without deviants: The temporal quality of patterned behavior 1

Abstract Social scientists oriented toward labeling have argued that there are unfortunate consequences, in the form of self‐fulfilling prophesies or secondary deviance, of placing people into a deviant category and giving them the label associated with that grouping. This paper proposes that such a process of categorization is inaccurate because it transforms activity into identity. Identity suggests permanence, whereas activity suggests voluntarism, responsibility, and the labile nature of human conduct. Deviance without deviants would stress the impermanence of patterns of behavior, even though they be patterns, and the potential of all persons to go in all directions.

Responsibility and Crime in Literature

Accountability for ones actions has been a major theme that literary artists have grappled with over the centuries. Among the works in which it plays a significant role, and which are here analyzed, are the Oedipus trilogy, Hamlet, The Brothers Karamazov, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Trial, The Stranger, and three twentieth-century American novels: An American Tragedy, Light in August, and Native Son. Insights into the dark recesses of the human mind, which can complement the insights of legal philosophers and social scientists, are revealed in these and other works. They point to an argument that prophesy is not immutable destiny and that social causation is not social determinism. The human being achieves freedom by acceptance of responsibility, each man for his own acts, each woman for hers.

Political deviance and the assumption of responsibility

Political deviance is a broad concept, less frequently invoked than the concept of political crime. It can be perpetrated by those in power, in the name of the state or individually, or by those struggling to effect social change. The focus on the latter brings to the fore two types of movements, terrorism and civil disobedience, with their partial similarities in goals and their apparent dissimilarities in the means employed to achieve these goals. Both groups tend to assume responsibility for their acts, although for different reasons. The assumption of responsibility itself is a clouded and sometimes ambiguous notion, both linguistically and in its ramifications in the political arena.

Ideology and deviance: The case of the debate over the biological factor

There is great concern over the present debate with regard to the presence of any inborn or biological predilection toward crime and deviance. The concerns are real: they involve, among others, the question of responsibility of the offender, the use of the data for racist or sexist purposes, their use for the dismantling of social programs. The authors contend that these issues are irrelevant to the scientific ones, but that one must proceed with caution and take preventive measures to see that findings are not misused.

The study of deviance: Where do we go from here?

In a commentary on Meier, the authors suggest that the study of deviance is a highly prized specialty within sociology, that there is general agreement on definitions of deviance, and that such definition should consider degrees of social hostility and other factors that Gibbs calls “normative properties.” Meiers proposals for the measurement of norms and their violations are considered and found to have potential for the discipline although they may be difficult to operationalize.

Homosexuality as a social movement: First reports from the barricades

Abstract The new militant homosexual movement had predecessors in Germany and England, as well as less militant forerunners in the United States. From this social movement, five works of participants and activists are examined. All are self‐serving and hence must be viewed with skepticism, as the ideoloigcal presentation of a viewpoint that is seeking acceptance. Nonetheless, they are a treasurehouse of information. They reflect many psychological difficulties of the participants and the confusion and dissension in the search for the next moves in a disunited movement. These reports range from the perceptive to the mundane; from the historically valuable to the utterly irresponsible.