The people living in a society do not necessarily accept all the norms and values of the society. There are certain individuals who think otherwise and may even go against the established norms, and thus deviate from the established ways of the society. Such deviation is not something abnormal but it tends to generate many other social problems when it gets intense. In intense cases deviation may even turn into serious crimes like murder, abduction, robbery and terrorism.
When people deviate they break social manners, social code of conduct in business and mutual agreements between the parties. They may go against the social manners of family and marriage. They can break promise and law of the state. They, as a matter of fact, revolt against the codes or norms that they do not consider correct or truthful. They can either do it willfully or simply by negligence of their responsibilities. In either case, they bring about a disturbance in the perceived social order. However, all the deviating individuals do not deviate in the same manner. Some deviations may result into very minor offences, while others may bring huge loss to others and thus the societies have established a mechanism of control to deal with such deviating behavior.
When deviation takes place on a larger scale, it can break the bonds of the society. The society, then, faces disorganization that may lead to disintegration and chaos. The function of institutions and groups is affected. Social problems of unrest among people develop. Even the social control may get paralyzed and the social order may lose balance.
One of the basic reasons of deviation is the failure to learn the norms of society. In fact, socializing institutions fail to perform their roles. Family is the first institutions teaching norms of social life. Parents play important role in this process. Siblings are the second to socialize their members of family. If both or one of the parents is absent by death or by other reason, the child fails to get proper learning, required affection and needs of satisfaction in the family. He becomes disturbed emotionally and seeks protection in the company of others outside the family. He learns anti-social activities, like smoking, gambling, abusing and deceiving others in association of bad neighborhood. He gets into the habit of deviance and becomes delinquent. Delinquency enters into his social life. He becomes criminal in adulthood and gets into the company of big criminals.
School and college are the next socializing institutions of education. If a person in not attracted by study, it means there is a great possibility that he may divert his attention towards other activities. However, there are occasions when school and college do not pay much attention towards proper socialization of the students so that they are able to become active members of society and take positive part in social life and social issues. They mostly concentrate more on the curriculum and academic excellence not on the social bonding of the students.
Neighborhood can also play a role in socialization of the individuals. There are many social activities that a neighborhood can promote so as to strengthen social bonds. They can have gatherings on different occasions; celebrations can be arranged; there can be different sorts of parties and even meetings to address the social issues they are facing. Meanwhile, a neighborhood that does not have many houses and the families mostly live their individualistic life without much interactions with others is bound to generate an environment that is not favorable for socialization. On the other hand, neighborhood can also play a role in promoting deviance. If there are certain groups or houses in the neighborhood that are non-conformist, they will definitely influence others and there may be a rise in deviance in such environment.
Moreover, one of the important factor is to understand that humans strive for attaining peace and ease in their social lives. This objective is achieved by having basic facilities of life. If there is dearth of basic requirements and the concerned authorities are not able to provide those requirements, there will be an urge for deviance in such environment. People will break the norms and values and even law to fulfill their requirements of life.
Like many other societies, our society also suffers from deviance to a large extent. There are many who go against the norms and values of the society and many others who break the law. In the short-run the best way to curb the situation is having a strong control mechanism. Our law and order system, in this regard, has the key role to play. Unfortunately, that seems to be very weak in our country and is not able to control the situation. It is neither properly developed nor is it based on true justice.
In the long run, however, we would have to deal with the actual causes of the deviance and among them raising the standard of living of the people and institutions is the most important. Therefore, we must strengthen our institution and at least provide basic requirements to the people so that they have the required trust on the society, social life and realize the worth of norms and values.