case study on deviance

Societies all over the world have their own patterns or pictures of how normal people should behave in a certain society. Unknowingly, people in a society behave in accordance to what a society sets as “normal”, but inevitably, there are some individuals who choose not to follow the standards. These people are called the deviant people--those whose behaviors fall far outside of society's norms (http://www.vocabulary.com). Every society in the world has cases of people breaking rules such as stealing, assault, or taking illegal drug; even being very intelligent or being so quiet can be considered as deviant. Last July 28, 2013, my partner and I are able to understand a person who is considered as a deviant in this society. His sister let us enter inside the life of his brother and shared to us the process of how he had become an “outsider” of this society.
Julius Belleza, our subject, is a drug addict. In his case, it was clearly not inherited or an innate behavior, but it was the influence of the people around him who drove Julius in the intake of illegal drugs. Since Julius and his family live in an unprivileged area where there were limited resources of good education, we assumed that Julius, in such a young age, was provided little knowledge about the effects of the drugs he took. Only later did he realize the consequences of his actions. Even if his friends’ actions were irrational, Julius chose to conform. As Asch’s research stated, many people are willing to negotiate their own judgments of right and wrong to avoid being considered as an outcast and different. The theory of differential association introduced by Edwin Sutherland indicated that a person’s tendency toward conformity or deviance depends on the amount of contact with other who encourages or rejects conventional behavior (Twelfth Edition: Sociology; John J. Macionis). In this case, the subject spent almost all of his time with his group of friends.Thus, in order to blend in with his friends,