What Is The Moral Deviance Of Folkways?

In 1984, 22-year old Kelly Michaels decided to move to New Jersey in hopes of pursuing her dreams of becoming an actress. She began answering various ads in the newspaper, which included being a teacher’s aide. In the following months, she was interviewed and hired by Wee Care Nursery and began working. Shortly after, Michaels was promoted to being a teacher, as she had not only impressed the supervisors, but the three-year old children she took care of seemed fond of her. Four years later, Kelly Michaels, who was twenty-six years old, was sentenced by a New Jersey judge to forty-seven years in prison. (Newman, 231). Kelly Michaels was charged with sexually abusing 20 children at the Wee Care Nursery. This was not a crime that included murder
More specifically, people have come to characterize deviance as the violation of some agreed-on norm that predominates a community or society. Deviance can range from behaviors that violate folkways or mores. Folkways are socially accepted behaviors that don’t have great moral significance, meanwhile mores do have great moral significance and violating them can endanger society’s stability. Behaviors that are considered deviant by violating a folkway could be staring at a person in an elevator, being vegan, or even wearing bizarre clothing out in public. On the other hand, behaviors that have been categorized as deviant because they have violated mores tend to be more serious acts, and in some occasions, even criminal acts such as robbing a bank, shooting up a school, or in the case of Kelly Michael’s, sexually assaulting young kids (Newman,
Social control is commonly known as the subordination of personal interests to public interests (Shipunova, 2016). It is also seen as society’s attempt to regulate the thinking and behavior of people (Shipunova, 2016). As we saw with the Michaels case, she was given the reputation of a deviant person, more specifically, of a sexual offender, to ensure the stability of the society. Even though she was declared innocent by the Supreme Court, the continuation of labeling her as deviant can be perceived as the community’s attempt to control Michaels actions. It is said that the social control of deviance, and everything that is connected to it such as the institutions and organizations, are granted a unique status since they aim to better the society and remove or minimize the harm that comes from deviance (Shipunova,