Organizational Reaction To Social Deviance: The Military Case - Softcover

Robert J. Stevenson taught undergraduate and graduate courses in Deviance/Criminology, ilitary Sociology, and Social Control at SUNY Stony Brook and the University of Maryland. After earning his PhD in sociology, he served in the Air Force and then worked as a military sociologist and research scientist. He organized a program to assess leadership climate, cohesion and morale in over 100 units surveyed at five points in time. He has taught courses in criminology and delinquency at the Sociology Dept. of the George Washington University and at Davis and Elkins College in West Virginia. More recently, Dr. Stevenson has served as an expert witness, consultant and freelance writer.

From the book:

The data used in this study show the different rates at which commanders sought to punish soldiers for shortcomings: through the courts (courts-martial); by discharge under less than honorable conditions (bad paper discharges) and through the use of non-judicial sanctioning (Article 15). That is, rates of organizational reaction to deviance are examined.

There is an unmistakable diminution of controls used against soldiers for offenses other than AWOL and Desertion until 1971, and an unmistakable increase of such actions by commanders thereafter. This adds valuable information to the overall relation between deviance and sanctioning during the Vietnam War. AWOL and Desertions were clearly coming to compose the bulk of all offenses as the war escalated.

If the collective choice on the part of the troops is to be increasingly deviant, i.e., to break other rules in lieu of absenting themselves after 1971, I would need some evidence of this tendency to counter the possibility of enhanced rule enforcement on the part of the officer corps.

I know of no such evidence. The overall quality of soldiers was improving, not declining: peacetime, or post-war, or post-fighting service is less arduous than wartime service; the occupational options in the Army have been widening due to the planned eventual implementation of VOLAR; military pay after 1971 had been steadily increasing; the Army is becoming increasingly civilianized, i.e., the more symbolic and trivial soldierly tasks (K.P., housekeeping, morning reveille) are being replaced by more occupational incentives or by the hiring of civilians and women were entering the Army in increasing numbers.

More importantly, there is no evidence at all that a dramatic change in the personalities of soldiers occurred, after 1971, which could account for their heightened willingness to break other rules.
...
While it is true that, on average, a soldier in any of the wars examined was not killed or maimed; did not receive a court-martial; and did not receive a bad paper discharge; nor receive an Article 15; nor serve time in military prisons, a substantial, and growing, number of soldiers did, in fact, experience some of these possibilities. --Robert J. Stevenson

The author draws on his first-hand observations while serving in the Air Force during the Vietnam War in this study of how different branches of the US military have imposed sanctions (such as court-martial and dishonorable discharge) on officers and enlisted men over the past 40 years. The study employs an original framework of 48 social indicators to identify patterns of organizational reactions to deviance. The patterns are interpreted as representations of the changing social control requirements of the military as a complex organization. Findings are examined in light of the labeling perspective, sub-cultural theory, the socio-legal perspective, and insights from functionalism. The book includes a 50-page bibliography of sources from the 1950s onward. It will be of interest to academics focusing on categories of social deviance and criminology. Stevenson has taught at SUNY-Stony Brook. --©2010 Book News Inc. Portland, OR