Variation Between The Saints And The Roughnecks

Deviant acts take many different forms often depending on the person committing the act, the people who witness it, the setting of the act, and the circumstances surrounding it, among many other factors. There are many approaches that people in order to convince themselves that they are not deviant. In the same sense, there are many ways that criminals escape being labeled deviant by others. Chambliss (1972) follows two groups of high school boys, the Saints and the Roughnecks. Both groups are involved in very deviant acts, although the Saints tend to avoid most trouble and are not viewed poorly by the community while the Roughnecks are constantly in trouble and have developed a poor image of themselves within the community. Although both

The Saints tend to be well dressed and drive nice cars, indicating that they come from financially stable homes. In addition, they are very well mannered to the majority of the people around them. On the other hand, the Roughnecks don’t dress as nicely, have no cars, and do not show respect to the people around them. The image that the Saints portrayed of themselves was much more positive than that of the Roughnecks. The Saints worked for people to believe that they were hardworking and involved students (Chambliss 1972). As a result of these factors, the Saints were viewed by the community as a good group of boys who were known to look for a few pranks every now and then, just as all high school boys do. On the contrary, the Roughnecks made no attempt to impress community members. They did poorly in school and often made poor decisions in front of other people (Chambliss 1972), leading individuals to simply view them as a bad group of kids. Due to the fact that the Saints had a way to leave town, they chose to party and commit crimes outside of their hometown where people they knew were more likely to see them. Since the Roughnecks had no way to leave, they committed crimes that other people watched or heard about from people who had (Chambliss 1972). By leaving town, the Saints escaped their own community members seeing them, giving them no reason to view them as