The Critical Role of Deviance in Society

It has been nearly two decades since Sumner (1994) rang the death knell for the sociology of deviance. Several notable scholars, in particular, have debated the vibrancy of the field — from the liveliness of its empirical and theoretical contributions to its interest to students, scholars and publishers (Ben-Yehuda, 1990, 1994, 2006; Best, 2004a, 2004b; Goode, 2002a, 2003, 2004, 2005; Hendershott, 2002; Liazos, 1972). We believe in the continuing vitality of the intellectual and empirical contributions of the field of deviance in the early 21st century. There are many reasons to make such a claim.