Deviance & Social Control

Well I will be answering to question two through the functionalist perspective.
What is deviance?  Deviance is "behavior that violates the standards of conduct or expectations of a group or society(Wickman 1991:85)" (Shaefer text, 163)

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Well i chose the functionalist perspective because it is the one which i agree most with and feel it is  more relevant with our society. According to functionalists deviance is part of human nature, we have our positive acts and we have our negative acts, no one is perfect and we all have our flaws. Defiance helps society know what is acceptable and what is not. With out deviance we wouldn't know the difference  right from wrong, good from bad.  If we didn't have deviance than  those who are aggressive drivers would never get punished and they would continue to drive aggressively putting their own life as long as everyone elses life at risk. If we didn't have a law against murder, than that one shopper would shoot the cashier because she was given the incorrect amount of change.  Now, not only need deviance in our society but we need it so that we can grow as individuals. We as humans like i said are far from perfect, we do things that may be morally incorrect, if we didn't learn from our mistakes or didn't get punished for our wrongful actions, than we would all basically be terrible people. 
However, there is always a negative to everything. I think that the down side on deviance is that once the formal social control group EG: government, police officers, school administrators, etc. say that something is deviant, then generally society as a whole sees it as negative too.

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For example, graffiti is extremely frowned upon as being negative, they (formal social controllers) say that it is vandalism  and it destroys the community and makes it look bad. Well i believe that graffiti is ART! plain and simple, someone is talented enough to "decorate" our city with their drawings. If there were open places where people could go and show their talent that i think that would stop the "vandalism of property". The same goes for skateboarding, if they (formal social controllers) don't want people skateboarding down their side walks then why not make a skate park? And as well for tattoos , i have tattoos and piercings my self and think that they are amazing, and yet most of society thinks it is negative, and they are very judgmental towards people with tattoos, that assume they do drugs or have no job. And most place don't like hiring people with tattoos and piercings.

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In conclusion, i strongly believe that society need deviance to learn and grow as a whole and individuals. I agree with the functionalist perspective in the fact that we need deviance to be able to differentiate right from wrong.