Deviant behavior: definitions, causes, and social impact

¶ … temporal relationship to deviance and the interpretation of what is and is not criminal with regards to temporal deviance. There were three sources used to complete this paper.

Cases being tried in criminal court sometimes have to examine temporal deviance as it relates to the crime at hand. It is used in criminal defenses where something deviant was done. These deviances can include child molestations, rapes, voyeurism, and other incidences where a deviation from socially acceptable behavior was involved in the crime being committed (Garcia, 2006). Experts must examine temporal deviance with each such defense and make a determination about what is and is not criminal within that deviant desire and behavior.

Predisposition

Experts have argued that a predisposition to deviance should carry some weight when determining what is and is not criminal during a criminal trial.

Temporal deviance can occur without any crime being committed. Some examples of temporal deviance would be certain consensual sexual acts, certain fetishes that do not impact the life, privacy or liberty of another person and things such as hording.

There are also temporal deviances that take a much more dangerous turn and the person who has them commits a crime against society, individuals or a group of individuals.

Some examples of this type of deviance include rape, murder and molest (Crenson, 2005).

An unhappy upbringing certainly increases a boy's chances of growing up to be a violent sexual offender. But if an unhappy childhood were all it took to create a sadistic pedophile, every town in America would live under perpetual Amber Alert (Crenson, 2005)."

Joseph Duncan murdered two Idaho parents, kidnapped their two children and ran with them to Montana where he sexually abused the nine-year-old son and murdered him before being caught with the couple's daughter.

Duncan had already served on 20-year sentence in the 1990's for kidnapping and raping a 14-year-old boy.

His preoccupation with deviant sexual fantasies of one kind or another date back to the age of 12," one therapist wrote after evaluating Duncan in 1982. "Mr. Duncan continues to conform to the statutory definition of a sexual psychopath (Crenson, 2005)."

Temporal deviance can also cause inappropriate sexual behavior and problems maintaining personal relationships.

The courts must decide is and is not criminal when considering temporal deviance. The most basic answer to that question is that a deviancy is criminal if it the deviancy is acted on and is of such a nature that it commits force, damage or fear in a person or against a property.

Located just above the ears, the temporal lobe is involved in face and object recognition, musical ability, personality and sexual behavior. If epilepsy or some other condition causes damage to the temporal lobe, a person can become sexually attracted to inappropriate stimuli, even inanimate objects (Crenson, 2005)."

Studies have indicated that pedophiles have a lower activity level in the temporal part of the brain, however it only becomes criminal when they act on those deviant desires.