Poverty and Disrepute

For roughly seven decades, sociologists rarely discussed poverty as a form of deviancethough they frequently considered it a major cause of deviant behavior. The reason may be political correctness: We don’t want to be accused of “blaming the victim” (Ryan, 1976)—that is, stigmatizing the poor by attaching a demeaning “deviance” or a “deviant” label to them (Matza, 1966a, p. 289). But the fact is, the poor are already socially stigmatized, and, contrary to some critics (Wright, 1993), when sociologists point out that fact, they do not contribute to this stigma. Indeed, quite the reverse is true: A systematic analysis of the phenomenon may enable society to reduce it, while ignoring it may help sustain it.