In recent years, authorities in the United States have taken a “get-tough” position on
crime, which has resulted in the imprisonment of millions of people.
There is a growing tendency toward the medicalization of deviance; according to this view, deviant acts are
external symptoms of internal disorders.
Thomas Szasz argues that mental illnesses are
neither mental nor illnesses but are simply problem behaviors. With deviance inevitable,
the larger issues are how to protect people from deviant behaviors that are harmful to
their welfare, to tolerate those that are not, and to develop systems of fairer treatment for
deviants.