SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES OF MEDICALIZING DEVIANCE
Brighter side
1, Medicalization is related to a longtime humanitarian trend in the conception and control of
deviance.
For example, alcoholism is no longer considered a sin or even a moral weakness; it is now a disease. .
Alcoholics are no longer arrested in many placed for „public drunkenness”; they are now somehow
’treated,” if only to be dried out for a time.
2, Medicalization allows for the extension of the sick role to those labeled as deviants.
It diminishes or removes blame from the individual for deviant actions.
3, The medical model can be viewed as portraying an optimistic outcome for the deviant.
4, Medicalization lends the prestige of the medical profession to deviance designations and
treatments.
5, Medical social control is more flexible and often more efficient than judicial and legal controls.