Introduction
The kidnapping of Jaycee Lee Dugard was a case of child kidnapping that happened when an 11-year old girl was abducted near South Lake Tahoe in California. Although the event occurred in 1991, the case of the kidnapping of Jaycee Dugard remained unsolved until 2009. In addition, the crime received a wave of attention recently when Jaycee Lee Dugard published her memoir in 2011.
It is important to point out that it was, of course, a case of formal deviance or crime because the abductor intermediately violated the laws. A man called Phillip Garrido, who later turned out to be a convicted sex offender, abducted the girl in the street as she was walking home after school. However, the man was later spotted in the street when Garrido was walking with two children, to whom Jaycee Dugard gave birth in captivity. The reason for attention to him that gave a lead to the police investigation was the girl’s anxious behavior. It is notable to specify that Dugard spent 18 years in captivity, where she experienced abuse and rape. Overall, Dugard later wrote in her memoir that she suffered every second of her life while she was kidnapped (Dugard 44).
After Phillip Garrido and his wife were arrested, Jaycee Dugard “made her first public statement, read in court by her mother, as the Californian couple was sentenced for kidnapping and rape” (“Jaycee Dugard Kidnap: Victim Rues ‘Stolen Life’” par. 2). Eventually, Phillip Garrido and his wife pleaded guilty, which is why both Dugard and her children did not have to appear in court.
Comparison with various sociological perspectives
The case of the kidnapping of Jaycee Lee Dugard can be observed from a number of different sociological perspectives and interpreted in terms of diverse paradigms. Among functionalist approaches to deviance, violence, and social control, this case is an illustration of Emile Durkheim’s interpretation of social cohesion (Conley 188).
In particular, there are certain patterns that regulate the way people establish social bonds. It is important to underline the fact that Durkheim describes the reason for such bonds as mechanical solidarity, meaning that many relationships between people are base on merely some social mechanics when a bond appears between people from the same social background, rather than on willing decision. In other words, since for Dugard, when she was a teenager, her abuser became a party to her only relationships, it was mechanically predetermined that she would start to relate to him at some point.
The case of Dugard and her abuser is complex because the period of captivity took place during Dugard’s teenage years that were a formative time for her, there is also a possibility of organic solidarity involved (Conley 189). This variation of Durkheim’s vision of social cohesion involves the interdependence of different parts of society or individuals.
In this case, Dugard needed social contacts because the victim was still undergoing the process of socialization. In other words, she did not have a fully formed personality yet, which is why there was an organic necessity for her to relate to her abuser as she was growing up. However, Garrido, who was a convicted sex offender, ‘needed’ his victim to be able to feel social control (Conley 193). In a wider perspective, social control refers to using various means in order to produce normative compliance in other individuals, a type of compliance when individuals or social groups follow imposed or non-imposed norms (Conley 194). However, in the case of Jaycee Dugard’s kidnapping, the criminal attempted to gain psychological control over his victim, who was too young to have an internal locus of control and to resist the pressure.
Overall, according to Durkheim’s approach, given the fact that the victim spent 18 years being solely in the company of her abuse, the fact that she bonded to her kidnappers is just a result of social mechanics and organic causes, such as the need for socialization.
On the other hand, Robert Merton’s strain theory could only be applied to analyze the criminal’s actions in this case on the surface. The main idea of this theory is that “deviance occurs when a society does not give all its members equal ability to achieve socially acceptable goals” (Conley 201). However, the Garrido family did not consist of the outsiders of society because they were not in the state of social anomie. Thus, this theory contrasts with the crime of Jaycee Dugard’s kidnapping.
Symbolic interactionist theories offer a different approach to crime and deviance. The main concepts include differential association, social control, and labeling as an act and as a theory. One of the prominent approaches in this group of different conceptions is the labeling theory (Conley 203). The main idea behind this theory is that “people unconsciously notice how others see or label them, and over time they internalize these labels and come to accept them as truth” (Conley 203). It is significant for the case of Jaycee Dugard’s kidnapping because one of the diary sections in her book revealed how she gradually started to feel gratitude for her kidnappers since they were trying to convince her that no one else would do so much good for her (Dugard 91). A stigma, perhaps, is a more powerful image since it is aimed at creating negative implications of an individual’s identity. In the case of Jaycee Dugard, she was convinced that she had to endure captivity and rape because the Garrido family imposed a negative self-concept on her.
From the postmodernist perspective regarding crime and deviance, it is important to highlight the deterrence theory. In the case of the kidnapping of Jaycee Dugard, the fact that complies with this theory is that Phillip Garrido turned out to be a convicted sex offender, and therefore, this case is another situation of low attendance to social issues that results in recidivism.
Assessment and conclusions
Even though the bond between Jaycee Dugard and her kidnappers seems unlikely from the commonly accepted standpoint, many sociological approaches can explain it exhaustively. It is also important to note that given the fact that the victim spent 18 years being solely in the company of her kidnappers, she had no one also to relate to or to socialize with. The situation is, of course, even more complex, considering that the period of captivity took place during Dugard’s formative years, and her abuser became a party to her only relationships.
Works Cited
Conley, Dalton. You May Ask Yourself. 4th ed. 2015. New York, New, York: Norton & Company Inc. Print.
Dugard, Jaycee. A Stolen Life: A Memoir. New York, New York: Simon and Schuster, 2011. Print.
“Jaycee Dugard Kidnap: Victim Rues ‘Stolen Life.’” BBC News. 2011.