Sex, Drugs, and Deception: Deviance in the Hair Salon Industry

ABSTRACT

The unique organizational structure of the hair salon industry fosters an environment in which multiple factors, including varying levels of status, opportunity, and motivation, can create or constrain possibilities for deviant behavior. Using data from participant observation, personal interviews, and systematic introspection, four categories of deviance emerge: theft, hyper-sexualized interactions, drug/alcohol use, and questionable/illegal business practices. This study uses a classification of workplace crime, occupational deviance, and occupational crime to illustrate how the typology applies to salon deviance and how the structural location within the industry predicts the types of deviance that occur in each salon organizational structure.

ORCID

Angela Barlow http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4257-9423

James Hawdon http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0273-2227

Notes

¹ Occupational deviance is “non-criminal violations of norms within a legitimate occupational setting” (Friedrichs 2002:250). Friedrichs (2002) asserts the ambiguity and interchangeability of the various terms for workplace deviance creates confusion. He differentiates between definitions of workplace crime, occupational deviance, and occupational crime, arguing that each involves variable interaction between structures of opportunity and motivation. Friedrichs (2002) reconceptualizes “workplace crime” as being restricted to conventional forms of crime occurring at the workplace and “occupational crime” as criminal or unethical acts committed in the context of a legitimate occupation for the purpose of individual financial gain. His conceptualization of “occupational deviance” restricts the term to “non-criminal violations of norms within a legitimate occupational setting, with differentiation between violations of norms of the employer, or professional or occupational associations, and of coworkers” (Friedrichs 2002:250).

² Salon Z is located in a mid-sized southeastern city and caters to middle -and upper-middle-class clientele with services ranging from $40 to $300.

³ Another type of self-employed stylist is the sole-proprietor who often has a salon in her or his home. This organizational structure has been omitted from this analysis because these stylists usually work alone and lack social interaction with employers and other stylists.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Angela Barlow

ANGELA BARLOW is Assistant Professor of criminology in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminology at Keene State College. In addition to her work on deviance within the hair industry, her research also explores the production of culture within the beauty industry, as well as investigating the use and meaning of beauty practices among incarcerated women. Additional areas of research include investigating the relationship between recidivism and occupational unemployment rates for the specific types of vocational training programs offered at women’s prisons.

James Hawdon

JAMES HAWDON is a Professor of sociology and the Director of the Center for Peace Studies and Violence Prevention at Virginia Tech. He has published dozens of articles in the areas of crime, violence, policing, drug use, survey research methods, disaster research, and media studies. His book, Drug and Alcohol Use as Functions of Social Structure, won the Adele Mellen Prize for Contributions to Scholarship, and he recently co-edited the Encyclopedia of Drug Policy and The Causes and Consequences of Group Violence: From Bullies to Terrorists. He has been the lead investigator on numerous research projects and is currently involved in research focusing on on-line hate groups and agent-based models of violence.