Abstract
The most influential sociological definition of deviance was issued in 1963 by Howard Becker who emphasized its most important characteristic, not as a property of an act or actor, but as a designation bestowed by a social audience. The sociology of deviance itself had its heyday in the 1960s and 1970s when it appeared to be a serious rival to criminology proper, but it was then eclipsed or sublated to become, for many, not much more than another strand in the larger discipline.