CRIME AND DEVIANCE - LABELLING THEORY

What do interactionists think of official statistics?

reject them

What explanations of crime do interactionists reject?

structural causal (eg Functionalist and realist

What kind of approach do interactionists favour?

in depth qualitative apporoaches

What are the statistics for people admitting to committing deviant acts in a 2015 survey of 2000 people?

on average people broke the law 17 times per year

63% admitted to speeding

33% steaing

25% illegal drug taking

What does the fact that most people commit deviant acts show?

only some are caught and stigmatised for it

What is pointless because most people commit deviant acts but only some are stigmatised?

pointless trying to search for differences between deviant and non deviant

Instead of trying to find the difference between deviant and non deviant what should the focus be on?

emphasis should be on the reaction to and definition of deviance rather than the causes of the initial act

What does Becker say about deviancy being in the eye of the beholder?

what is classed as a crime or deviance is based on subjective decisions by moral entrepreneurs, these are agents of social control who decide what behaviours are labelled as deviant or not, how society reacts to the act depends on whether that has been labelled as deviant or not

What is the Becker (1963) quote?

Deviancy is not a quality of the act a person commits but rather a consequence of the application by other others of rules and sanctions to the offender. Deviant behaviour is behaviour that people so label

What are some examples of relative deviance/rule creation?

•Marijuana Tax Act 1930s

•Prohibition 1920s

•Decriminalisation of homosexuality USA (1974)

•Decriminalisation of suicide 1960s

•Children outside marriage (moral imbecility)

When does labelling occur?

•Characteristics are applied to individuals on the basis of descriptions, names or labels.

What are the connotations of labelling?

•Often draw upon common stereotypes

•Usually negative

•May become public knowledge

•For a variety of reason the labelled person then lives up to their label.

•Behaviour is often interpreted negatively.

What is argued within symbolic interactionism?

•The social world consists of symbols that have culturally defined meaning to people and suggest appropriate ways to act.

•Every time 2 or more people interact with each other they amend their behaviour.

•Your self or self concept influences the way that you interact with others.

What does Cicourel (1974) argue about selective enforcement?

Police Stereotypes will determine labels of criminal and deviant.

More likely to be applied to working class offenders then middle class offenders.

What does Cicourel say about law makers?

•They use subjective and stereotypical assumptions

•These judgements lead to official statistics being socially constructed

Why does Cicourel argue that rates of delinquency are higher in working class areas than middle class areas?

•This was because police viewed middle class areas/parents as more supportive, providing ‘good backgrounds’

Temporary lapse where there was middle class crime.

Who does Cicourel think we need to consider the choices of when looking at middle and working class crime?

the police

Who holds the most amount of power to attach deviant labels?

the media

What are examples of formal agencies of social control?

police, CJS, courts

What are examples of informal agencies of social control?

peers, society

What does Stan Cohen (1972/80) talk about?

folk devils and moral panics

How do moral panics begin?

.  It is argued that the media amplify crime and deviance as they demonise deviants and create moral panics

What are Cohen’s examples of a moral panic?

Stan Cohen has shown to be the case with powerless groups such as mods and rockers, football hooligans, single parents etc. 

What is the deviancy amplification spiral similar to?

The deviance amplification spiral is similar to Lemert’s idea of secondary deviance. In both cases, the social reaction to the deviant act leads not to successful control of the deviance, but to further deviance, which in turn leads to greater reaction and so on.

What is a goof example of a folk devil?

mods and rockers

What does Lemert (1974) argue?

Lemert supports Becker’s ideas on the consequences of labelling. He maintains that primary deviance which has not been labelled has few consequences for the individual concerned. However, he claims that once deviance is labelled it becomes secondary and impacts on the individual, e.g. in terms of gaining a master status and later developing a self fulfilling prophecy.

What are the key phrases put forward by Lemert?

primary and secondary deviance

master status and self fulfilling prophecy

deviant careers

What is secondary deviance according to Lemert?

– the response of others to the deviance

The person labelled deviant will eventually develop a master status

What can a master status develop into?

, this is open to negotiation and rejection of the label

This can lead to what Becker called a deviant career (if all accept the label)

How is a deviant career similar to a real career?

, as those rejected become ‘outsiders’. Prisons become areas of punishment and have labels which stick, even after release (ex con). People become unable to shake of stereotypes, and they join groups which support their identity and label.

What do the media amplify in order to create folk devils?

deviant careers

What idea does Jock Young put forward in 1967/9?

deviance amplification spiral

Explain Jock Young’s Notting hill drug takers case study?

1) Police in Notting Hill are susceptible to media stories & stereotypes and as such target these typical ‘folk devils’ regardless of what they have or have not done:

2) Police arrest drug marijuana smokers for minor offences

3) The media sensationlise these stories and thus have their Folk Devil ‘The Drug Taker’ and begin to generate a Moral Panic about ‘Drug Takers’.

4) In response to these stories, the police crack down even harder on these folk devils.

5) This pushes the ‘Drug Takers’ ‘underground’ – this raises police suspicion & pushes the price of drugs up – the police crack down even more harshly (More Media Coverage).

6) The ‘Drug Taker’s’ start resisting arresting arrest, turn to new types of drugs and have to organise themselves better (MORE DEVIANCE)

and the process repeats!

What is Braithwhaite’s disintergrative shaming?

• where the crime and criminal are labelled as bad, and the offender is excluded from society

•Negative

What is Braithwaite’s Reintergrative shaming?

•labels the act but not the actor ‘he has done a bad thing’ not ‘he is a bad person’ (avoids stigmatisation). Person is made aware of the negative impact of their actions and encourages others to forgive them ands accept them back into society.

Where are Braithwaite’s ideas used a lot?

in schools

What does interactionism emphasise?

•Emphasises the social construction of crime and deviance.

What idea regarding normalcy do interacationists reject?

•It rejects the idea that deviants are different to ‘normal’ people

What do Interactionists consider the impact of?

mass media

What do interactionists identify?

•Identifies and reveals the role of the powerful in crime and deviance.

What do interactionists question the effectivness of?

•It questions the effectiveness of policing, the courts and punishment.

Who is to blame for a deviants behaviour?

•Deviant becomes the victim and therefore not to blame for behaviour.

What do interactionists not explain?

why people commit the original crime

What two simple evaluation points can be used for interactionists?

over-romantic and deterministic

What do interactionists not explain about stereotypes?

•Doesn’t explain where the stereotypes come from.

What kind of deviance do interactionists focus too much on?

exotic deviance

What according to other persepctives argue that more attention is needed on?

•More attention needed on the behaviour that produced the label

How can labelling theory be disproved?

•Deviants can adopt identity without being labelled

How would marxists disagree with interactionists?

•Not explore fully capitalism and economic power