interactionism

 Interactionist Theories?

a perspective that sees our interactions with one another as based on meanings or labels.

interactionist argue people dont become a criminal bc of social background but instead they become a criminal bc of the authories has labled them as one.

They believe crime is only becomes a crime when people lable it as one

labelling theory of crime

 crime is a socially constructed, agents of social control label the powerless as deviant and criminal based on stereotypical assumptions this creates effects such as the self-fulfilling prophecy, the criminal career and deviancy amplification.

For example the act of smoking cannabis only acts as a crime if socciety decides to make a law criminalisising it. 

 

Howard becker

They illustrates how crime is the product of social interactions by using the example of a fight between young people.

 A fight in a low income neighbourhood is viewed by the police as delinquency whilst a fight in a wealthy areas is seen as a sign of high spirits.

The acts are the same, but the meanings given to them by the audience (in this case the public and the police) differ. Those who have the power to make the label stick thus create deviants or criminals.

Differential Enforcement of Law

Interactionists argue that social control agencies such as the police label certain groups as criminal which results in differential enforcement – where the law is enforced more against one group than another.

Piliavin and Briar

Found that police’s decisions to arrest were based on stereotypical ideas about a person's manner, dress, gender, class and ethnicity, and the time and place.

Young males stopped late at night in high-crime areas were more likely to be arrested.

  

Aaron Cicourel

-Found that police use typifications (stereotypes) of the ‘typical delinquent’.

 Working Class and ethnic minority youths are more likely to fit the typification and be stopped, arrested and charged.

Cicourel found that when a middle class youth was arrested, he was less likely to be charged

Edwin Lemert (1972)

believes labelling causes crime and deviance and that by labelling people as such you encourage them to be deviant.

 

Developed the concepts of primary and secondary deviance to emphasise the fact that everyone engages in deviant acts, but only some people are caught being deviant and labelled as deviant

Primary deviance

Acts that are not publicly labelled, often trivial (viewed as unserious or minor ) and mostly go uncaught.  

Those who commit these acts do not usually see themselves as criminals.

Secondary deviance-

This results from labelling as people may treat the offender solely in terms of the label, which becomes their master status.  

This criminal label then overrides all other statuses, such as partner, father, work colleague.

Devience ampliication spiral

refers to how societies methods to stop deviant behaviour, encourages more deviant behaviour which then creates more attempts to control deviant behaviours and leads to more crime and deviance.  

self fulfilling profacy

An individual is labelled and seen as a criminal, they then internalise their label ( start to believe that they are what other people have labelled them as) and start offending because they now see themselves as a criminal. 

The Deviant Career and the Master Status

Howard Becker made a classic statement of how labelling theory can be applied across the whole criminal justice system. Basically the public, the police and the courts selectively label the already marginalised as deviant, which the then labelled deviant responds to by being more deviant.

Howard Becker argued that the deviant label can become a ‘master status’.

master status

the criminal or deviant label stays with them, it's the one thing about an individual that everyone knows about, they are only seen as that label and the individuals deviant identity overrides all other identities.

Interactionism and Crime Statistics*

Interactionists reject the use of crime statistics compiled by the police

-They argue that the statistics measure what the police do rather than what criminal does -If the police stereotype working class males as typical criminals, they will spend more time pursuing this group than middle class white collar criminals

-As a result, the statistics will be full of working class males, simply because of the police’s stereotypes

-Their statistics are therefore just a social construction, not a true measure of the amount of crime

Strengths

Highlights how law enforcement can be discriminatory.

-Shows how labelling can affect policing. -Highlights weaknesses in official statistics which included bias law enforcement. -Highlights the role of the media in creating moral panics and producing folk devils.

weakness

Fails to explain why deviant behaviour happens in the first place.

-There is no acceptance that some people may choose to be deviant.

-Ignores the victim of the crime and focuses on the ‘criminal’.

-There is a potential to romanticize crime or be soft on those who become criminals. -Criminals do not need a label to know they are doing wrong.

- labelling does not always lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy.