Ch. 5 - Labelling Theory

Labelling Perspective

Not a way of behaving but is, instead, the way a behaviour is labelled. What constitutes deviant behaviour changes over time. Relationship between the offender and those with power to label. The criminal justice system possess alot of power to label people.

• Emerged in the 1960s.

• The theory that crime and criminal behaviour are a social process.

• Focus of concern is with the nature of the interaction between “offender,” “victim,” and criminal justice “officials.”

• Challenges the positivist criminology theory with not a social consensus, but rather a pluralistic viewpoint.

  • Shift from a geometric circle to a triangle, or a square orientation.

• Linked to symbolic interactionism, phenomenology and ethnomethodology, social psychology.

Labelling Perspective Emergence

Began to emerge in the late 1950s, during the change of the movements occurring in the 1960s. Influenced by the movements in the US (civil rights movement, women’s liberation, LGBTQ rights, resistance to the Vietnam War).

• Builds on sociological positivism.

  • Agrees that society is the key factor in understanding criminal behavior.

  • But that there are separate values and norms under one culture.

• Significant change in the US against economic and political movements. Cultural shift (social norms, older and younger conflict, media influence).

Conformity

A term used by Robert Merton to refer to acceptance of cultural goals and the legitimate or approved means of achieving them.

Social Order

A set of linked social institutions, social structures, and social practices that maintain and enforce “normal” ways of relating and behaving.

Youth Culture

A culture explained either by factors in the experience of adolescence or by the manipulation of young people’s spending and leisure through advertising and other mass media.

• The functional separation of home, school, and work supposedly makes teenagers increasingly distinct from adults and subject to peer-group influence rather than parent and other adult influences.

Movements that Challenged the Concept of Consensus

1. Youth culture (rock and roll, Elvis Presley - 1950s)

2. Second wave of feminism (liberation movement)

3. American Civil Rights Movement (Martin Luther King Jr. Malcom X)

One consequence of these great movements for change and reform was that social scientists started to rethink their conceptions of society, social order, and deviancy.

Characteristics of Labelling Theory

• Crime is defined by social action and reaction. By those who have the power to label.

• Relationship between the offender and those with the power to label.

• Stigmatization and negative effects of labelling.

  • Includes primary and secondary deviance.

• Decriminalization and radical non-intervention.

  • Restorative Justice.

  • Greater tolerance and minimal intervention.

  • Avoid formal processes where able, diversion from the formal system.

Theorist Associated with Labelling Theory

• George H. Mead (Symbolic Interactionist)

• Edwin Lemert (primary and secondary deviance)

• Howard Becker (deviance is a social reaction)

Measurement of Crime

A process in which the particular actions of certain people are defined by those in power within the criminal justice system as being “deviant” or “criminal.”

Self Concept (Self)

Psychological Framework

This concept may be considered the foundation of symbolic interactionism.

• Self: How people see themselves. Does not simply respond to events but it is built through social interaction. Self is frequently shifting.

• Influenced by the labelling process as stigma, which sticks to the offenders and affects how others see them, which affects how they see themselves.

• Change in behavior occurs after the label has been given. A justification for participation in negative subcultures.

Stigma & Labelling Theory

A term used by Erving Goffman to mean a powerfully negative label that radically changes a person’s self-concept and social identity.

• Labelling theory has been found to occur in those that have been racially marginalized, as well as experienced poverty.

Consequences of Labelling

Some people have power to label, which can lead to the stigmatization of other people.

• Person being labelled can take of the prescribed label.

  • Effects how offenders see themselves, and they may conform with things such as “criminal,” “deviant,” “gang member,” etc.

  • Can lead to an increase in crime.

  • Can lead to finding others that feel similar (gangs, supremacy groups, etc.).

• Can increase the likelihood of someone to reoffend.

• By the time someone reaches the criminal justice system, they may have already undergone extensive negative labelling in society (e.g. school, at home, in community).

Symbolic Interactionist

A sociological perspective that stresses the way societies are created through the interaction of individuals. Looking at everyday interactions and the meanings that people attach to things. People interpret interactions by reading symbols, gestures or words around them.

• George H. Mead (1863–1931), a founder saw interaction as creating and re-creating the patterns and structures that bring society to life.

  • Meanings are not fixed.

  • Meaning come from interaction.

  • People interpret before acting.

  • The self is socially constructed.

  • Related to symbols and their meanings.

Radical Non-Intervention

Solution to Crime

Less serious offences, should not warrant arrest, court appearance, and incarceration.

• Rather, the response should be based on the principle of (radical) non-intervention, or at least minimal intervention.

• There may be calls to decriminalize certain “victimless” or “nonpredatory” activities to reduce the possibility of unwarranted or unnecessary stigmatization.

Symbol

An object, a character, or a concrete representation of an idea, a concept, or an abstraction. Anything that carries meaning, such as:

• Language and words

• Gestures (eye contact, body language)

• Labels (e.g., “criminal,” “student,” “leader”)

• Clothing, uniforms, status markers (material objects)

Looking-Glass Self (O-J-SP)

3 Parts

Your image of yourself is simply what you see of yourself reflected in those around you. The self concept can change due to other people’s perceptions. There are three steps.

1. OTHERS: We imagine how others see us. (“How do I look to them?”)

2. JUDGEMENT: We imagine how others judge us (“Do they think I’m smart, awkward, capable?”)

3. SELF PERCEPTION: How do we perceive ourselves based on those judgements: We develop feelings and self-concept (Pride, confidence, shame, insecurity, etc.)

Over time, these reactions shape who we think we are.

• A teenager is caught shoplifting once. Teachers, parents, and police begin treating them as “a criminal.” They start believing that’s who they are. They begin hanging out with delinquent peers and committing more crimes.

Typifications

The process of using symbols and idealized mental models to classify people.

When others treat us according to those classifications, we may internalize them through the looking-glass self, shaping who we believe we are.

A teen wearing baggy clothes is:

• Seen through the symbol (appearance)

• Placed into a typification (“delinquent youth”)

• Treated with suspicion

• Begins to see themselves as deviant

The symbol becomes the self based off how they are treated in society.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy (4 Process Steps)

NL / S / NI / CNI

Once a person has been labelled a particular kind of person, he or she is liable to be treated in a different way from others. The person being labelled may start to conform to this sense of identity. Labelling perspectives tend to be based on this professional model.

This general process can be represented as follows:

1. Negative Labelling: Assigning someone a label, or identity based on information, or perceptions.

2. Stigmatization: Creating perceptions and stereotypes of someone.

3. New Identity: This is often formed in response to negative labelling.

4. Commitment to New Identity: This can be based on available roles and relationships that someone already has.

Social Construction of Reality Two Major Questions

• How do individuals come to be labelled deviant or criminal?

• How do individuals come to be committed to a deviant or criminal label and, ultimately, career?

Deviancy itself can be the result of the interactive process involving individuals and the criminal justice system.

Self-Report and Victim Surveys

A method for measuring crime involving the distribution of detailed questionnaires to a sample of people, asking them if they have committed a crime during a particular period of time.

Indicates that crime and victimization are found in all social classes and across gender and ethnic boundaries. Crucial issues are

1. Who gets labelled by whom?

2. What are the consequences of this labelling?

Primary Deviance

Refers to initial deviant behaviour. Most of us, at some stage in our development, engage in activities regarded as deviant (e.g., underage drinking, smoking marijuana, petty shoplifting), but we do so because of a wide variety of social, cultural, and psychological reasons.

• Deviance is seen as a temporary and passing event.

• Quickly forgotten, unimportant, and goes unnoticed.

• We do not alter out self-concept or undergo a psyche change related to symbolic reorientation or transformation (e.g., we do not see ourselves as a drunk, a pothead, or a thief).

• Little is researched on the primary causes of deviant behavior.

Secondary Deviance

Main focus of labelling perspectives is with secondary deviation. This occurs when the individual engages in some kind of primary deviation (e.g., shoplifting) and there is an official reaction to that behaviour (e.g., the police are called in).

• If the police apprehend a person, that person may be officially labelled as “deviant” (e.g., “young offender”).

• Reorganized their behavior and personality around the consequences of the deviant act. Alters their perception of self.

• The individual may begin to employ a deviant behaviour or role based on this new status.

• Firmly locked into their deviant role, and seek out others with the same labels.

• Person experiences a fundamental reorientation of his or her self-concept, and in turn his or her behaviour.

Cultural Criminology

A criminological perspective that explains crime as a cultural and emotional expression of identity and resistance.

Deviant subcultures, the symbolic criminalization of popular culture forms, and the mediated construction of crime and crime control issues.

• Developed, in part, out of the new criminology emerging in Britain during the 1970s.

• Example: Artists create music describing violence, street life, and survival. Authorities may see this as promoting crime.

  • This theory observes this as what is being expressed and what emotions are being voiced. Music can be a powerful tool in oral storytelling, reputation building, empowerment and visibility within a society that may otherwise repress those individuals.

Phenomenological Theory

Study of individuals lives experiences and perceptions of criminal behavior. Values of personal experiences and interpretations as central to understanding criminal activity. Relate to cultural criminology and symbolic interactionism.

Integration of cultural criminology.

• Depends on how people define the situation.

• Crime as a subcultural expression (dissatisfaction of the status quo).

  • Rejects biological or statistical explanations.

• Micro-lev approach. Focuses on an individual and not social structures.

Example: A teenager sells drugs because their family has no money. They have to do this to provide for siblings, be responsible and survive. For them this is perceived as a necessity and not a crime, based off their lived experience.

Ontological

The study of the categories or an inventory of things that exist or may exist in a specific domain.

Each special science is said to have its own ontology. In sociology, for example, the ontology includes people, institutions, relations, norms, practices, structures, and roles, depending on the theory under consideration.

Negative Labelling Consequences

Harmful tags placed on people that define them as deviant or criminal and can shape how they see themselves and how others treat them. This can lead to things such as:

• Change self-identity: People may start to see themselves through the label (typification, looking glass self).

• Affect treatment by others: Increased suspicion, exclusion, or punishment.

• Create a self-fulfilling prophecy: The person acts in ways that match the label.

• Lead to secondary deviance: Continued or escalated deviance after being labeled.

Criticism of Labelling Theory

• Does not explain why people offend in the first place (primary deviation).

  • Concentration is instead placed on social reactions to deviant behavior.

• Perspective that explains negative consequences of the system, as opposed to a legitimate theory.

  • Power possessed at the institutional level (e.g. courts, police officer).

• Hard to explain things like murder and other serious offences, as a first offences (when no labelling has occurred up to that point).

• Understanding of crime as a cross-cultural crime, how is it subjective to all of these different cultures?

• Some people are labelled and it has no effect, and some are labelled and it has a crippling effect.

  • How do these reactions differ so greatly from person to person?

Difference From Labelling Theory to Classical & Positivist

Labelling theory was the first time that the notion of a consensus in society was challenged by criminologists and sociologists.

• Focuses on how social reactions and negative labels create criminal identities, rather than through rational choice or biological and psychological causes.

  • Classical: Why people choose crime (rational choice, pleasure-pain principle)?

  • Positivist: What causes crime (biological or psychological defects that can be cured)?

  • Sociological: What environment causes crime?

  • Labelling: Who gets labeled criminal and why (How does society assign labels to people)?

Questions Asked in Labelling Theory

• What are the characteristics of labels and their variations and forms?

• What are the sources of labels, both societally and personally?

• How and under what conditions do labels get applied?

• What are the consequences of labelling?

Crime is seen as a process. Becoming successfully labelled as “criminal” involves taking on a negative label that is primarily applied by the criminal (or juvenile) justice system.

System is full of symbols, or cues, that denote who is criminal (the one in the dock) and who sits in judgment on them (those on a raised platform, the judge or magistrate).

Social Construction of Reality

What we define as “crime,” “deviance,” and “criminal” is not purely objective or fixed. It is created through social interaction, cultural beliefs, power relations, and institutions. - Crime is socially shaped, and is fluid with times.

• Associated with sociologists Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann.

• Reality is produced and maintained through everyday social processes.

• Example:

  • Laws change over time on what is considered criminal (e.g. weed legalization).

Symbolic Interactionalism Example

When there are positive words associated with someone, this can increase self-efficacy, and the self-esteem of the person.

• This includes words such as smart, beautiful, helpful, hard working, kind.

Whereas when negative words are associated with someone, they can start to believe the words, and reduce their self-image. This increases the negative sense of self image.

• This includes stupid, delinquent, troublemaker, lazy, Excon, drug addict, outcast, antisocial, suspicious, negative, withdrawn, etc.

• Media can look for the confirmation of these attributes from people that knew an offender. Confirming negative traits that can be used to label and confirm labelling of offenders.

Two Effects of Labelling

Criminologists in this field are most concerned with two effects of labelling.

1. Creation of stigma: Secondary Deviance. Label redefines the entire person. People react to the master status of the label, and what it represents, even if it is not their real personality.

2. Effect on self image: Looking glass self.

Hands Off Attitude (Radical Nonintervention)

Crime Prevention

Argued by Matza (1964). No formal official sanctions for some crimes, so that people can drift back into conventional societal behavior. What stops people from drifting back is that official intervention that provides people with an official label.

• Creates additional barriers between traditional society and the sub society.

• Important to avoid especially with youth.

• Unless it is very severe, radical non-intervention should occur.

• Goal should be to reintegrated back into conformity.

• Restortative Justice Frameworks, and Reintegrative Shaming Frameworks stem from this.

  • Comes from Indigenous justice models.

Young Offenders Act (1984)

Put in place to protect youths identity from being publicly shared. Canadian society works to be more protective over the youth, than adults.

• Allow them to reintegrate more successfully within society, and to avoid some of the shame that comes with that labelling.

• Protection of RCMP data related to youth.