Labelling

The emergence of Labelling theory

Challenging positivist criminology

• Positivist criminology assume that crime is an unproblematic concept

  • Legal codes are viewed as the most precise and least ambiguous way of defining crime (Michael and Adler, 1933 p.2)

  • Focus on the characteristics of offenders not the characteristics of the law

• Counter narrative from the late nineteenth century,

  • Marxists/critical thought

• Positive orthodoxy until 1960s

• The foundations of labelling theory can be found in the broader cultural shifts that occurred during the 1960s particularly in the USA

  • The Civil Rights movement

  • Gay rights movement s

  • Women’s rights movements

• Social institutions seen as reinforcing injustices and inequalities rather than protecting liberty and equality

• Marked the beginning of ‘new deviancy’ approaches to crime

  1. Critiqued orthodox criminology

  2. Emphasised the importance of understanding group interaction

  3. Focused on rule making and rule breaking

• A critical view of power relationships defined the new deviancy focus

• Lemert (1967) Human deviance, social problems and social control

Symbolic interactionism:

• Central to new deviancy approaches

  • George Herbert Mead

• Argues that interaction is aided by symbols

• Reality is constructed by individuals and groups

  • How an idea, behaviour or individual is defined is dependent upon time, place and context

• The colour red in Western culture is usually associated with anger or danger

  • We use symbols to express abstract ideas such as emotion

• Such expressions are culturally dependent

  • Although the electromagnetic properties of red are constant the meaning of red is not

  • Meaning is dependent upon the history, traditions and beliefs of specific groups and cultures.

• To understand what crime is, we need to understand how it is constructed

Key points

• New deviance criminology marks a shift in thinking about crime

• Labelling began during the 1960s and is clear challenge to both orthodox criminology and criminal justice more broadly

• Labelling is based on the idea of symbolic interaction

• Labelling theory’s central argument is that crime is constructed

  • To understand this construction we need to firstly understand where rules come from and who rules are applied to

The social construction of deviance

• Defining deviance

  • Deviance is an act that breaks the rules

  • Lemert (1967) refers to such acts as ‘primary deviance’

    • A common occurrence arising in ‘a wide variety of social, cultural and psychological contexts’

    • Most acts of deviance go unnoticed because they are not central to our behaviour

  • As primary deviance is ubiquitous we do not tend to think of ourselves as rule breakers

• A distinction between deviant acts and deviant identities

• Becoming a deviant and adopting a deviant identity requires interaction

  • Social reaction (or interaction) to deviance may prevent or perpetuate further deviance

  • It is the labelling of an act rather than the act itself that is significant

• To be labelled as deviant causes a symbolic reorganisation of our self image as we internalise ideas about our deviance

• Lemert (1967) argued that this process of labelling and symbolic
  recognition leads to acts of ‘secondary deviance’

• Secondary deviance occurs as a result of Labelling

  • Deviant self-identity takes place in a social context

  • Deviance as a ‘role’ employed to defend,
    attack or adjust to the problems of societal reaction

• No longer isolated acts but a defining feature of
  behaviour

  
  

The creation and enforcement of rules:

• Understanding how rules are created and who they are applied to should be our focus

  • The process of Criminalisation

• Howard Becker (1963) Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance

• Individuals and/or groups who seek to impose their beliefs on less powerful
  individuals

  • ‘self-serving’ or ‘altruistic’

  • Regardless the status quo is usually maintained

• “[The disadvantaged] do not always like the means proposed for their salvation” (1963, p. 149)
  1. An issue is identified
  2. Rules are created to address the issue
  3. Rules are applied to specific groups, who become ‘outsiders’

• Power is the defining feature of the labelling process described by Becker (1963)

  • The power to define

  • The power to apply

  • The power to resist

• The application of labels is not inevitable

  • The pre-existing characteristics of the individual underpin the symbolic
    interactionist process

• Jamie Oliver’s ‘Feed Me Better’ and ‘Not for Children’ campaigns

  • Bad for the producers of processed food

  • Good for ‘healthy eating’ advocates

• The creation of new nutritional guidelines [rules] inevitably results in the creation of new deviant outsiders

  • ‘Junk Food Mums’

Key points

• Important to distinguish between deviant acts and deviant identities

• Rules are created via the processes of social interaction

  • Those with power tend to create rules which match their outlook

  • Rule creation can be selfish or altruistic but the outcome is the same

  • Rules are applied according to existing distributions of power

• Rules reinforce social hegemony through the creation of ‘outsiders’

  
  

The consequence of deviant labels

• Tannenbaum (1938) ‘the dramatization of evil’

• The confusion of delinquent act and delinquent actor

• The impact of deviance is further ‘dramatised’ by sanctions

  • Sanctions isolate and stigmatise an individual

• Management of identity (Goffman 1956)

  • Type of Label

  • Actors and institutions involved

• Spoiled identity (Goffman 1963)

• An attribute that is deeply discrediting within a particular social interaction

  • Physical, mental and emotive characteristics

  • Ceremonies of degradation

• Spoilage is compounded by total institutions

  • A shift in the moral career of the individual

• Stigmatised interaction can result in a ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’ (Merton, 1963)

• “In the beginning, a false definition of the situation evoking a new behaviour which makes the original false conception true” (Merton, 1968 p.477)

  • Deviant label to deviant self-identity

  • Individual becomes what the sanctioning process was intended to prevent

  • Deviance is amplified (Wilkins, 1964)

  
  

• Definitional Inconsistency

• Causation unclear

• Preoccupation with the ‘underdog’

• Lack of Empiricism

• Two key propositions:

  1. Official sanction predicts recidivism

  2. Power relationships predict labelling

• Large volume of literature on both

Key Points

• Tannenbaum and Goffman view the labelling process as damaging to individual self-identity

  • Committing a deviant act is secondary to adopting a deviant identity

  • Occurs when act and actor or conflated

  • Stigma cannot be managed

• Official sanctions tend to be stigmatising

  • Ceremonies of degradation

• Management of stigma is keyed to existing power relationships