2. Interactionism and labelling theory Flashcards
what do labelling theorists and becker describe deviance as
- labelling theorists say no act is deviant until it is labelled as such. deviance is in the eye of the beholder
- Becker says a deviant is someone to whom the label has been successfully applied
what are moral entrepreneurs and what do they do
- they lead a moral crusade to create a new law. this has two effects
1. the creation of outsiders who break the new rule
2. the creation/expansion of a social control agency to enforce the law - Platt: juvenile delinquency was created by a campaign by victorian moral entrepreneurs to protect young people
what leads to changes in the law/ new laws
- social control agencies may campaign for a change in the law to increase their own power
- the efforts of powerful people to make a behaviour unacceptable rather than the harmfulness of the act itself is what leads to new laws being created
who gets labelled
Piliavin and briar: police decisions to arrest a youth were based on physical cues, class gender & ethnicity and time & place
cicourel: the negotiation of justice
- Cicourel found that officers’ typifications made them focus on w/c people and areas leading to more arrests and confirmation of stereotypes
- justice isn’t fixed but negotiable eg m/c youths who are arrested are less likely to be charged
cicourel’s views on official crime statistics
they don’t give us a valid picture of the patterns of crime and should be used as a topic of investigation
the social construction of crime statistics
- crime stats are socially constructed. they only tell us the activities of the police and prosecutors rather than the amount of/who commits crimes
- the difference between official stats and the real rate of crime is the dark figure
- alternative stats like self report methods will gain a more valid picture on crime but have limitations eg exaggerating, lying or hiding info.
primary and secondary deviance
Lemert says primary deviance refers to acts that haven’t been publicly labelled. offenders can rationalise them and they have little impact on their self concept.
Secondary deviance results from societal reaction eg public humiliation and exclusion. The person is seen in terms of the label which becomes their master status. This causes crises for their self concept due to a SFP of having to live up to the label. Further deviance caused by this is secondary deviance.
young’s study in deviance + a critique
studied hippy marijuana users who prioritised drugs- primary deviance
persecution and labelling made them see themselves as outsiders, creating a SFP. they formed a deviant subculture which led to secondary deviance
x Downes and Rock say we can’t predict whether someone who’s been labelled will follow a deviant career because they can always choose not to deviate further.
what is the deviance amplification spiral
a process in which the attempt to control deviance leads to more deviance
Cohen’s folk devils and moral panics study
- press exaggeration and distorted reporting of the mods and rockers’ disturbance caused a moral panic.
- police did more arrests and courts made penalties harsher which caused an upward spiral of deviance amplification
- the demonisation of the mods and rockers by calling them folk devils led to further marginalisation and more deviance
lemert: social control and deviance
- Lemert says that rather than the functionalist view that deviance leads to social control, social control actually leads to deviance
labelling and criminal justice policy
- Triplett: young offenders are seen as evil and ther is a lower tolerance of minor deviances in the US
-Labelling theory says that negative labels leads to deviant careers - to reduce deviance we should
1. enforce fewer rules for people to break
2. avoid publicly naming and shaming people
braithwaite: 2 types of shaming
- disintegrative shaming is where the crime and criminal are labelled as bad, leading to exclusion
- reintegrative shaming is where the act rather than the actor is labelled as bad and encourages others to forgive them. the offender can be readmitter into society which reduces the risk of secondary deviance.
- crime rates are lower in places where reint rather than disint shaming is used.
suicide: the sociology of deviance
- Douglas: suicide stats are socially constructed. They tell us the activities of those who construct them rather than the suicide rate. We need to use qualitative methods to get behind the labels that coroners attach to deaths.
- Atkinson: official stats are socially constructed. Certain modes, locations and circumstances of death were seen as typical of suicides when he looked at the assumptions made by coroners
x Atkinson says we can only interpret the social world rather than having real facts so we have no reason to believe his views
