Final Push of Class Flashcards
What are the 3 basic premises of Symbolic Interactionism?
- People act according to objects in their lives and the meanings those objects have for them.
- These meaning emerge from interactions among people.
- Meanings are applied and occassionally modified.
-> Came from Chicago School -> environment causes criminality.
What is Howard Beckers view on deviance?
deviance is not a quality of the act a person commits, but rather a consequence of the application by others of rules and sanctions to an “offender”
It is only when those in power apply a label to that behaviour that it becomes criminal.
Example:
- “…the act of injecting heroin into a vein is not inherently deviant.”
- If a nurse gives the patient drugs under a doctor’s orders, it is perfectly proper. It is when it is done in a way that is not publicly defined as proper that it becomes deviant.”
- eg a police car in a police chase, speeding after a car speeding trying to get away is not deviant, but the car trying to get away is deviant.
What is Cooley’s “Looking Glass Self?”
- Cooley originated the idea of the Looking Glass Self
- Central to his concept of identity
- Consists of three elements
- How actors imagine who they appear to others
→ we are constantly monitoring our context/place for clues and cues - How actors believe others judge their appearance
- How actors develop feelings of shame or pride based on these perceptions
- These feelings then guide conduct.
Three Components
- These feelings then guide conduct.
- How actors imagine who they appear to others
- We imagine how we appear to others in social
- We imagine and react to what we feel
- We develop a sense of self through the perceived judgment of others.
- We understand ourselves by considering what others think and drawing conclusions from those thoughts.
What is Social Reaction Theory: Labelling?
- Edwin Lemert - Social Pathology
- Why do some people develop a criminal career?
- Primary Deviation
- Everyone commits deviant acts
- eg stuff where you wake up and you’re like I can’t believe I did that
- Prompts no change in master status.
- Everyone commits deviant acts
- Labelling theorists are not concerned with the criminal act, but with the application of a label to that act.
Those kids who get labelled as troublemakers (by authority figures) then take on that identity → people label them as not good at school, a troublemaker, so they start to see themselves that way.
People who are labelled as bad kids are labelled as such, and when they are caught doing something “bad” it confirms that label. - Secondary Deviation
- Patterned deviance
- Development of a deviant identity
- because its being reflected back to them: eg. when Bob can’t hang out with Jimmy and Jimmy asks why, Bob says, “my parents say you’re a troublemaker”
- Integrated into concept of self
- Realignment of self concept
- then has an impact on who you associate with
- Association with deviant groups
What was Lemert’s Errant Student?
- A child plays a prank in class and is admonished by their teacher
- Later the child accidently causes another disturbance and is admonished once again.
- Because the individual has caused repeated disturbances, the teacher begins to refer to them as “trouble maker”
- The child becomes resentful of the label and may act out in consequence – fulfilling the role others expect
- Especially if there is a certain status among a group of peers that play that role
- This group of peers form their subculture where deviant b/h is not only encouraged, but expected
What is the impact of groups on Secondary Deviation?
- Individuals who become part of a deviant group as a result of labelling:
- Makes being deviant easier
- Find like situated individuals
- Acquire rationalizations
If we know the impacts of labels, what are the criminal justice policy implications?
- Interactionism centres on what happens to criminals once their deviant activities commence.
- Some groups or individuals have power to force the deviant label on the less powerful
- The deviance is not a quality of an act, but a label.
- Primary deviance → initial act of rule breaking that isn’t responded to
- Secondary deviance → what happens once a person is labelled and how they act after receiving this label → you come to see yourself as that label.
- We could emphasize rehabilitation → within the CJS
- We could redefine what it means to be a criminal.
- Becker and others: we ought to define deviance up.
- Eg. shoplifting is sth that is really minor on the continuum of criminality
- when it comes to these minor forms of crime and criminality we should not respond to them by criminal label.
- we do not want thee ppl who are first time, not serious offenders to be criminalized and have that effect their whole lives.
What are the criminal justice implications of social reaction theory – especially among young people?
- Defining Deviance Up: Diversion
- argues CJS does the opposite of what it is intended to do → causes crime → by putting first time offenders in the CJS for minor crime and criminality → it will have an impact on that individual’s identity and where they go in their lives
- diversion diverts the criminal out of the criminal justice system
- eg. person gets charged by the police, then given conditional discharge → eg. if they do 20 hrs community service, write a letter of apology, they will not get a criminal record → will avoid the CJS
- aka Post Charge Diversion
- critics argue this still has an impact on people’s lives → people know when someone is arrested.
- pre-charge diversion → give them a warning instead of arresting them → eg. make them write a letter of apology and 10 hrs of community service
- If you don’t do it the charge is reinstated and you go through the CJS
Strain Theories relates crime to what?
variables such as cultural goals and the access to opportunities provided by society.
What is the central concept in interactionist theories of crime?
the deviant career, or the passage of an individual through the stages of one or more related deviant identities.
- This idea is at the heart of labelling theory, which explains how the social response to initial, tentative acts of deviance can move a person (not always willingly) towards a deviant identity and a deviant career.
What is Labelling Theory?
according to labelling theory, deviance is a quality not of the act but of the label that others attach to it. This raises the question of who applies the label and who is labelled. The application of a label and the response of others to the label may result in a person becoming committed to a deviant identity.
- But some deviants escape public detection of their behaviour. Some who have not deviated are nonetheless labelled as having done so, despite their protests to the contrary.
What does a career mean in terms of deviance?
a career, be it in deviance or in a legitimate occupation, is the passage of an individual through recognized stages in one or more related identities.
What did Sampson and Laub find about crime?
- found that crime declined with age sooner or later for all the offender groups they studied.
- Within that pattern, however, Short (1990) noted that careers in youth crime are likely to be prolonged after certain turning points have been reached.
- One of these turning points is an early interest in delinquent activities; another is an interest in drugs.
- The inability to find legitimate employment, a career contingency, also contributes to continued criminality.
- Type of offence has been found unrelated to length of career in youth crime.
What two important concepts did Lemert contribute to the study of deviant careers?
primary deviation and secondary deviation.
What is Lemert’s “Primary Deviation?”
- occurs when an individual commits deviant acts but fails to adopt a primary self-identity as a deviant.
- produces little change in one’s everyday routine or lifestyle.
- the individual engages in deviance infrequently, has few compunctions about it, and encounters few practical problems when performing it.
- eg. a person who out of curiosity occasionally takes an opiod drug supplied by sb else exemplifies primary deviation.
Few young people have strong value comittment to deviant norms and identities; instead they drift (a psychological state of weak normative attachment to either deviant or conventional ways) between the world of respectability and that of deviance.
- During the primary deviation stages of a deviant career, young offenders and young adults drift, in part bc they lack the value commitment to either conventional or deviant values.
What is Lemert’s “Secondary Deviation”?
occurs when an individual accepts the label of deviant. The result is adoption of deviant self-identity that confirms and stabilizes the deviant lifestyle.
- Much human behaviour is situationally oriented and geared to meeting the many and shifting claims which others .
What are Moral Rhetorics?
in the study of crime, this is the set of claims and assertions deviants make to justify their deviant behaviour. The moral rhetoric of a group is an important component of socialization into a deviant identity.
- Each rhetoric consists of a set of largely taken-for-granted guiding principles, sometimes logically inconsistent and always electively applied according to the social situations in which youths find themselves.
What is Stigma?
- As used by Erving Goffman (1922-82), a personal characteristic that is negatively evaluated by others and thus distorts and discredits the public identity of the individual. For example, a prison record may become a stigmatized attribute. The stigma may lead to the adoption of a self-identity that incorporates the negative social evaluation.
- a black mark, or disgrace, associated with a deviant identity.
- it is a collective construction by agents of social control, and by ordinary members of the community, of the supposed nature of the unlawful act and the person perpetrating it.
- Goffinman (1986) and Phelan (2001): the collective image of stigma is constructed from social, physical, or psychological attributes the deviant is believed to possess.
Who are Agents of Social Control?
- Those members of society who help check deviant behaviour are known as agents of social control.
- Includes the police, judges, lawmakers, prison personnel, probation and parole officers, and ordinary citizens with an active interest in maintaining law and order as they define it.
Who are ‘Moral Entrepreneurs”?
Someone who defines new rules and laws or who advocates stricter enforcement of existing laws. Often such entrepreneurs have a financial or organizational interest in particular definitions or applications of law.
- Rule creator and rule enforcer.
- prototype of the rule creator, according to Becker, is the crusading reformer, whose dissatisfaction with existing rules is acute and therefore campaigns for legal change and sometimes for attitudinal change intended to lead to “proper” behaviour.
- moral entrepreneurs also enforce legislated rules, applying them to people who misbehave.
- Application of the label of deviance is sometimes biased.
When does Deviance become Secondary?
- Deviation becomes secondary when deviants see that their behaviour has substantially modified their ways of living.
- Accusations of deviance are typically the most influential factor behind the redefinition of one’s deviant activities.
- By labelled by the authorities as a murderer, rapist, prostitute, or cheque forger and being sanctioned for such behaviour forces the deviant to change his or her lifestyle drastically.
- so can feelings of guilt but accusations or deviance are typically most influential.
Lemert (1072): “this secondary deviant… is a person whose life and identity are organized around the facts of deviance.”
What is Master Status and what is its role in Secondary Deviance?
Among the factors leading to secondary deviation is society’s tendency to treat someone’s criminality as a master status (Becker) - a status overriding all others in perceived importance. Whatever other personal or social qualities individuals possess, they are judged primarily by this one attribute. Criminal exemplifies a master status that influences the communities identification of an individual.
- Lack of success in attaining respectability among nondeviants, or a perceived low probability of achieving it, may lead to interaction with other deviants.
- Becker: individuals who gain entrance to a deviant group often learn from that group how to cope with the problems associated with their deviance.
- makes being a deviant easier.
- Furthermore, the deviant acquires rationalizations for his or her values, attitudes, and behaviours, which come to full bloom in the organized group.
- The amount of interaction between individuals suspected of deviant behaviour and agents of social control, and the forms these interactions take, are extremely important for the future course of a deviant career.
- In fact, such interactions constitute a major set of deviant career contingencies.
What is a “Career Contingencies”
- an unintended event, process or situation that occurs by chance, beyond the control of the person pursing the career.
- Career contingencies emanate from changes in the deviant’s environment or personal circumstances, or both.
- Cohen (1965): Alter (the agents of social control) responds to the action of ego (the deviant).
- Ego, in turn, responds to alter’s reaction. Alter then responds to his perception of ego’s reaction of him; and so forth.
What is “continuance commitment?”
Another prominent contingency in secondary deviation is continuance commitment.
- aka adherence to a criminal or other identity arising from the unattractiveness or unavailability of alternate lifestyles.
- Continuance commitment helps explain a person’s involvement in a deviant identity.
- continuance commitment explains the identity by describing the penalties accrued from renouncing the deviant identity and trying to adopt a conventional identity.
- Eg. Stebbins study of male, nonprofessional property offenders in Newfoundland revealed a number of commitment-related penalties of both types.
- Being ex-offenders with prison records, the men in the study had difficulty finding jobs within their range of personally acceptable alternatives. The work they found was onerous, low in pay, and low in prestige.
- Many men had amassed sizable debts before going to prison, which upon release tended to discourage return to a conventional livelihood.
- The man with a criminal record was often inclined to seek the company of those who understood him best—other criminals—and to seek the way of life that afforded him at least some money and excitement—crime.