INTERACTIONALISM Flashcards
In a nutshell, what is the interactionalist perspective of crime?
Interactionists focus on the social construction of crime, where an act only becomes deviant when labelled as such. However not every act or criminal is labelled, labelling is selectively in forced.
Who are the sociologists who describe how crime is socially constructed, and what other factor creates the social construction of crime?
Becker
Cicourel
Official statistics
According to Becker, how is crime socially constructed?
Claims the law has two effects; the creation a group of outsiders (outlaws or deviants) and the variation of a social control agency (police)
Social control agencies are what define deviance
According to Becker, what factors depend on who gets labelled?
Not everyone who commits an offence is punished for it, whether a person is arrested or chanrged depends on factors:
- Their appearance, background
- The situation and circumstances
- Interaction with the agencies of social control
According to Cicourals perspective of the negotiation of justice, how is crime socially constructed?
Officers typification- focusing on certain areas because of their stereotypes
Leads police to patrol w/c areas more intently resulting in more w/c arrests and confirming the stereotypes. E.g, the idea broken homes cause delinquency
According to Cicoural’s why do middle class youth get away with crime?
Because their parents negotiate successfully on their behalf, convincing social agencies that the child is sorry
How does Cicourel feel about statistics and how they should be used?
We should treat them as a topic to investigate, not take them at face value as they don’t give us a valid picture of the pattern of crime
How are official statistics socially constructed according to interactionists?
Agencies of social control make the decision on whether or not to proceed through all stages of the criminal justice system.
The statistics produced by the criminal justice system only tell us about the activity of the police and prosecutors rather than the amount of crime in society
What is the dark figure of crime?
The difference between the official statistics and the real rate of crime. The crimes that go undetected or unreported or unrecorded
Give examples of alternative statistics sociologists can use instead of official statistics?
Victim surveys
Self report studies
These gain a more accurate view of the amount of crime
Why are alternative statistics limited?
People may forget, conceal or exaggerate
Who are the interactionist sociologists that discuss the effects of labelling?
Lemert: Types of deviance
Braithwaite: Types of shaming
Lemert distinguishes two types of deviance, what are they?
Primary deviance: acts that aren’t publicly labelled because they’re pointless, e.g, fare dodging
Secondary deviance: the deviant acts and gets publicly labelled. Once the individual is labelled they are only recognised as that label. ‘He is a bad person’, rather than ‘he did a bad thing’.
What study does Lemert use to support his concept of secondary deviance, and what sociologist did this study?
Young: Study on hippy mariguana users in Notting Hill
Drugs were there lifestyle and was an example of primary deviance. However persecution and labelling by the control culture, the police, led to the hippies to see themselves as outsiders and develop a deviant subculture. Therefore attracting further attention from police- shows its not just the act but the reaction that creates deviance
Braithwaite outlines a positive function of the labelling, what are the two types of shaming he describes?
Disintegrative shaming
Reintegrative shaming
What is disintegrative shaming according to Braithwaite
Is where not only the crime is labelled criminal but also the person. The punishment isolates the individual and causes secondary deviance
What is reintegrative shaming?
Is labelling the act but not the actor and they are punished in a way that strengthens their bond with society
Why does Braithwaite believe reintegrative shaming is better than disintegrative shaming?
Reintegrative shaming avoids stigmatising the offender as evil while also maintaining them aware of the negative impacts of their actions and encouraging others to forgive them.
It stops them turning to secondary deviance, he argues that countries using reintegrative shaming tend to have lower crime rates
How can you criticise the labelling theory?
Give the offenders some kind of victim status
Deviant acta are acts against the social norms, people know they’r deviant before they are labelled
Women and elderly crimes are ignores so they might not be recorded
Fails to explain why people comitt crimes in the first place
