interactionalism crime Flashcards
what is symbolic interactionism?
interpreting the subjective meanings which people attribute to behaviours, events and objects.
how does labelling theory explain crime and deviance according to Becker?
becker - what makes an act deviant is when it’s labelled as ‘deviant’.
‘deviancy’ is a breach of the norms and values that a community has collectively deemed to be acceptable.
What is social construction?
How society or individuals define a particular thing. This changes over time,place and culture.
what are outsiders?
those who breaks the law
what is the greater social control agencies?
police officers to govern the law
what does the greater social control agencies do?
becker - social conrol agencies may criminalise acts to gain more power or economical gain
who gets labelled?
not everyone that committs a crime is punished for it
a person is either arrested, charged or convicted depending on:
- interaction with agencies of social control such as the polcie and courts
- appearance, background and personal biography
- situation and circumstances of the offence
piliavan and briar study
police decisions to arrest a youth mainly based on their physical appearance, gender and soical class
arrests were higher amoungst ethnic minorities
cicourel study
typification - their idea of what a typical criminal is, led them to concentrate on certain types of people
justice is not fixed by negotion
what does typification lead to?
greater arrests and patrols in areas of those types of people
what are the dark figures of crime?
people who doesnt report or record crimes by the police
what was the implications of cicourels study?
the negotiation of justice - proves that crime stats are socially sonctructed
social control makes decisions about whether or not to proceed to the next stage
gatekeeper prevent cases to be heard
what is the effect of labelling?
they claim that it is society that encourages individuvals to become more deviant
what does lemert argue about the effect of labelling?
secondary deviance, the actor is shamed and stigmatised as a deivant
actor is labelled as deviant, eithers view them in that way - master status - its how they come to view themselves
cohens study on mods and rockers
Mods and rockers are two different youth groups with different styles, tastes, and activities. Cohen examined the societal reaction to deviance committed by mods and rockers to find that media coverage of this deviance was very exaggerated.
By painting an amplified picture of the disturbances caused by these groups, the media led the public to become overly concerned with this form of deviance. The police made more arrests, more youth began to identify as mods or rockers; and similar acts of deviance, such as vandalism, occurred more often.
The deviancy amplification spiral is demonstrated in the fact that unjustly harsh marginalisation of youth by the media and police led the youth to retaliate by engaging in deviance more often. This led to more media attention and hypervigilance from the police and so on.
