Interactionism and Labelling theories Flashcards
1
Q
what is the labelling theorist approach
A
- they ask why and how some people and actions become to be labelled as criminal/ deviant + the effects of this on those who are labelled
- instead of accepting official statistics as a valid picture of crime, they regard them as social constructs
- their social constructionist view applies to crime + deviance - crime is the product of interactions between a suspect + police, rather than another reason such as wider social structures like blocked opportunities
2
Q
do labelling theorists believe criminals are inherently deviant
A
- no
- LTs argue that no act is inherently criminal/ deviant - it only becomes so when others label it as such
- it is not the nature of the act that makes it deviant, but the nature of society’s reaction to the act
3
Q
what is an example of Becker’s moral entrepreneurs
A
- Platt: the idea of ‘juvenile delinquency’ was originally created as a result of a campaign by upper-class Victorian moral entrepreneurs aimed to protect young people at risk
- this est ‘juveniles’ as a separate category of offender with their own CJS + allowed the state to extend its powers into ‘status offences’ - where their behavior is only an offence because of their age status - e.g. sexual activity
4
Q
outline Becker’s view of moral entrepreneurs
A
- Becker uses the term ‘moral entrepreneurs’ to describe people who lead a moral campaign to change the law
- this new law brings 2 effects:
1) the creation of a new groups of ‘outsiders’ - outlaws/ deviants who break the law
2) the creation/ expansion of a social control agency (e.g. police, courts) to enforce the rule + impose labels on offenders - social control agencies may also campaign for a change in law to increase their own powers - e.g. Marijuana Tax Act 1937 (criminalized M use)
5
Q
what factors effect whether a person is arrested, charged + convicted
A
- their interactions with agencies of social control
- their appearance, background and personal biography
- the situation + circumstances of the offence
6
Q
what do labeling theorists say about how laws are applied + enforced
A
- agencies of social control are more likely to label certain groups of people as deviant/ criminal
- Piliavin + Briar: police decisions to arrest youth were mainly based on physical cues (e.g. manner + dress) from which they made judgments about their character from
- decisions were also influenced by gender, class, ethnicity, time + place
- e.g. those stopped late at night in high crime areas were at a greater risk of being arrested
7
Q
outline Cicourel’s negotiations of justice
A
- officers’ decisions to arrest are influenced by their stereotypes about offenders
- Cicourel: officers’ ‘typifications’ (pre-conceived notions) led them to concentrate on certain ‘types’ of people
- this led to class bias - WC people fitted police typifications most closely - leading to higher surveillance in WC areas, more arrests, confirmation of stereotypes
- other agents of social control reinforce this bias - e.g. by probation officers who held the commonsense theory that juvenile delinquency was caused by broken homes
- C also argues justice isnt fixed, but negotiable - as different people are charged to varying degrees - e.g. white MC female vs Black WC man
7
Q
outline the social construction of crime statistics
A
- Interactionists see official crime stats as socially constructed
- at every stage of the CJS, agents of social control make decisions on whether to progress to the next stage - the outcome depends on the label attached to individual suspects/ defendants
- thus, official crime stats produced by the CJS only inform us about the activities of the police + prosecutors - rather than the amount of crime out there in society/ who commits it - e.g. state crimes
- this reflects the decisions made by agents at the different ‘decision gates’ / stage sin the CJS
7
Q
outline topic versus resource
A
- Cicourel’s study shows how official crime statistics recorded by the police don’t give a valid picture of patterns of crime + cannot be used a resource
- instead, they should be a topic for sociologists to investigate - official stats must be taken at face value, the process of their creation should be studied
- this would shed light on the activities of control agencies + how their label certain types of people as criminal
8
Q
what is a dark figure of crime
A
- dark figure of crime = the difference between the official stats + the ‘real’ rate of crime - we don’t know for certain how much crime goes undetected, unreported and unrecorded
9
Q
what are alternative statistics
A
- alternative statistics = some sociologists use victim surveys or self report studies to gain a more accurate picture of crime - but they have severe limitations
- e.g. people may forget, conceal or exaggerate when asked if they have committed a crime
9
Q
outline Lemert’s view of primary deviance
A
- Lemert distinguishes between primary + secondary deviance
- primary deviance = deviant acts that haven’t been publicly labelled
- L argues its pointless to seek the causes of primary deviance, as its so widespread + unlikely to have a single cause, and are often trivial - e.g. fare dodging
- these acts aren’t part of an organized deviant way of life, so are easily rationalized + have little significance in an individuals status
10
Q
outline Young’s study of secondary deviance + deviant careers
A
- Young uses the ideas of secondary deviance + deviant careers in hi study of marijuana users in Notting Hill
- initially, drugs weren’t in mainstream hippy lifestyles - but on the peripheral (primary deviance)
- it was the persecution and labelling by the control culture (police/ CJS) which led the hippies to increasingly see themselves as outsiders
- they retreated into closed groups where they formed a deviant subculture - wearing long hair, drug use became a central activity - this attracted further police attention + created a SFP
10
Q
outline Lemert’s concept of master status/ secondary deviance
A
- some deviance results from labelling - e.g. secondary deviance
- being caught + publicly shamed as a criminal involves being stigmatized, shamed, humiliated, shunned + excluded from society
- once an ind is labelled it can become their master status, overriding all others - in eyes of society, they are now a junkie, murderer, thief etc
- this can provoke a crisis for the inds sense of identity - this can be resolved by accepting their deviant label, leading to self fulfilling prophecy, in which they conform to their label
- Lemert refers to secondary deviance as the further deviance that results from societal reactions + labelling and acting out their deviant label
11
Q
outline Lemert’s concept of a deviant career
A
- secondary deviance is likely to provoke further hostility from society + reinforce the deviant’s ‘outsider’ status
- this may lead to more deviance + a deviant career
- e.g. ex-convicts find it hard to ‘go straight’, as no one will employ them, so they seek out other outsiders for support - e.g. through joining a deviant subculture that offers deviant career opportunities from which they cant achieve from mainstream employment
- this illustrates the idea that its not the act itself, but the hostile societal reactions to it that creates serious deviance
- but, a deviant career isn’t inevitable from labelling - individuals are free to choose not to deviate further
12
Q
outline the deviance amplification spiral
A
- the deviance amplification spiral explains the process in which the attempt to control deviance leads to an increase in it
- this leads to harsher + greater attempts to control it - producing higher levels of deviance, creating an escalating spiral
- this is evident in Cohen’s study of Folk Devils and Moral Panic/ mods and rockers;
- press exaggeration + distorted reporting of the events began a moral panic, with growing public concern + calls for a ‘crackdown’ - causing further marginalization + more deviant behaviour
- this deviance amplification spiral is similar to Lemert’s concept of secondary deviance
13
Q
outline folk devils vs the dark figure of crime
A
- folk devils are in a sense the opposite to the dark figure of crime
- while the dark figure is about unlabelled + unrecorded stats of crime that is ignored by public + police, folk devils and their actions are ‘over-labelled’ + over-exposed to the public view + authorities
- the pursuit of folk devils draws resources from detecting + punishing the crimes that make up the dark figure - e.g. crimes of the powerful
14
Q
outline labelling and criminal justice policy
A
- studies have shown how increases in the attempt to control + punish young offenders can have the opposite effect
- Triplett: there is an increasing tendency to see young offenders as evil + be less tolerant of minor deviance
- the CJS has re-labelled status offences, like truancy, as more serious offences, resulting in harsher sentences
- as predicted by Lemert, this has resulted in an inc in offending
- this shows that the labelling theory takes effect on on policy by adding weight to the argument that neg labels push offenders into a deviant career - so to logically reduce deviance, we should make + enforce fewer rules for people to break
- e.g. decriminalising soft drugs would reduce the number of people with criminal convictions + the risk of secondary deviance
15
Q
outline reintegrative shaming
A
- Braithwaite, unlike most labelling theorists, sees labelling as a positive process + distinguishes between 2 types of shaming;
1) disintegrative shaming: not only the crime, but also the criminal, is negatively labelled + offender is excluded from society
2) reintegrative shaming: labels the act but not the actor (‘they aren’t a bad person, just has done bad things’) - reintegrative shaming avoids stigmatising the offender whilst making them aware of their negative impact on others - makes it easier for both offender + community to separate the offence + offender and re-admit the wrongdoer into society whilst avoiding pushing them into secondary deviance
- Braithwaite: crime rates are lower in societies where reintegrative shaming is the dominant way of dealing with offenders
16
Q
outline Durkheim’s study on suicide + Interpretivist criticism
A
- Durkheim: studied suicide with the aim of showing sociology is a science - he used official stats to discover that the cause is how effectively individuals are integrated in society
- however, interactionists reject Durkheim’s positivist approach + his reliance on official stats - to understand suicide, we must study its meanings for those who choose to kill themselves
16
Q
outline Douglas’ view on the meaning of suicide
A
- Douglas takes an interactionist approach to suicide
- he is critical of the use of official suicide stats as they are socially constructed + tell us about the activities of the people who construct them (coroners), rather than the real rate of suicide
- e.g. whether a death comes to be officially labelled as a suicide depends on the interactions between social actors such as the coroners, family, doctors
- e.g. a strongly religious coroner believes suicide is a sin + may be reluctant to rule it suicide
- Douglas argues qualitative methods must be used - e.g. analysis of suicide notes - allows us to see behind the labels coroners attach to deaths + explore their true meaning
17
Q
outline Atkinsons view of coroners common sense knowledge
A
- Atkinson agrees that official stats a merely a record of the labels coroners attach to deaths - its impossible to know what meaning the dead gave to their deaths
- Atkinsons focuses on the taken for granted assumptions that coroners make when reaching their verdicts - their ideas of ‘typical suicides’ were important; certain modes of death (e.g. hanging), location, circumstances, life history (recent bereavements) were seen as typical of suicides
18
Q
what is an AO3 evaluation of Atkinsons view of coroners common sense
A
- Atkinsons approach can be used against him;
- if he is correct that all we can do is have interpretations of the social world, rather than real facts about it, then his account is also an interpretation + shouldn’t be accepted
18
Q
outline interactionist view of mental illess
A
- as with crime + suicide, interactionists reject official statistics on mental illness because they are regarded as social constructs
- they are simply a record of the activities of psychologists with the power to attach labels such as ‘schizophrenic’ to others
- mental illness stats are artefacts (man made), not objective social facts
18
Q
outline paranoia as a self-fulfilling prophecy
A
- Lemert studies how a person comes to be labelled as mentally ill + its effects through his study of paranoia
- Lemert notes how some inds don’t fit easily into mainstream groups - they can be labelled as odd + excluded
- the inds response to this is the beginning of their secondary deviance - this gives the social audience (friends, fam) further reason to exclude them
- by social audiences discussing how to deal with them, it confirms the inds suspicions of conspiracies against them - thus confirming their paranoia/ mental health issues
- this may lead to a psychiatric intervention, resulting in an official label + placement in hospital against their will
- the label of ‘mental patient’ becomes their master status - everything they now say or do reflects this
19
Q
outline institutionalisation
A
- Goffman’s study ‘Asylum’ shows some effects of being admitted to a ‘total institution’ such as a psychiatric hospital
- admission: inmate undergoes a ‘mortification of self’ where their old identity is ‘killed off’ + replaced with ‘inmate’
- this is done through degradation rituals such as confiscation of personal items - Goffman notes the similarities with other institutions such as prisons, armies, monasteries
- while some inmates become institutionalised, internalising their new identity, others adopt various forms of resistance to their new situation - e.g. by manipulating their symptoms to not be confined to the ward + have free movement
20
Q
outline 3 AO3 evaluations of the labelling theory
A
- is deterministic; implies once someone is labelled, their deviant career is inevitable
- its emphasis on the negative effects labelling gives the offender a victim status - this ignores the real victims of crime (Realists)
- implies that without labelling, deviance wouldn’t exist, leading - saying that someone who commits a crime but isn’t labelled hasn’t deviated
