Interactionism And Labelling Theory Flashcards
Who gets labelled according to Howard Becker.?
Not everyone who commits crime or an offence is labelled/ punished it depend of cantos such as:
1) interaction with agencies of social control
2) their appearance / background/ personal biography
3 situations and circumstances of the offence
What does Cicourel say.?
Justice is not fixed but negotiable e.g when a middle class youth was arrested he was less likely to be charged because of his background
Statistics do not give a valid picture of the patterns of crime and cannot be used as a resource- facts about the crime. Instead we should test them as topic to investigate
Explain primary and secondary deviance (Lemert)
Primary deviance: Acts not public ally labelled
Secondary deviance: Acts have been labelled results of social reaction
Secondary deviance likely to provoke lead to more deviant career
What is master status and what does it lead to.?
MASTER STATUS: being labelled as a criminal= stigmatised, shamed excluded from normal society
Once an individual is labelled that label sticks to them and the person becomes an outsider
This leads to a SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY
What does Jock Yound argue.?
Used secondary deviance in his study of Hippy Marijuana
Prosecution and labelling by control culture(police) led the hippies develop a deviant subculture
Lemert and Young’s work
It’s not the act itself but the social reaction that creates around deviance
Social construction of crime
Believe official stats are so silly constructed.
Stats produced by the CJS system tell us about the activities of the police rather than about crime
“Dark figure of crime”- differences between official stats and read crime - we don’t know how much. Time gets unreported unrecorded and undetected
What is deviance amplification spiral
Used to describe a process which the attempt to control deviance leads to an increase in the level of deviance
Example study is Cohen’s FOLK DEVILS AND MORAL PANICS
Labelling and Criminal justice policy
Negative labelling pushes offenders towards a deviant career the studies in US/HOLLAND support this view
CJS: has re-labelled status offenders e.g truancy as more serious offence resulted increase in offending
Labelling theory argues we should make and enforce fewer rules for people to break e.g avoid publically naming and shaming
What do interactionist day about mental illness
Interactionists reject official stats on mental illness they believe they are made up
Evaluation
Too deterministic
Tends to focus on less serious crimes
Fails to explain why people commit primary deviance
