INTERACTIONISM AND LABELLING THEORY OF CRIME

Question 1

what is the social construction of crime?

Answer 1

• they argue that no act is inherently criminal or deviant itself, it only comes to be so when others label it that way.
• it is not the nature of an act that makes it crime or deviant, but the nature of society’s reaction to it.

Question 2

what does Becker suggest?

Answer 2

• a deviant is someone whom the label has been applied to successfully.
• questions how and why rules and laws are made, particularly interested in moral entrepreneurs: people who lead a moral campaign to change the law
• social control agencies may also campaign for change in the law to increase their own power.
• for example US Federal bureau of narcotics campaigned to pass the marijuana tax act, which extended their sphere of influence.

Question 3

what are the effects of the new law according to becker?

Answer 3

• the creation of a new group of outsiders who break the law
• the creation or expansion of social control agency such as the police, courts etc. to enforce the rule and impose labels on offenders.

Question 4

who gets labelled?

Answer 4

• being arrested, charged, convicted etc. depends on factors such as interactions with agencies of social control, appearance, background, circumstances of the offence…
• social control agencies are more likely to label certain groups of people as deviant or criminal, such as gender, class, and ethnicity.

Question 5

what is Cicourel’s negotiation of justice?

Answer 5

• officers decisions are influenced by their stereotypes and typifications, resulting in class bias and more arrests in working class areas.
• justice is not fixed but negotiable for example an arrested middle class white is less likely to be charged.

Question 6

what is the social construction of crime statistics?

Answer 6

-agents of social control make decisions based on the label they attach to the person depending on typifications and stereotypes.
- thus statistics only reflect the decisions made by the agents rather than the amount of crime in society and who commits it.
- the dark figure of crime refers to the difference between official stats of crime and the real rate of crime.

Question 7

what is lemert’s theory of primary and secondary deviance?

Answer 7

• primary deviance is deviant acts that haven’t been labelled as such publicly
• secondary deviance is the result of societal reaction of labelling. once an individual is labelled, others come to see them only as their label. the label becomes their master status, turning them into an outsider. this may lead to a self fulfilling prophecy in which the person lives up to that label. this may turn them to lead a deviant career. eg. ex-convicts struggle to become a part of society again as no one employs them, so they may seek other outsiders for support such as deviant subcultures.

Question 8

what is jack young’s study?

Answer 8

• Young (1971) looked into the effects of and the societal reaction to being labelled as deviant, and how it may lead to further deviant acts.
  He carried out research into the hippie marijuana users in Notting Hill during the 1960s.
• as the police began targeting a group of ‘hippies’, which served to widen the gap between them and conventional society, drug taking, which had already been an exterior activity, became a symbol of the groups’ defiance against the police and also became part of their status.
• This consequently caused a deviant subculture to develop, and the hippies to internalise their label and become marginalised from society.

Question 9

what is cohen’s deviance amplification spiral?

Answer 9

• a process in which the attempt to control deviance leads to an increase in the level of deviance.
• researched the social reaction to Mods and Rockers disturbances of 1964 in Brighton. The events of the clash between these two groups were to receive front-page outrage on the national press with reports describing a ‘day of terror’ and an entire town being invaded by a mob ‘hell-bent on destruction.
• discovered the typical offences that day had been exaggerated with one journalist admitting that the event had been ‘a little over-reported’
• The trouble was the media distortion of initial events resulted in an amplification of youthful deviance both in perceived and real terms.

Question 10

what is braithwaite’s theory?

Answer 10

• suggests labelling may have a more positive role
• disintegrative shaming labels the criminal as bad and excludes from society
• reintegrative shaming labels the crime as bad but no the criminal, allowing them to recognise their wrongdoing and go back to normal society.

Question 11

evaluation

Answer 11

• too deterministic in implying there is no going back from a deviant career.
• gives the criminal a victim status by emphasising the negative effects of labelling, ignoring the real victims
• implies deviance wouldn’t exist without labelling.
• fails to recognised the real power behind deviance by over focusing on middle range officials such as the police.
• It tends to be deterministic, not everyone accepts their labels
• It assumes offenders are just passive and doesn’t recognise the role of personal choice in committing crime