interactionism and labelling theory - topic 2 Flashcards
the social construction of crime
criminals label depends on :
1 interactions w agencies of social control
2 appearance, background and person biography
3 situ / circumstance of offence
crime is seen as a social construction bec each soc labels partic beh as criminal/deviant
who gets labelled - pilivian and briar
agencies of social control are more likely to label cert gr of peop criminal/deviant
pilivian/briar; fou police decisions 2 arrest youth r mainly based on physical cues wh they make judgements on
officers decis also influenced by their gender, class and ethnicity
cicourel - the negotiation of justice
1 officers decisions influenced by their stereotypes of the offender
2 their typifications led them to concentrate on cert ‘types’
3 law enforcement showed class bias, w/c fitted police typif so they patrolled those areas more so more arrests
4 justice is not fixed but negotiable, ex. m/c youth arrested b less likely to be charged bec parents can negotiate out of it, the criminal does not fit the police’s typific
topic vs resource - cicourel
1 stats does not give valid pic of patterns of crime so cannot be used as resource
2 must not take stats at face value
3 instead investigate process creating them; focus on activities of agencies of social control and proc of labelling types people as crim
the social construction of crime statistics
1 interactionists see OCS as socially constructed
2 at each stage of the CJS agents of social control make decision on whether to proceed to next stg
3 label likely to affect typifications
4 stats produced by CJS only tell us about acts of police not amount of cr in soc
5 stats include the dark fig of cr so we don’t know how much cr goes undetected
6 alternative stats; some sociol use victim surveys/self rep studies 2 gain accurate view of cr b ppts may forget/exaggerate answers
primary deviance
1 primary deviance refers to deviant acts that have not been publicly labelled
2 not part of organised deviant way of life so offenders can easily rationalise them
3 ex. ‘moment of madness’ wh has little significance to status/self concept
secondary deviance
1 master status; when some primary deviance is labelled
2 pers caught and publicly labelled wh involves being stigmatised
3 people only see u as ur label wh becomes master status
4 provokes crisis for indiv self concept and 2 resolve they must accept label
5 leads to self fulfilling prophecy and further deviance from this label is secondary deviance
deviant career
1 secondary deviance is likely to provoke further hostile reactions fr soc
2 this may leave to deviant career with other outsides for support bec they have nothing else
young - study of hippy marijuana users
1 initially drugs were peripheral to hippies lifestyle; primary deviance
2 persecution/labelling by the control culture led hippies to feel like outsiders
3 retreated into closed groups and developed deviant subculture, wearing way out clothes/longer hair
4 drug use became central activity and attracted further attention from police, creating self fulfilling prophecy
deviance amplification spiral
1 proc to control deviance leads to increase in lev deviance
2 leads to greater attempts 2 control wh leads to higher lev deviance
3 cohens study - folk devils and moral panics
4 societies reactions to mods and rockers, the press exagg/distort reports of events wh begin moral panic wh police respond to w arresting +re youths
5 demonising causes further marginalisation wh results in +re deviant beh
the media and deviance amplification spiral steps
1 deviant act
2 defined by CJS as a cr
3 media selects this as cr 2 report on bec it will sell newspapers/increase website hits
4 media report cr from bias view and sometimes sensationalise the problem
5 there’s perceived increase in deviance
6 moral panic trigg police action
labelling and criminal justice policy
1 triplett notes the tendency 2 see young offenders as evil/less tolerant of minor deviance
2 CJS re labels status of offences
3 this increase the rate offending than decreases
4 -ve labelling pushes offenders towards deviant career so instead we should enforce fewer rules 4 people 2 break
reintegration shaming - braithwaite
identifies 2 types of shaming
1 disintegration shaming; not only cr b also crim that’s labelled/excluded fr soc
2 reintegrative shaming; label act as bad b not person, this encourages forgiveness and makes easier for offender to come back into soc and separate them fr offence
3 avoids pushing offender into secondary deviance
4 arg cr rates low in reintegrative soc
