Interactionist theories of crime

Question 1

What is an interactionist theory?

Answer 1

• a labelling theory that adopt a relativistic definition of deviance and instead ask how and why some actions come to be labelled as criminal or deviant and what effects this has on those who are labelled
• focuses on the social reaction to certain acts seen as criminal or deviant
• less interested in the causes of deviance and more interested in what happens when a person is perceived as deviant
  
  • focus is on the interaction between the deviant and those who define them as deviant

Question 2

Becker (1963)

Answer 2

used several key terms to discuss crime
-argues that other sociological approaches have been mistaken for their fundamental assumption that law breakers are different to the law abiding - focuses on the social reaction to acts seen as criminal or deviant

labelling, master status, outsider, deviant career, deviant subculture, self fulfilling prophecy

Question 3

Beckers labelling theory

Answer 3

Moral crusades and entrepenuers - people who enforce the rules that sees certain behaviours labelled as deviant e.g journalists, politicians, religious leaders and they embark on campaigns or ‘moral crusades’ to change laws and identify deviants

Outsiders
- argues the moral crusade and changes in the law has 2 effects which are:
1) the creation of a new group of outsiders - outlaws and deviants who break the rule
2) the creation or expansion of power held by the social control agency that enforces the rule

Question 4

What effect does beckers labelling theory have on individuals

Answer 4

• Becker argues that the labelling theory process can lead to a SFP and then a deviant career
• those labelled become an outsider and get rejected from society - link to subcultural strain theory

How a deviant career develops:
Master status - individuals deviant identity overrules all other identities and they are treated as their label
Deviance amplification spiral - once the label is given the person then behaves in the way because they have been given that label
Deviant career - when a label has been applied the person takes on the self image of the label which causes them to behave in a deviant way that then becomes normal