Interactionist View of Crime and Deviance Flashcards
What does Cicourel state about the negotiation of justice
- Officers typifications ( police stereotypes)
- They resulted in law enforcement showing a class bias in that working class areas and people fitted the police typifications more closely
• led police to patrol working class areas more intensively resulting in more arrests - Other agents of social control within the criminal justice system reinforced this bias.
• officers tended to see youths from such backgrounds and likely to offend in the future - Justice is not fixed it’s negotiated.
• for example if a middle class male was arrested he would be less likely charged because he doesn’t fit into the officers typifications . He would be “ counselled, warned and released “ rather than prosecuted
What does cicourel argue about topic versus resource
- Official crime statistics do not give us a valid picture of patterns of crime and cannot be used as a resource
- Instead we should treat them as a topic for sociologists to investigate
What do interactionist argue about the social construction of crime statistics
- Interactionists see the official crime statistics as socially constructed
• at each stage agents of social control make decisions about whether or not to proceed to the next stage and the outcome depends on the label they attach to individual suspects . - As a result the statistics produced by criminal justice system only tells us about the activities of the police and prosecutors
- Dark figure of crimes
- Alternative statistics
What are dark figures of crime
Differences between the official statistics and the real rate of crime is sometimes called the dark curvier because we do not know for certain how much crime goes undetected and unrecorded
what are alternative statistics
Some sociologists use victim surveys or self report studies to gain a more accurate view of the amount of crime
what does howard Becker (1963) say about labelling and deviance
- Deviance depends on the definitions held in each society
- It’s not the act
- It’s all about society’s reaction to that act
- Deviance depends on :
1) time
2) place
3) culture
4) who’s doing the act
5) who’s watching the act
what’s an evaluation for becker
fails to explain origin of labels
what does Lemert say about primary and secondary deviance
Primary deviance : deviant acts that have not been publicly labelled . Pointless to seek causes as it is so widespread and normalised.
Secondary deviance : result of societal reaction and is labelled. Being labelled as deviant or criminal can involve being stigmatised and shunned from normal society .
Once an individual is labelled , others may come to see them only in terms of the label .
This becomes their master status .
Provoke a crisis for the individuals sense of identity.
One way to resolve is for the individual to accept the deviant label , leading to self fulfilling prophecy.
Secondary deviance is likely to provoke a deviant career . E.g. ex convicts may find it hard to go straight because no one will employ them .
This may lead to joining deviant subcultures , offering deviant career opportunities and rewards , conforming to their deviant identity
what’s an evaluation for Lemerts theory
Downes and Rock (2003) :
We cannot predict whether someone who has been labelled will follow a deviant career , because they are always free to choose not to deviate further
what does Young (1971) say about effects of labelling
Study of hippy marijuana users in Notting Hill
- Initially drugs were seen as primary deviance
- Prosecution and labelling by Control Culture (police).
- Led to hippies developing deviant subculture .
- Drug use became a central activity , attracting further attention from police , creating a self fulfilling prophecy .
what does becker say when he talks about the laws are social constructs
3M’s :
•Moral entrepreneurs = people who lead moral crusades to change laws
• Moral crusades = social action and campaigns to change laws and societies views
• Moral panics = an exaggerated over reaction to a perceived problem
what’s stanley cohen’s folk devil and moral panics study in late 1960s
- Study of the media’s response to two groups of w/c teenagers , the mods and rockers
- the media over exaggerated and produced an inventory which contained 3 elements :
• Exaggeration and distortion - media exaggerated the extent of violence and damage
• Prediction - media assumed regular conflict and violence would result
• Symbolisation - symbols of the mode and rockers were all negatively labelled
what are some criticisms of the idea of moral panics
- McRobbie and Thornton :
Moral panics are now routine and have less impact - Assumes that the societal reaction is a disproportionate over reaction but who is to decide what is a proportionate reaction
what was the contemporary moral panic example about aids
During 1980s to 1990s
• associated with LGBTQ+ and drug users
• fuelled by lack of knowledge about how the virus was transmitted
what does Stuart Hall say about policing the crisis ( neo-marxism)
- 1970s saw a moral panic over Black “muggers “ that served the interests of capitalism
- “mugging” was soon to be associated by the media , police and politicians with black youth
- Selective policing came about
- Stop and search laws introduced
what are some criticisms about hall’s study on policing the crisis
- Downes and Rock :
Inconsistent in claiming that black street crime was not rising but also that it was rising because of unemployment - they do not show how the capitalist crisis led to a moral panic
- Don’t provide evidence that the public were in fact panicking or blaming crime on black youth
- Left realists argue that inner city residents’ fears about mugging are not panicky but realistic
what’s does Liazos state ( evaluation)
Labelling theory tends to focus on specific crimes and deviant behaviour and ignore for example the crimes of the powerful
what do piliavin and briar argue
police decisions to arrest a youth were mainly based on physical appearances , from which they made judgments about character
what was the yousef makki case
His murder is a white male who came from an affluent background was initially ruled to have been defending himself despite evidence that suggested otherwise
how do marxists criticise interactionist views
focus too much on the individual interactions and labelling process , neglecting broader structural factors that contribute to crime such as capitalism and class inequality
how does right realist ron clarke evaluate interactionist views of crime and deviance
deviant acts is a rational choice rather than influenced by labelling
what does Platt say about social construction of crime
- builds beckers ideas
- “ juvenile delinquency “
• a concept which came about as a result of victorian moral entrepreneurs leading on a moral crusade to protect youth from harm.
• this is what led to juvenile detention centres and separate courts for young people that still exist today .
