Interactionists Flashcards
4 key assumptions
Reject official statistics
Reject structural casual explanations of crime
They look instead at the way crime and deviance is socially constructed
Favour in depth qualitative approaches
As a result of rejecting official statistics, what do they maintain?
They vastly underestimate the extent of crime and do not present an accurate picture of the social distribution of criminality
What does Becker say?
He argues that deviance is simply forms of behaviour that powerful agencies of social control define or label as such
Who are ethnomethodologists?
They argue that ‘deviance is in the eye of the beholder’ - what one person might see as deviant another might not
What do ethnomethodologists argue?
That ‘deviance is in the eye of the beholder’ - what one person might see as deviant another might not
Consequences of labelling
The labelled gain a master status which eventually becomes a self fulfilling prophecy
Once the deviant is labelled they may join or form deviant subcultures
Lender argued that primary deviance which has not been labelled has few consequences until they are labelled (secondary) which impacts the individual
What is said about the media?
They amplify crime and deviance as they demonise deviants and create moral panics
What is the amplification spiral?
Similar to Lemerts idea of secondary violence - the social reaction to the deviant act leads not to successful control of the deviance, but to further deviance, which in turn leads to greater reaction and so on
Triplett (2000)
Notes an increasing tendency to see you young offenders as evil and to be less tolerant of minor deviance
Who are phenomenologists?
They focus of the individual motivations behind deviance and its episodic nature
Katz (1988)
Locates key meaning such as the search for excitement and establishing a reputation
Matza (1964)
Stresses how individuals drift in and out of delinquency as they employ techniques of neutralisation
Rist (1970)
Has shown how negative teacher expectations placed on the working class leads to underachievement and anti-school subcultures
Weaknesses of Interactionist theories
They too readily dismiss official statistics on crime - their response to statistics is not adequate
Hirschi (1975) argues that it is debatable whether labelling by the criminal justice system leads to a career in deviance
Goffmann (1968)
Has shown how the hospitalisation of the mentally ill leads to mortification, self fulfilling prophecies and in some cases institutionalisation
