Interactionsim And Crime Flashcards
Howard Becker
Labelling
It is not the nature of the act that makes it deviant, but the nature of society’s reaction to the act.
For Becker, therefore, a deviant is simply someone to whom the label has been successfully applied, and deviant behaviour is simply behaviour that people so label.
How Becker explains it
A focus on ‘moral entrepreneurs’ who lead a moral ‘crusade’ to change the law. The new law invariably has 2 effects:
1) The creation of a new group of ‘outsiders’- deviants who break the new rule.
2) The creation or expansion of a social control agency (such as police, courts, probation officers etc) to enforce the rule and impose labels on offenders.
Platt 1969
Platt (1969): ‘juvenile delinquency’ was originally created as a result of a campaign by upper class victorian moral entrepreneurs, aimed at protecting young people at risk. It enabled courts to extend their power beyond standard criminal offences to specific ones related to age.
Becker
Becker: Social control agencies themselves may campaign for a change in the law to increase their own power. E.G: The US Federal Bureau of Narcotics successfully campaigned for the passing of the Marijuana Tax Act in 1937 to outlaw marijuana use. Supposedly, this was on the grounds of harm to young people, but Becker argues it was really to extend the Bureau’s sphere of influence!
police decisions to arrest a youth (pillavin & briar)
Pillavin & Briar (1964): Police decisions to arrest a youth were mainly based on physical cues (such as manner and dress), from which they made judgements about their character. Decisions were also influenced by the offenders gender, class & ethnicity, as well as by time and place. E.G: you are more likely to be stopped late at night in an area notorious for high crime rates.
Not everyone who commits an offence is punished for it. Whether a person is arrested, charged and convicted depends on factors such as:
Their interactions with agencies of social control
Their appearance, background and personal biography
The situation and circumstances of the offence.
CICOUREL: police typifications
Found that officers ‘typifications’- their commonsense theories or stereotypes of what the typical delinquent is like- led them to concentrate on certain ‘types’.
Law enforcement showed a ‘class bias’, in that working class areas and people fitted the police typifications most closely.
In turn, this led police to patrol W/C areas more intensively resulting in more arrests and confirming their stereotypes.
What else the Cicourel find out
That other agents of social control in the criminal justice system reinforced the bias. E.G: probation officers held the belief that juvenile delinquency was caused by broken homes, poverty and lax parenting. They saw these youths as most likely to offend again in the future.
In Cicourel’s view, justice is not fixed, but negotiable. E.G: A M/C youth when arrested was less likely to be charged. This was partly due to the fact his background did not match police assumptions and partly because his parents were more likely to negotiate successfully on his behalf.
As a result, he would be ‘counselled, warned and released’, rather than prosecuted!
Cicourel’s study has implications for the use we make of official statistics.
He argues that these statistics do not give us a valid picture of the patterns of crime and cannot be used as a resource for facts about crime.
Instead, we should treat them as a topic for sociologists to investigate.
The dark figure of crime
The difference between the official statistics and the ‘real’ rate of crime.
Alternative statistics:
Some sociologists use victim surveys or self-report studies to gain a more accurate view of the amount of crime. They do however have several limitations, E.G: people may forget, conceal or exaggerate when asked if they have committed crime or been a victim of crime!
LEMERT (1951): PRIMARY AND SECONDARY DEVIANCE
Lemert: it is pointless to seek the causes of primary deviance since it is so widespread it is unlikely to have a single cause. It mostly goes uncaught. These acts are not part of an organised deviant way of life and are usually explained away as a ‘moment of madness’ E.G: fare dodging.
Primary deviance
Primary deviance: Refers to deviant acts that have not been publicly labelled.
Primary deviants don’t usually see themselves as deviant!
Secondary deviance
This deviance is labelled. It is the result of societal reaction.
Once labelled, others may come to see you only in terms of your label. This becomes known as a ‘master status’ or controlling identity. You become known as an ‘outsider’.
As a result, this provokes a crisis for the individual’s self concept and may lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy where the individual acts up to their label.
Lemert refers to the further deviance that results from this as secondary deviance!
Deviant career
The provoked hostile reactions of society may reinforce the deviant’s ‘outsider’ status. This may lead to further deviance and a deviant career.
For instance, nobody will employ you so you seek out alternatives such as deviant subcultures!
