Interactionsim/Labelling Theory Flashcards
Social Construction of Deviance
Becker (1963)
- powerful social groups create deviance by creating rules and applying them to particular people whom they label as ‘outsiders’
- ‘Deviance is the eye of the beholder’. Act or a person only becomes deviant once they have been labelled
Moral Entrepreneurs
Lead a moral ‘crusade’ to change the law
1. Creation of a new group of ‘outsiders
2. Creation or expansion of a social control agency to enforce the rule and impose labels on offenders
Evaluation of Social Construction of Deviance
Not everyone who commits an offence is punished - agencies of social control tend to label certain groups as criminals
Pillavin and Briar (1964)
- police decisions to arrest based on stereotypical ideas about manner, dress, gender, class, ethnicity
- Official police statistics - young black males are 7 timess more likely to be stopped and searched
Differential Enforcement
Not everyone who commits an offence is punished - agencies of social control tend to label certain groups as criminals
Pillavin and Briar (1964)
- police decisions to arrest based on stereotypical ideas about manner, dress, gender, class, ethnicity
- Official police statistics - young black males are 7 times more likely to be stopped and searched
Evaluation for Differential Enforcement
- gives the criminal a victim status and ignores the real victims of crimes
Typifications (Negotiations of Justice)
Cicourel (1976) argue that police use stereotypes of the ‘typical deviant’
- Working class and ethnic minority juveniles are more likely to be arrested, plus more likely to be seen as dangerous or in need of more serious punishment.
- Middle class juveniles less likely to fit the Typifications, and have parents that can negotiate justice on their behalf, usage of cultural capital or connections to lawyers.
- Less likely to be charged for breaking the law
Cicourel spent 4 years using participant observations of the interactions between the police and those who were arrested.
- Argues that we should not use stats as a source of facts. Treat them as a topic in themselves and investigate the processes buy which they are constructed
Evaluation of Typifications
- left realists argue that statistics reflect real differences in rates of offending as marginalisation leads to more crime being committed by minority groups
- Interactionism lacks any practical social policy focus.
The effects of labelling
*Lemert (1972) argues that by labelling certain as deviant, society encourages them to commit more crime and deviance.
- creates ‘secondary deviance’
Primary deviance
- acts that have not been publicly labelled, often trivial and mostly ho uncaught. E.g. fare dodging, shop lifting
Secondary deviance
- deviance is labelled. Lemert argues only when someone publically caught for their crimes that causes a person to increase their criminal activity.
- results from societal reaction
Labelling someone as an offenders can involve shaming, exclusion which the label then can becomes a master status
Evaluation of effects of labelling
- fails to explain why people commit primary deviance in the first place, before they are labelled unlike strain theory
- seen to be deterministic, assumes that once an individual is labelled, a SPF will occur. Ignores free will to reject the label
- Use Fuller Study of youth black girls
Self-fulfilling prophecy and the deviant career
Being labelled provokes a crisis for the individual’s self concept or senes of identity
- individuals need to accept the deviant label and seem themselves as the world sees them
-leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy
Deviant subculture offers support, role models, and a deviant career. E.g. ex-convicts find it hard to go straight, i.e. employment, no one employs
Jock Young (1971) study of hippy marijuana smokers
- police perception of them as junkies lead to them to retreat into closed groups, developing a deviant subculture where drug use became a central activity (control culture)
Evaluation of Self-fulfilling prophecy and the deviant career
Right Realists would argue it is not the criminal accepting the label that causes more crime, but it is rather that they have been poorly socialised
Deviance Amplification Spiral
Attempt to control deviance leads to it increasing rather than decreasing.
Cohen (1972)
Study of mods and rockers
- media exaggeration and distortion began a moral panic, with growing public concern
- ‘Moral Entrepreneurs’ called for a ‘crackdown’ = arresting more youth
- demonised the mods and rockers as ‘folk devils’, marginalised further, more deviance
Evaluation of Deviance Amplification Spiral
Functionalists see deviance producing social control, not producing further deviance
