Labelling Flashcards
What are labelling theorists interested in terms of Crime and Deviance?
How + Why certain people and acts are labelled as deviant
What do labelling theorists believe in terms of crime?
That crime is socially constructed via societal reactions
What is a moral entrepreneur?
People who lead ‘moral crusades’ to change and develop law making for certain groups
What are two outcomes of new laws created by these MEs?
- Creation of a new group of outsiders
-Expansion of social control agencies
What does Platts study tell us about the outcome of new law making?
- Juvenile Delinquency: created a new group of outsiders as youths were seen as a new category of offender with their own offences such as truancy.
Who studies Cannabis use in the USA
Becker: Becker argued the ‘moral campaign’ to ban the use of cannabis was truly about extending the Bureaus sphere of influences amongst their subjects.
What are convictions and arrests measured upon?
- Previous encounters with social control agencies
- Appearance, Background and Biography
- Situation and Circumstance
What did Piliavin and Brair find?
- Police decision to arrest youths based on physical cues.
- Factors such as G,E,Time and place also increase chances of arrest
- ASBO study found that physical cues were used disproportional against ethnic minority.
What study did Cicourel do?
Police Typifications and how this is reinforced in the CJS
What did Cicourel find?
- Police use a ‘commonsense theory’ based on typical offenders.
-This leads to the police focusing of certain ‘types’ of offenders leading to class bias and further patrolling in W/C areas compared to M/C
How is the Commonsense theory reinforced in the Criminal Justice System?
- Probation officers assume juvenille delinquency stems from broken homes and poverty, youths who commit minor crimes are more likely to offend due to these circumstances and therefore, they are more likely to support custodial sentences for these youths.
What does Cicourels study tell us?
- M/C youths less likely to be charged as they do not fit the ‘typical offender’
- M/C has more capital to negotiate with the CJS on behalf of their child.
Which sociologists identified two types of deviance and the effects it can have for those labelled?
Primary Deviance: trivial acts, widespread, rarely sanctioned with little effect on the individuals status
Secondary Deviance: more serious, labelled publicly
Lemert
What does secondary deviance lead too?
-A master status (Becker)
-A crisis of self concept which can evolved into a self fulfilling prophecy
- Rejection from society can force individuals into deviant subcultures and subsequently, deviant careers
What case study is used for Secondary Deviance?
- Jack & Young Drug Use; labelled by police and saw themselves as outsiders, which led to further secondary deviance.
How do Downes & Rock criticise Jack & Young?
- Too deterministic
What occurs when social control agencies attempt to control deviance?
- Deviancy Amplification (Stan Cohen Folk Devils
What does Triplett argue?
-There is a tendency to see young offenders as evil
- CJP relabelled minor status offences as more serious in attempt to stop, contrary led to an increase in this type of offence.
Who argued there is a positive role for the labelling process in these formation of two forms of shaming:
Disintegrative Shaming: When both the crime and the individual are labelled as deviant
Reintegrative Shaming: The act is labelled as bad but not the individual
Braithwaite
What are the effects of Reintegrative shaming?
- Crime rates are lower in societies that apply this
- Avoids stigmatisation
Which sociologist studied suicide and the way coroners label suicide?
Douglas
What did Douglas find?
- Coroners label suicide so could include bias due to religious beliefs, reluctancy from family’s
Who argues we will never fully understand the meaning individuals give to their suicides and which should more focus upon where coroners get their ‘taken for granted’ knowledge from?
Atkinson
