labelling/interactionist theories of crime and deviance

Question 1

What are the key assumptions for labelling/interactionism?

Answer 1

• They reject official statistics on crime, making them part of their subject of study.
• They reject structural casual explanations of crime and deviance (for example functionalist and realist)
• They look instead at the way crime and deviance is socially constructed - how we come to label some acts deviant and not others.
• They favour in depth, qualitative approaches when investigating crime and deviance. For example, informal interviews, observation and personal documents.

Question 2

What was the response to official crime statistics?

Answer 2

Cicourel argues that official statistics don’t give a valid picture of crime. Therefore, they shouldn’t be used as a resource of facts about crime.

But, he argues they can be used as a topic for investigation.

Investigating how crime statistics are created sheds light on how control agencies go about labelling some types of people as criminal, but not others.

Question 3

Who gets labelled?

Answer 3

Becker = whether a deviant is labelled depends on who has committed and observed the deviant act, when and where the act was committed and the negotiations that take place between the various ‘social actors’ involved. Powerless groups are more likely to be labelled than powerful groups.

Question 4

What are moral entrepreneurs?

Answer 4

= powerful groups, individuals or organisations who crusade to change laws or social norms.
For example, politician and campaign groups.