Labelling theory

Question 1

What is the Social Construction of Deviance (Becker)?

Answer 1

Powerful groups create deviance by creating rules and applying them to particular people who they label as ‘outsiders’
- ‘Deviance is in the eye of the beholder’
- an act or person only becomes deviant once labelled

Question 2

What are Moral entrepreneurs?

Answer 2

People who lead a moral ‘crusade’ to change the law

Question 3

Two effects of Moral entrepreneurs

Answer 3

1. The creation of a new group ‘outsiders’ - outlaws or deviants who break the new rule
2. The creation or expansion of a social control agency (police, courts, probation officers) to enforce the rule and impose labels on offenders

Question 4

Social Construction of Deviance A03

Answer 4

Marxists criticise labelling theory for failing to locate the origin of such labels in the structure of capitalism

Question 5

What is Differential Enforcement?

Answer 5

Not everyone who commits an offence is punished for it

Question 6

What did Piliavin and Briar find (Differential enforcement)?

Answer 6

Police decisions to arrest were based on stereotypical ideas about manner, dress, gender, class and ethnicity

Official police stats - young black males are 7 times more likely to be stopped and searched by police compared to white males

Question 7

Differential Enforcement A03

Answer 7

Labelling theory gives the criminal a victim status as it argues that a person is arrested because the police are judging them as a typical criminal - ignores real victims

Question 8

What is Typifications (Negotiation of Justice) (Cicourel)?

Answer 8

police use typifications of the ‘typical deviant’ - individuals fitting the typifications are more likely to be stopped, arrested and charged

Question 9

Define typifications

Answer 9

Stereotypes

Question 10

How do typifications affect different groups in different ways?

Answer 10

Working class and ethnic minority juveniles are more likely to be arrested - after they are more likely to be seen as dangerous or in need of more serious punishment

Middle class juveniles are less likely to fit the typification and have parents who can negotiate justice on their behalf - cultural capital or connections to lawyers

Question 11

What did Cicourel spend 4 years doing?

Answer 11

Using participant observation, he studied the interactions between the police and those who were arrested.

Shouldn’t use stats as facts as they are the product of differential enforcement

Question 12

What does Lemert argue about the effects of labelling?

Answer 12

Labelling certain people as deviant encourages them to commit more crime and deviance - societal reaction causes ‘secondary deviance’

Question 13

What is primary deviance?

Answer 13

Deviant acts that have not been publicly labelled - fare dodging, shoplifting, driving 32mph in a 30mph

People do not see themselves as deviant

Question 14

What is secondary deviance?

Answer 14

When someone has been publicly caught for their crimes - increase in criminal activity

Results from a societal reaction - them being labelled can then become a master status or controlling identity - becomes an outsider

Question 15

Effects of labelling A03

Answer 15

Ignores free will to reject the label - SFP doesn’t always occur

Question 16

What is Self-Fulfilling Prophecy and the deviant career?

Answer 16

Being labelled may provoke a crisis for the individual’s sense of identity - to resolve this many accept the label leading them to commit more crime

Question 17

What can further societal reaction cause (SFP and deviant career)?

Answer 17

Reinforce the individual’s outsider status and lead them to join a deviant subculture that offers support, role models and a deviant career

Question 18

Case Study for the effects of labelling

Answer 18

Jock Young
- study of hippy marijuana smokers
- drug use was initially peripheral to the hippy lifestyle, but police perceived them as junkies
- led to them retreating into closed groups, developing a deviant subculture where drug use became a central activity (SFP)

Question 19

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy and the deviant career A03

Answer 19

Right realists would argue it isn’t the criminal accepting a label that causes more crime, it’s rather that they have been poorly socialised