Labelling Theory and Social Reaction Flashcards
Symbolic Interactionism
• You build up rules for social interaction
o Define the meaning of the situation
o Appropriate behaviour
o To see how strong the social rules are is to see what happens when you breach them.
• Rules are policed by people around you – a form of a social construct.
Significance of crime
The significance to crime
• Crime is a breach of informal rules
• Our reactions become important in the way we respond to behvaiour.
o Legalisation of gay marriage. – a change in informal rules changes formal rules.
Deviance is a complex idea - Becker 1963 - there are different groups which judge different things to be deviant. We are all caught up in a process of what we define deviant and what is not.
Tannenbaum 1938 - Ideas change over time, with actor and with consequence. Often teenagers are labelled as having bad behaviour and the risk is that those start to identity with the definitions and then act the part.
The effects of Labelling
Lemert 1951
• Primary deviance
• Generate a negative reaction
• Label shifts from act to actor
• Label gets internalised - everyone thinks am bad may as well
• Secondary deviance
• prove them right e.g. class clown
• Confirmation of serotypes and further negative reaction
• Behaviour which becomes a means of defence and attack
Moral Panics
Moral Panics
• Stan Cohen 1972 - fight on Brighton beach
• Media reaction – identify the problem and tell us how we should recognise it
o Public becomes more sensitive to behaviours
Demand action
Greater surveillance and control.
o A spiral of anxiety and panic – amplifies deviancy.
Why do moral panics happen?
• Not just media distortion but tap into the broader anxieties at the time – SOCIAL CHANGE. Media are tapping into their fears.
Example – the James Bulger 1993: Moral Panic
• Unusual murder created panic; how could children be capable of murdering other children?
• Daily Mail responsible for creating the fear.
Policy Implications
- labels can be used as social controls – label them as an offender make them humiliated but this leads to secondary deviance.
- Avoid this by avoiding contact with the criminal justice system?
- Restorative justice and reintegration – show that they can be non-deviant.
Limitations to Labelling theory
Limitations of approach • What about causation? • What are the origins of labels? • Are Labels powerful? • Is all crime really relative? • How do moral panics end?
Labelling Theory – Marxist Perspective
- Definition reflects the distribution of power, but it doesn’t look at where the power comes from.
o The state is the most important labeller of how we define criminal.
o Crime is a response to capitalism.
o The criminal justice system is a form of control.
Why do we conform?
- Opportunities and choices
- Social controls - the reason why you don’t commit crime is that you have been socially conformed.
1 - Rational Choice - making decisions not to offend
- crime is the outcome for immediate choices which you make.
- builds on classical criminology
- Everyone is a potential criminal.
- people make a cost benefit analysis
For an offense to occur there needs to be a chemistry for a crime. • Motivated offenders • Suitable targets • Absence of capable guardians • Must converge in time and space
We can manipulate the environment to prevent crime • Bike locks • Burglary • Hide pin number • ID • CCTV
Assessing Rational Choice theory
- It doesn’t deal with crime directly, guilt or punishment. Does not deal with the underlying problems.
- How far can we really put aside crime without understanding power and underlying causes?
- Victim blaming
Explain Control Theory
Social bonds can stop you from committing crimes and keeps checks on yourself and keeps you tied to conventional society.
- links to developmental criminology ‘turning points which stop people from offending’
- links to city crime
• Hirschi 1969
Reaction to strain theory
o Overpredicts working class crime
o Doesn’t explain crimes of the powerful and why people do not commit crime.
• He uses self-report study
o Crime is spread across social groups
o The control that prevent you from breaking the rules are social bonds which are weak and allows you to be free to commit crime.
o You have been socialise not to and are not aware that it has happened to you.
Social Bonds: A stake in conformity
Social bonds: a stake in conformity
- Attachment - how much you care of what people think about you
- Commitment - time, energy and emotion which you have done in conventional society.
- Involvement - too busy to commit crimes
- Beliefs - how much believe you should obey the rules of society
In order to commit a crime, you need to have subterranean values which are risk taking values: • Excitement • Confirmation of identity • Material gain • Creativity • these help you overcome the bonds.
What do we notice if we look into conformity?
- relates to the age crime curve - you get older your stake in society gets bigger as you are dependent on your job etc.. This is why people may stop offending.
- Women offend much less than men – why? Because they are controlled more.
o Heidensohn 1992: Women – caring responsibilities, in public (fear of aasult), at work (low pay and sexual harassment) social policies – reproductive rights.
Policy implications for control theory - Strengthening social controls
- Education
- Parenting
- Creating leisure opportunities
- Family values
- Boosting conventional morality
- ‘Feminization of social control’?
Limitations of conformity
Limitations
• Not interested in motivation
• Oppressive and repressive - Har far do you feel comfortable with the state dictating in you life
• Ignore broader power structures - are all parents equally able to pass on values?
• Where do control come from and why are they there?
