SOC - Interactionalism & Crime Flashcards
Interactionism
- people do not become criminals because of their social background, but rather because of labelling by authorities.
- crime is the product of micro-level interactions between certain individuals and the police, rather than the result of external social forces such as socialisation or blocked opportunity structures.
Howard Becker
- Labelling Theory
- FBN outlawing Marijuana in 1937
- Agents of social control
- Master status
- Deviant Career
Labelling Theory quote
‘Deviant behaviour is behaviour that people so label.’
Labelling Theory
- Crime is socially constructed.The labels society give to deviant behaviour actually results in criminal behaviour because the deviant person starts living up to that label.
- powerful groups in society decide on laws and create rules. They decide what counts as deviant or not and therefore allow us to label people who fail to conform as criminal
Agents of Social Control
Anyone who contributes to helping maintain societal control.
EG CJS, Media, Education, Family, Peers
Becker Evaluation
- It tends to be determinstic, not everyone accepts their labels
– It assumes offenders are just passive, doesn’t recognise the role of personal choice in committing crime
Who developed Primary and Secondary deviance?
Edwin Lemert
Overview of Lemert’s theory
Everyone engages in deviant acts but only some people are caught being deviant and get labelled as deviant
Primary deviance
The initial stage of defining deviant behaviour. Acts that have not (yet) been labelled as deviant/carried out by someone who normally conforms.
Secondary Deviance
An act that has been labelled as deviant by society. The individual interprets their behaviour in light of the label where repeated deviance can occur.
Lemert Evaluation
It fails to explain why acts of primary deviance exist, focussing mainly on secondary deviance.
Cicourel
Typifications
Overview of Cicourel
the stereotypes (typifications) held by police officers and juvenile officers that explain why most delinquents come from working class backgrounds. - Crime statistics don't give a valid picture of the patterns of crime and cannot be used as a resource for measuring crime
How did Cicourel conduct his research?
Observations on California police personnel
- Both participant and non participant
- 4 year study of juvenile justice
Why are MC youths less likely to be charged? (Cicourel)
- They don’t fit the idea of the police’s typifications of the ‘typical delinquent’
- They have parents who were more likely to negotiate with the police on their behalf
Cicourel Evaluation
- Helps explain why crime data and statistics only show who the police target
- Proven police are discriminatory ( BM in Dorset 17x more likely to be stop and searched)
Stan Cohen
- Deviance is exaggerated by the media
- Mods and Rockers
- Primary and Secondary research
Cohen Overview
- the media has a long history of exaggerating the deviance of youth subcultures in particular, resulting in the individuals within those subcultures responding with more deviance.
- The effect of the media coverage was to make the young people categorise themselves as either mods or rockers which actually helped to create the violence that took place between them,which further helped to confirm them as violent in the eyes of the general public
Moral Panic and Folk Devils (Cohen)
MP- exaggerated outburst of public concern over the morality or behaviour of a group in society.
FD- people who are threatening to public order.
Deviance Amplification (Cohen)
The process where over-exaggeration causes people to join in and create more criminal activity.
Jock Young
- carried out primary and secondary research into the hippie marijuana users in Notting Hill during the 1960s.
- Self fulfiling prophecy
Young Overview
- the police began targeting a group of ‘hippies’, which served to widen the gap between them and conventional society.
- This resulted in drug taking, which had already been an exterior activity, becoming a symbol of the groups’ defiance against the police and also became part of their status.
- This consequently caused a deviant subculture to develop, and the hippies to internalise their label and become marginalised from society.
Self Fulfilling Prophecy
process through which an originally false expectation leads to its own confirmation
Young Evaluation
- highlights the importance of those in power in defining acts as deviant as well as the way official crime statistics are a product of bias in law enforcement.
- moves the blame away from the deviant, when people who commit a deviant act know full well what they are doing.
Cohen Evaluation
It shows the importance of the reactions of others in defining and creating deviance.
