The Effects Of Labelling Flashcards
What does Lemert mean by primary and secondary deviance ?
Lemert distinguishes between primary and secondary deviance
Primary deviance refers to deviant acts that have not yet been publicly labelled . For example fare dodging and mostly goes uncaught . Primary deviants don’t generally see themselves as deviant
However , some deviance is labelled - secondary deviance is the result of societal reaction that is of labelling . Being caught and publically labelled as criminal can involve being stigmatised , shamed , humiliated , shunned or excluded from normal society leading to a master status where only sees self as a deviant leading to further deviant acts /deviance
What is meant by master status ?
Master status is often as a result from secondary deviance where an individual will no longer see themself as a father or neighbour , he is now a thief or junkie or paedophile in short and outsider
What is meant by deviant career ?
Secondary deviance is likely to provoke further hostile reactions from society and reinforce the deviants outsider status leading to more deviance and a deviant career
For example , the ex convict will find it hard to go straight because no one will employ him, so he seeks out other outsiders for support . This may involve joining a deviant subculture that offers deviant career opportunities , rewards deviant behaviour and confirms his deviant identity
What was Young’s study which uses the concept of secondary deviance and deviant career ?
Young uses the concept of secondary deviance and deviant career in his stud of hippy marijuana users in Notting Hill , drugs were part of the hippies lifestyle an example of primary deviance . However persecution and labelling by the control culture (Police ) led the hippies to increasingly see themselves as outsiders , they retreated into closed groups where they began to develop a deviant subculture . Drug us became a central activity attracting further attention from the police leasing to self fulfilling prophecy
What do Lemert and Young suggest is the main cause of secondary deviance ?
Lemert and young illustrate that is is not the act itself that leads to secondary deviance but society’s reaction to the act that causes serious secondary deviance . Therefore the social control processes that are meant to produce law abiding behaviour may in fact produce the opposite
What did Downes and Rock find about deviant careers ?
Downes and Rock note that we cannot predict whether someone who has been labelled will follow a deviant career , because they are always free to chose not to deviate any further
What is meant by a deviance amplification spiral ?
The deviance amplification spiral is a term that labelling theorists use to describe the process in which the attempt to control deviance leads to an increase in the level of deviance . This then leads to greater attempts to control it and in turn produces higher levels of deviance , more and more control produces more and more deviance in an escalating spiral
What is an example of the deviance amplification spiral studies by Cohen ?
Cohen concurred a study of the societal reaction to the mods and rockers , disturbances involving groups of youths at English seaside resorts
Press exaggeration and distorted reporting of the events began a moral panic with growing public concern and moral entrepreneurs calling for a crack down. The police responded by arresting more youths , while the courts imposes harsher penalties . This seemed to confirm the truth of the original media reaction and provoked more public concern , in an upward spiral of deviance amplification
The demonising of the mods and rockers as folk devils caused their further marginalisation as outsiders , resulting in more deviant behaviour on their part
What is the difference between folk devils and the dark figure of crime ?
Folk devils are in a sense the opposite of the dark figure of crime , while the dark figure is about unlabelled , unrecorded crime that is ignored by the public and the police
Whereas folk devils and their actions are over labelled and over exposed to the public view and the attentions of the authorities
What is a way to try and combat further deviance and why ?
Negative labelling pushes offenders towards a deviant career path, therefore logically to reduce deviance we should make and enforce fewer laws for people to break
For example by decriminalising soft drugs we might reduce the number of people with criminal convictions and hence the risk of secondary deviance
Similarly the labelling theory implies we should avoid publicly naming and shaming offenders , since this is likely your create a perception of them as evil outsiders and excludes them from mainstream society pushing them into further deviance
What are the 2 types of shaming that Braithwaite distinguishes between and what do they mean ?
-Disintegrative shaming - where not only the crime but also the criminal are labelled as bad and the offender is excluded from society
-Reintegrative shaming - by contrast , labels the act but not the actor as if to say they have done a bad thing but aren’t a bad person
How does Braithwaite argue reintegrative shaming is better ?
Reintegrative shaming avoids stigmatising the offender as evil while at the same time making them aware of the negative impact of their actions at the same time it avoids pushing the offender towards secondary deviance
Braithwaite argues that crime rates tend to be lower in societies where reintegrative shaming rather than disintegrative shaming is the dominant way of dealing with offenders
Evaluation of the labelling theory - Criticisms ?
Criticisms of the labelling theory are ;
-tends to be deterministic , implying that once labelled a deviant career is inevitable
-its emphasis on the negative effects of labelling give the offender a kind of victim status , realist sociologists argue that this ignores the real victims of crime
-it tends to focus on less serious crimes such as drug taking
-by assuming that offenders are passive victims of labelling , it ignores the fact that individuals may actively chose deviance
-it fails to explain why people commit primary deviance in the first place , before they are labelled
-it implies that without labelling deviance wouldn’t exist . This leads to the strange conclusion that someone who commits a crime but has not been labelled has not deviated , also Implies that deviants are unaware that they are deviant until labelled but most are well aware that they are going against societal norms
-Fails to explain the origin of the labels or why they are applied to certain groups eg working class or females or certain ethnic groups
