The effects of labelling

Question 1

What do labelling theorists believe the effects of labelling certain people as criminals are?

Answer 1

Society encourages the person to become deviant

Question 2

Primary and secondary deviance (Lemert)

Answer 2

• Primary deviance: deviant acts that haven’t been publicly labelled. Pointless to seek its cause as it’s usually trivial
• Secondary deviance: the result of societal reaction

Question 3

Master status

Answer 3

• Being caught and publicly labelled as a criminal can involve being stigmatised, shamed, humiliated and shunned
• Once this has occurred, others may only come to see him in terms of his label
• This can provoke a crisis for the individual’s self-concept or sense of identity, which may lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy

Question 4

Deviant career

Answer 4

• Secondary deviance is likely to provoke further reactions from society and reinforce the ‘outsider’ status
• Young (1971): study of hippy marijuana users in Notting Hill. At the start, the drug usage was an example of primary deviance, but once they were caught and ridiculed, they retreated into closed groups and the drug usage became a central activity

Question 5

Deviance amplification spiral

Answer 5

• A term labelling theorists use to describe a process in which an attempt to control deviance leads to an increase in the level of deviance
• Press exaggeration and distorted reporting of the events began a moral panic, with growing public concern and moral entrepreneurs calling for a ‘crackdown’
• The police’s response was arresting more youths and harsher penalties

Question 6

Folk devils vs. the dark figure

Answer 6

• The actions of folk devils are ‘over-labelled’

Question 7

Labelling and criminal justice policy

Answer 7

• Triplett (2000): increasing tendency to see young offenders as evil and to be less tolerant of minor deviance
• Labelling theory says we should avoid publicly ‘naming and shaming’ offenders

Question 8

Reintegrative shaming (Braithwaite)

Answer 8

1. Disintegrative shaming- where not only the crime, but also the criminal, is labelled as bad
2. Reintegrative shaming- where the act is labelled but not the perpetrator