The social construction of crime

Question 1

Becker

Answer 1

Social groups create deviance by creating the rules that one is labelled a deviant upon breaking. A deviant is simply someone to whom the label has been successfully applied to

Question 2

Piliavin and Briar

Answer 2

Found that police decisions to arrest a youth were usually based on stereotype (gender, class and ethnicity) and the time and place

Question 3

Cicourel - stereotypes

Answer 3

Officer stereotypes have a large impact on whether one is arrested or not, and because those stereotypes typically fit the working-class people and areas, working-class areas were patrolled more intensively and therefore resulting in more arrests which confirmed stereotypes

Question 4

What did cicourel find upon looking at other agents of social control

Answer 4

In probation officers he found that they all held the view that delinquency was caused by broken homes and lax parenting, meaning those that fit this label was likely to re-offend and were, therefore, less likely to support non-custodial sentences for them.

Question 5

Cicourel - justice is ___

Answer 5

Negotiable and not fixed. For example, when a middle class youth is arrested they are less likely to be charged as their background does not fit officer stereotypes and their parents are able to negotiate on his behalf and convince social control agencies that he is sorry and they will keep him under control, resulting in counselling and warnings rather than prosecution

Question 6

Why are crime statistics socially constructed?

Answer 6

At each stage of the justice system, social control agents make decisions on whether to proceed to the next level, and the outcome is dependent on the labels they have attached to the offender, labels that are affected by preconceived stereotypes. This means that statistics only tell us about the behaviour of police and prosecutors and not the amount of crime and who commits it.