Topic 2: Interactionism and labelling theory

Question 1

How is crime considered a social construction by labelling theorists?

Answer 1

Argue that no act is inherently criminal or deviant in itself, Instead it only comes to be so when others label it as such.

Question 2

What does Becker (1963) say a deviant is?

Answer 2

Someone who the label has been successfully applied, and deviant behaviour is simply behaviour that people label.

Question 3

Explain Becker’s ‘Moral Entrepeneur’ theory.

Answer 3

-Moral entrepeneurs are people who lead a moral campaign that change the law

Question 4

What are the two effects that moral entrepeneurship has?

Answer 4

-The creation of a new group of outsiders- outlaws or deviants who break the rule
-The creation or expansion of a social control agency (such as police etc) to enforce the rule and impose labels on offenders

Question 5

What example does Platt (1969) give towards moral entrepeneurship?

Answer 5

-Idea of juvenile delinquency created as a result of a campaign by victorian moral entrepeneurs.
-This created a new category of offender ‘juveniles’

Question 6

According to Becker, how can social control agencies also campaign for change?

Answer 6

To help increase their own power.

Question 7

What factors effect whether a person is arrested, charged and convicted?

Answer 7

-Their interactions with agencies of social control
-Appearance, background and personal biography
-Situation and circumstances of the offences.

Question 8

What does Piliavin and Briar (1964) say about police decisions to arrest youth?

Answer 8

Based on physical cues, from which they made judgements,
Also influenced by the suspects gender, class, ethnicity, time and place.

Question 9

What theorist talks about officer’s typifications?

Answer 9

Cicourel.

Question 10

Explain what officer’s typifications are.

Answer 10

Stereotypes of what a typical delinquent is like. This can result in law enforcement showing a class bias.

Question 11

Give an example of how social control within criminal justice system reinforces this bias?

Answer 11

Probation officers holding idea that juvenile delinquency was caused by broken homes, poverty and lax parenting.

Question 12

What does Cicourel say about justice?

Answer 12

Justice is not fixed but negotiable.

Question 13

What is Cicourel’s view on official crime statistics?

Answer 13

Statistics do not give us a valid picture of the patterns of crime and cannot be used as a resource ,
We should instead use them as a topic to investigate to shed light on labelling.

Question 14

What do interactionists say about crime statistics?

Answer 14

-Socially constructed,
Social control agents decide at each step to proceed to next stage and continue the process of labelling.

Question 15

What is the dark figure of crime?

Answer 15

The difference between the official statistics and the ‘real’ rate of crime.

Question 16

How does Lemert (1951) distinguish between primary and secondary deviance?

Answer 16

Primary deviance: Deviant acts that have not yet been labelled

Secondary deviance: The result of societal reaction, being labelled and repeating the act.

Question 17

What is the master status?

Answer 17

Once an individual is labelled, others may come to see them only in terms of the label.

Question 18

How can the master status effect the individual?

Answer 18

Provoke a sense of individual’s self-concept or sense of identity, this may lead the individual to accept the deviant label and the self full-filling prophecy.

Question 19

What is a deviant career?

Answer 19

When the labelled deviant acts out more deviant acts, leading to a deviant career.

Question 20

What example does Young (1971) give for secondary deviance and a deviant career?

Answer 20

-Marijuana users in Notting Hill,
persecution and labelling lead to a deviant subculture,
-Drug use became a central activity, leading to a self full-filling prophecy

Question 21

What is a criticism of primary and secondary deviance?

Answer 21

Downes and rock (2003) cannot predict if someone labelled will follow down deviant career, always free to choose not to deviate further.

Question 22

What is the deviance amplification spiral?

Answer 22

A term used to describe a process in which the attempts to control deviance leads to an increase in the rate of deviance.
-Leads to more attempts to control and higher rates of deviance.

Question 23

What example does Stanley Cohen use to explain the deviance amplification spiral?

Answer 23

-Mods and Rockers
-Press exaggeration caused a crack down, mods and rockers labelled ‘folk devils’
-Caused further marginalisation and deviant acts

Question 24

Whats the difference between folk devils and the dark figure of crime?

Answer 24

-Folk devils are over-labelled and over-exposed to public view
-Compared to dark figure that are unlabelled and under-recorded, ignored by public and police.

Question 25

What policy implications does labelling theory have?

Answer 25

-Logically , to reduce deviance we should make and enforce fewer rules to break -Avoid publicly 'naming and shaming' offender, likely to create a negative perception of them and send them down a deviant career.

Question 26

What two types of shaming does Braithwaite (1989) distinguish between?

Answer 26

Disintegrative shaming and reintegrative shaming.

Question 27

What is disintegrative shaming?

Answer 27

Where not only crime but criminal is labelled as bad and offender excluded from society.

Question 28

What is reintegrative shaming?

Answer 28

Where the act is labelled, not the actor.

Question 29

What does Braithwaite argue about shaming?

Answer 29

Crime rates tend to be lower in societies where reintegrative shaming is more dominant than disintegrative.

Question 30

How and why did Durkheim (1897) study suicide?

Answer 30

-Using official statistics, claimed to have discovered causes of suicide in poorly socially integrated individuals -Wanted to prove sociology as a science

Question 31

Why do interactionists reject Durkheim's approach?

Answer 31

argue that to understand suicide, we must study it's meanings for those who choose to kill themselves.

Question 32

Explain Douglas' approach to suicide, statistics and meaning.

Answer 32

Official statistics are socially constructed and tell us more of the activities of the people who construct them, such as coroners.

Question 33

Give examples as to how official statistics are untrue in representing rates of suicide?

Answer 33

-Relatives may feel guilty about failing to prevent a death, and may press for other cause of death -A coroner may have strong religious view, that believes suicide is a sin, so may not record it.

Question 34

What does Douglas say we must do in order to find the true meanings of suicide?

Answer 34

-Use qualitative methods, -analyse suicide notes, -unstructured interviews with friends and families, -interview those who survive suicide attempts.

Question 35

What is Atkinson's main focus on the topic of suicide?

Answer 35

-The assumptions that coroners make, that may lead to untrue statistics -Ideas about typical suicides, modes of death, location, circumstance and history, can lead to different interpretations of death.

Question 36

What is a criticism of Atkinson's view of suicide?

Answer 36

If he is correct about having interpretations rather than facts, then his account is an interpretation with no reason to be accepted.

Question 37

What are interactionists interested in when it comes to mental illness?

Answer 37

-How does someone become labelled as mentally ill, and what are its effects?

Question 38

Explain Lemert's (1962) theory into Paranoia.

Answer 38

-Some individuals don't fit into groups (Primary deviance) -As a result they are excluded -Their response to exclusion begins secondary deviance -People around them talk about how best to deal with them -The person becomes suspicious of conspiracy, and confirms fears for their mental health, may lead to hospitalisation -'Mental patient' then becomes their master status.

Question 39

Whats an example of Lemert's theory into paranoia?

Answer 39

Rosenhan's (1973) 'psuedo-patient' experiment -False admissions into hospital under schizophrenia -Even acting normally, their actions considered insane.