Becker

• Writing from an interactionist perspective 
• Becker argued that an act only becomes deviant when others define it as such (In the eye of the beholder). Whether the ‘label’ of deviancy is applied depends on:

  • who commits the act
  • when it is committed 
  • where it is committed
  • who observes the act
  • the negotiations that take place between the various actors involved in the interaction. 
• If, for example, the actions of young people are defined as delinquent and they are convicted for breaking the law, those young people have been labelled. The agents of social control, for example the police and the courts, have the power to make the label stick. The label applied to the individual becomes a master status; the young people have become criminals and this label will affect how others see them and respond to them.
• Assumptions will be made that the individuals concerned have the negative characteristics normally associated with the label. As a consequence the individuals will begin to see themselves in terms of the label, producing a self-fulfilling prophecy.
• The individual who has been publicly labelled as deviant is rejected from certain social groups on the basis of various negative assumptions about their future behaviour; this may well encourage further deviance, which in turn begins what Becker describes as the deviant career. This career is completed when the individual joins an organised deviant group which develops a deviant subculture, this subculture develops beliefs and values which rationalise, justify and support deviant identities and behaviours.