Crime : Lemert

• Lemert initially stressed the importance of SOCIETAL REACTION in explaining deviance. His study of stuttering amongst North American Pacific Coastal Indians showed that this form of deviance was produced through societal reaction. There was, within the tribe, a stressful initiation ceremony that each member had to go through into adulthood in which speeches had to be word perfect. The sheer stress of getting this right in front of other members of the tribe produced the deviant act of stuttering.
• Primary Deviance (i.e. deviant acts before they are so labelled) which Lemert sees as unimportant as it only has a little effect on the individual and does not affect his/her status in the community; this behaviour does not prevent the individual from continuing a normal and conventional life because no-one knows about the deviance as there has been no public label.
• 1. Secondary Deviance is deviance resulting from SCIETAL REACTION, and for Lemert this is the most important because it entails the public identification of an individual as a deviant which in turn results in clear consequences for the individual concerned. - It affects one's status and standing in the community and one's self-concept. Therefore, for Lemert it must be seen as THE MAJOR CAUSE OF DEVIANCE.
• Supported by Pierce - "How to be immoral and ill, pathetic and dangerous all at the same time

  • Gay men are declared as enemies in society. (At this point being gay was illegal)
  • A secret subculture was formed - cottaging. (Men meeting in toilets)
  • Therefore, the subculture is evidence of people being more deviant from being labelled