Interactionism and labelling theory

• Deviance


  No act is deviant in itself, deviance is simply a social construct
• Labelling theory


  Social groups create deviance by creating rules and applying them to particular people whom they label as 'outsiders'
• An act or a person only becomes deviant when labelled by others as deviant
• Differential enforcement


  • Social control agencies (police, courts etc) tend to label certain groups as criminal
  • Police decisions to arrest were based on stereotypical ideas about manner, dress, gender, class, ethnicity, time and place
• Typifications


  • Stereotypes of the 'typical delinquent' used by police
  • Individuals fitting the typification are more likely to be stopped, arrested and charged
  • Working-class and minority ethnic youths are more likely to be arrested and charged
  • Middle-class youths are less likely to fit the typification and have parents who can negotiate successfully on their behalf
• Crime statistics recorded by the police do not give a valid picture of crime patterns
• Dark figure


  The difference between the official statistics and the 'real' rate of crime, which is unknown due to undetected, unreported and unrecorded crime
• Some sociologists use victim surveys or self-report studies to gain a more accurate view of crime rates
• Primary deviance


  Deviant acts that have not been publicly labeled, with many causes, often trivial and mostly go uncaught, where those who commit them do not usually see themselves as deviant
• Secondary deviance


  Deviance that results from societal action, ie, from labeling, which can involve stigmatising and excluding the offender from normal society
• Self-fulfilling prophecy


  Being labelled may provoke a crisis for the individual's self-concept and lead to them living up to the label, resulting in secondary deviance
• Further societal reaction may reinforce the individual's outsider status and lead to them joining a deviant subculture
• The control processes aimed at producing low-abiding behaviour can produce the opposite, resulting in a deviance amplification spiral
• Folk devils and moral panics


  Media exaggeration and distortion can begin a moral panic, with growing public concern leading to a 'crackdown' by authorities, which then provokes more deviance and further marginalisation of the 'folk devils'
• Functionalists see deviance producing social control, while labelling theorists see control producing further deviance
• Douglas' approach to suicide

  To understand suicide, we must discover its meanings for the deceased, rather than relying on official suicide statistics which are social constructs that only tell us about the labels applied by coroners
• Douglas argues that to discover the deceased's meanings, we must use qualitative methods like analysis of suicide notes or unstructured interviews with relatives
• Deviant


  Someone who has been successfully labelled in this way, and deviant behaviour is just behaviour we label as such
• Moral entrepreneurs


  People leading moral campaigns to change law, which creates outsiders who break the new rule, and the creation/expansion of social control agencies like the police-who enforce rule and label offenders
• Factors determining whether a person is arrested, charged and convicted

  • Their interactions with social control agencies
  • Appearance, background & personal biography
  • The situation/circumstances of the offence
• Studies show social control agencies are more likely to label certain groups as criminal/deviant
• Typifications


  Officer's ideas of what delinquents are like
• Typifications led to law enforcement showing class bias, with more police patrolling working class areas, causing more arrests and confirming police stereotypes
• Probation officers holding the theory that juvenile delinquency comes from broken homes, poverty and lax parenting meant they would see these youths as delinquents and would support giving them custodial sentences
• Justice is negotiable instead of fixed, with middle class delinquents less likely to be charged because they didn't fit typifications, and middle class parents able to use wealth/connections to negotiate and convince control agencies
• Social construction of crime statistics

  Official crime stats are socially constructed as there is an agent of social control (officer, prosecutor, etc) at each stage of the criminal justice system who makes decisions about whether to proceed
• Dark figure of crime


  Unrecorded, unreported, undetected crime in society that we're unaware of
• Primary deviance


  Acts that have not been publicly labeled deviant
• Secondary deviance


  Acts that have been publicly labeled deviant, and are an attempt to cope with the label and find their own identity as a deviant
• Deviance amplification spiral


  Attempts to control deviance lead to an increase in deviance, it's an escalating spiral
• The press exaggeration/distorted reporting became a normal panic, causing public concern and moral entrepreneurs wanting a crackdown, which led to the police arresting more youths and courts imposing harsher penalties, confirming the truth of the media reaction and pushing the public to further concern
• Reintegrative shaming


  Only the crime is labelled as bad, not the actor. The emphasis is on the offender being aware of their wrongdoings and others being able to forgive them so that reintegration into society is possible and crime rates are reduced.
• Disintegrative shaming


  The crime and the criminal are labelled as bad and they're excluded from society.
• Studies have shown that trying to control/punish young offenders has the opposite effect, with an increase in seeing young offenders as evil and a lesser tolerance for minor deviance, leading to higher levels of deviance instead of control