Crime topic 2

• Interactionism


  A theory that sees crime and deviance as the product of interactions between suspects and police, rather than just external social forces
• Labelling theory


  A theory that focuses on how and why some people and actions come to be labelled as criminal, and the effects this has
• Labelling theorists take a very different approach from other theories, which take the definition of crime for granted
• Social construction of crime

  Labelling theorists argue that no act is inherently criminal, it only comes to be seen as such when others label it as such
• Howard Becker: 'Social groups create deviance by creating the rules whose infraction constitutes deviance, and by applying those rules to particular people and labeling them as outsiders.'
• Moral entrepreneurs


  People who lead a moral crusade to change the law, which can create a new group of 'outsiders' or deviants
• Agencies of social control are more likely to label certain groups of people as deviant or criminal
• Cicourel's concept of the negotiation of justice

  Justice is not fixed but negotiable, with middle-class youths more likely to be 'counselled, warned and released' rather than prosecuted
• Dark figure of crime


  The difference between the official crime statistics and the 'real' rate of crime that goes undetected, unreported and unrecorded
• Official crime statistics do not give a valid picture of the patterns of crime, they are a topic for sociological investigation rather than a resource
• Primary deviance


  Deviant acts that have not been publicly labelled, which are unlikely to have a single cause and are often trivial
• Secondary deviance


  Deviance that results from being caught and publicly labelled as a criminal, which can lead to a crisis of self-concept and a 'deviant career'
• Master status


  The deviant label that becomes an individual's controlling identity, overshadowing all other aspects of their identity
• Deviance amplification spiral


  The process in which attempts to control deviance lead to an increase in the level of deviance, creating an escalating spiral
• Folk devils are the opposite of the dark figure of crime - they are over-labelled and over-exposed to public view and the authorities, drawing resources away from detecting the crimes that make up the dark figure
• Both cases, the societal event act each not to succesul control further devance, which in tum leads abo Barates an important theory and functionalist theori
• As Lement (1967) puts it these theories he heavily on the idea that dinance leach to social control I have come to believe the reverse id in acial control leads to deviance
• Folk devils


  In a sense the opposites of the dark figure of crime
• Dark figure of crime


  Unlabeled unrecorded crime that is ignored by the public and the police
• Folk devils and their actions are over-labeled and over-exposed to public view and the attentions of the authorities
• The pursuit of folk devils draws resources away from detecting and punishing the crimes that makeup the dark figure, such as the crimes of the powerful
• Disintegrative shaming


  • Convicted of burglary in Dougherty Georgia, USA, this woman was sentenced to stand outside the courthouse wearing the sign
• Reintegrative shaming


  Labels the act but not the actor - as if to say he has done a bad thing rather than he is a bad person
• Studies have shown how increases in the attempt to control and punish young offenders can have the opposite effect
• In the USA, Tplett (2000) notes an increasing tendency to see young offenders as evil and to be less tolerant of minor deviance
• The criminal justice system has re-labeled status offences such as truancy as more serious offences, resulting in much harsher sentences
• This has resulted in an increase rather than a decrease in offending
• De Haas (2000) notes a similar outcome in Holland as a result of the increasing stigmatisation of young offenders
• Labelling theory has important policy implications. They add weight to the argument that negative labelling pushes offenders towards a deviant career
• To reduce deviance, we should make and enforce fewer rules for people to break
• By decriminalising soft drugs, we might reduce the number of people with criminal convictions and hence the risk of secondary deviance
• We should avoid publicly 'naming and shaming' offenders, since this is likely to create a perception of them as evil outsiders and, by excluding them from mainstream society push them into further deviance
• Interactions are important areas about mental illness and suicide
• Suicide has been an important topic in the development of sociology
• Durkheim (1897) studied suicide with the aim of showing that it was a social fact, not just an individual act
• Interactionists reject Durkheim's positivist approach and his reliance on official statistics
• To understand suicide, we must study its meanings for those who choose to kill themselves
• Douglas (1967) takes an interactionist approach to suicide. He is critical of the use of official suicide statistics
• Whether a death comes to be officially labeled as suicide rather than, say, an accident or homicide, depends on the interactions and negotiations between social actors such as the coroner, relatives, friends, doctors and so on
• Atkinson (1978) argues that official statistics are merely the labels coroners attach to deaths, and that it is impossible to know for sure what the dead gave their deaths