interactionism (sociological)

• Cohen mods and rockers:

  • study = uses mods and rockers to explain amplification spiral
  • media exaggeration = media exaggeration caused growing public concern
  • moral entrepreneurs = they were called for a crackdown leading to more arrests and more concerns
  • negative labelling = negative labelling of mods and rockers as folk devils
• interactionism and labelling theory:

  1. interactionism = sees interactions with each other as based on meanings or labels. crime and criminals are social constructions
  2. labelling theory = no act is deviant or criminal in itself. only becomes so when others label it as such
  3. differential enforcement = social control agencies use typification's to label some groups as criminal more than others
• interactionism and labelling theory:

  4) primary and secondary deviance = LEMERT argues labelling is a cause of crime. explains this by distinguishing primary and secondary deviance

  5) self fulfilling prophecy = when an offender is labelled by society and they live up to their label

  6) the deviance amplification spiral = attempt to control deviance through a crackdown leads it to increasing rather than decreasing. this leads to greater attempts to control and even more deviance
• interactionism and labelling theory:

  7) interactionism and crime statistics = interactionists reject use of statistics complied by the police because they only believe they only measure what the police do (who they arrest) rather than what criminals do (how much crime there actually is)

  8 ) YOUNG : THE HIPPIES = study in which police attention and labelling led hippies to retreat into closed groups where drug use took over
• strengths of interactionism and labelling theory:

  1. shows that the law is not a fixed set of rules but socially constructed
  2. shows how attempts to control can cause more deviance
  3. shifts focus onto how police create crime by applying labels - may explain why some groups are overrepresented in some crime statistics
• limitations of interactionism and labelling theory:

  • gives offenders a victim status
  • fails to explain primary deviance
  • deterministic as it assumes we have no choice but to live up to the labels
  • doesn't say where power to apply a label comes from
  • fails to explain why labels are applied to some groups but not others
• primary deviance = acts that have not been publicly labelled - usually trivial and uncaught. offenders don't see themselves as criminal

  secondary deviance = results from labelling - people treat the offender solely in terms of their label. this becomes their master status
• model entrepreneur = high status person who calls for a crackdown on crime

  media exaggeration = media makes a crime seem worse than it is