Labelling Theory

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  • Labelling Theory
    • What is it?
      • Looks at how laws are applied and enforced
        • Triplett; CJS often gives young offenders harsher sentences
      • Influenced  by gender, class and ethnicity as well as time and place
        • Anti-social behaviour orders found to be disproportion-ately against ethnic minorities
        • Those stopped at night, greater risk of arrest
    • Sociologists
      • Cicourel; negotiation of justice, typifications led to class bias against wc, more patrols of wc areas, more arrests, confirming stereotypes
        • Argues statistics don't give valid picture of crime patterns
      • Lemert (1951)
        • Primary deviance;crime has not been publicly labelled
        • Secondary deviance; result of societal reaction. publicly labelled with a "master status"
    • Effects of labelling
      • Labelling theorists claim that by labelling certain people as criminal or deviant it encourages them to become so
      • Secondary deviance gain hostile reaction from society, reinforce 'outsider' status lead to deviant career (Lemert)
      • Deviance amplification spiral and 'moral panics'
        • Press exaggeration and distorted reporting, police respond be arresting from that stereotype
    • Evaluation
      • Downes and Rock; someone who has been labelled to have a deviant career is free to choose not to deviate further
      • Crime statistics are more a record of control agent activities than of criminals
      • Society's attempt to control deviance can back fire and create more deviance not less
      • Braithwaite; reintegrative shaming can encourage others to forgive the offender and avoid secondary deviance

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