Social interactionism/labelling theory

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  • SOCIAL INTERACTIONISM / LABELLING THEORY
    • SOCIAL INTERACTIONISM
      • seeks to explain why some acts/ people are descried as criminal & others aren't
      • aren't interested in the causes of crime but the social construction of those lables
      • regard official statistics as being socially constructed - showing an unrepresentative group of offenders who have been caught & publically labelled as 'criminal' because of stereotypes
      • BECKER- 'deviant behaviour is behaviour that people label so' - groups who have their own powers to create rules & impose their own definitions of deviance e.g. police force, fall into the category of moral entrepreneurs
    • SELECTIVE LAW ENFORCEMENT
      • agencies of social control (police) use considerable discretion & selective judgement in dealing with criminal behaviour
      • it'd be impossible to prosecute all crime so there's a certain amount of discretion used to judge which breaches of the law are deemed criminal & whch arent
      • the same crime committed by 2 different people may not be punished in the same way
    • BECKER
      • suggested that the police operated within the boundaries of certain preconceptions & stereotypes of what constituted 'trouble'
      • he believed these prior beliefs influenced the way they responded to certain groups
      • the action taken is not a measure of the offence it self but of the response the act received & the stereotypes surrounding that particular group
    • CICOUREL
      • attempted to understand how law enforcers interpret what they see
      • conducted research on juvenile delinquency in 2 cities in US, he studied suburban & urban areas
      • he found crime rates to be significantly higher in areas with a lot of WC
      • he said this was because, even though the same activities were being done by youths in the MC ares, the police perception was that deviant acts of young people from MC backgrounds can be explained as 'one off' offences
      • the opposite was found to be true in poorer urban areas
      • circourel linked this to the social construction of O.S's where police patrol who gets stopped & searched & who gets arrested & charged
    • LEMERT
      • distinguishes between primary & secondary deviance
      • primary deviance = deviance that hasnt been publically labelled as so, could be low level deviance (stealing stationary from work place) or deviance no one nows about (child ****)
      • if the person is exposed as deviant & a label is attached secondary deviance may occur.
      • secondary deviance arises from the attachment of the label & the social reaction the deviant receives
    • BECKER
      • suggests the process of labelling can lead to a self fulfilling prophecy, where those labelled are rejected by mainstream society & start to follow a deviant career
      • prison is a means by which labels are made to stick so when they've left 'ex-con' will hang over their heads
      • this continued labelling may lead to further deviance as it may close off legitimate opportunities & become part of their 'master status'
      • the social reaction & application of deviant label produces more deviance than it prevents

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