Interactionism & Labelling Theory

Labelling theorists argue that no act is inherently criminal in itself but only comes to be so when others label it as such. For Becker, a deviant is simply someone to whom the label has been successfully applied. Labelling theorists are particularly interested in the role of moral entrepreneurs; people who lead the moral crusase to change the law. Becker argues that this new law has two effects:

• The creation of a new group of outsiders, deviants who break the new rule
• The creation and expansion of social control agencies to enforce the rule

Platt argues that the idea of juvenile delinquency was originally created by upper class Victorian moral entrepreneurs aimed at protecting young people at risk. This established juveniles as a separate category of offender

Social control agencies themselves may also campaign for a change in the law to increase their own power

Who gets labelled?

Not everyone who commits an offence is punished for it, whether a person is arrested, charged or convicted depends on their interactions with agencies of social control, their appearance and background, the situation and circumstances of the offence

This leads labelling theorists to look at how the laws are applied and enforced. Piliavin & Briar found that police decisions to arrest youth were mainly based on physical cues such as their clothes. Cicourel said that officers' decisions to arrest are influenced by their stereotypes about offenders leading them to concentrate on the working class because they fitted the police typifications most closely. This led police to patrol working class areas more intensively resulting in more arrests and confirming their stereotypes

Cicourel argues that these statistics do not give us a valid picture of the patterns of crime and cannot be used as a resource but instead we should treat them like a topic for sociologists to investigate as this will shed light on the activities of control agencies and how they process and label certain types of people as criminal

Interactionists see the official crime statistics as socially constructed because at each stage of the criminal justice system agents of social control make decisions about whether or not to proceed to the next stage because of the label they attach to the individual. (suspect stopped, arrested, charged, prosecuted, convicted, sentenced) This means the statistics simply tell us about the activities of the police rather than the amount of crime out there

The dark figure of crime - The difference between the official statistics and the real rate of crime, we don't know how much crime goes undetected and unreported

Alternative statistics - Victim surveys or self report studies can gain a more accurate picture but people may lie or forget

Lemert: primary and secondary deviance

Primary deviance refers to deviant acts that have not been publicly labelled and are so widespread such as fare dodging which mostly goes uncaught. This means they have little significance for the individual's status. However, secondary deviance is labelled as it the result of societal reaction. Being caught and labelled as a criminal can involve being stigmatised, shamed and others may come to see him only in terms of the label creating a master status. The individual then accepts the deviant label leading to a self fulfilling prophecy where the person acts out this deviance

Young uses the concepts of secondary deviance and deviant career in his study oh hippies in Notting Hill. Initially, drugs were a normal part of their lifestyle which is an example of primary deviance. The persecution and labelling led them to see themselves as outsiders so their drug use became a central activity. This shows how it is not the act itself but the reaction to it that creates secondary deviance but it ignores how some people may choose not to deviate further

Deviance amplification spiral

This is where the attempt to control deviance leads to an increase in the level of deviance which leads to greater attempts to control it and in turn produces higher levels of deviance. An example of this is Cohen's study of the Mods & Rockers. Press exaggeration of the events began a moral panic leading the police to respond by arresting more youth which seemed to comfirm the original media reaction and provoked more public concern. This demonising of the Mods & Rockers as folk devils resulted in more deviant behaviour. Folk devils are over-represented in official statistics drawing resources away from detecting the crimes which make up the dark figure of crime

Labelling and criminal justice policy

Increases in the attempt to control and punish young offenders can have the opposite effect where the criminal justice system has re-labelled status offences such as truancy as more serious offences. This has resulted in an increase in offending showing how negative labelling can push offenders towards a deviant career. This means to reduce deviance we should make and enforce fewer rules for people to break such as decriminalising soft drugs.

Braithwaite identifies a more positive role for the labelling process with two types of shaming:

• Disintegrative shaming - where not only the crime but also the criminal is labelled as bad and the offender is excluded from society
• Reintegrative shaming - the act is labelled but not the person themselves which encourages the offender to go back into mainstream society and avoids pushing them into secondary deviance

Criticisms

• It is deterministic as not everyone who is labelled goes on to have a deviant career as some criminals are reformed
• Realist sociologists say they ignore the real victims of crime as they give the offender a victim status
• It ignores corporate crimes and only focuses on less serious crimes
• It failts to explain why people commit primary deviance in the first place
• It ignores how most people are well aware that they are going against social norms before they are labelled
• It fails to explain the origin of labels or why they're applied to groups like the working class