Crime and Deviance - Interactionism and Labelling theory

The social construction of crime

Labelling theorists are interested in how and why certain acts become labelled as criminal in the first place. They argue that no act is inherently deviant of criminal in itself. It only comes to be so when other label it as such. 

As Howard Becker puts it - " social groups create devaince by creating the rules whose infraction constitutes deviance, and by applying those rules to particular people and labelling them as outsiders"

For Becker a deviant is just someone who has had the label of deviant sucessfully applied. 

He coined the term "moral entrepreunuer" who are groups that lead a moral crusade with the aim of labeling an act as either deviant or criminal. 

Platt argues that "juvenile delinquency" was originally created as a result of a campaign by the victorian upper class aimed at protecting young people at risk. The established juveniles as a seperate category of offender with their own courts. It enabled the courts to extend its powers. 

Cicourel: the negotiation of justice

Officers decisions to arrest people are influenced by their stereotypes about offenders. Aaron Cicourel stated that the typifications - their commensense theories of what the offender is like - led them to concentrate on certain types. This lead to law enforcement showing a class bias. 

In cicourels view justice is not fixed but negotiable, for example when a middle-class youth was arrested, he was less likely to be charged. This was partly becuase his background did not fit the typifications for police such as being working class or an ethnic minority. It is also because his parents were better negotiators on his behalf. They could convince the agencys of controll this it was a mistake, a "one-off" and he would be punished at their hands. typically this saw middle-class youths get a warning rather than procecuted.

Topics versus resource 

Cicourel argues that official statistics do not give a valid picture of the patterns of crime and thus cannot be used a resource, that is, they do not tell facts about crime. 

instead we should treat them as a topic for sociologists to investigate. we should not take crime statistics at face value and should instead investigate the process that created them. This will shed light on the activities of the control agencies. 

The social construction of crime statistics 

Interactionists see the official crime statistics as being socially constructed. At each stage of the criminal justice procedings agencies of social control make a decision about whether or not to move on to the next stage of the procedings. The outcome is based on the labels attatched to them pottential offender. This is likely going to as a result of the stereotypes or typifications held by the officer. 

As a result of this the statistics only show us the activities of the agencys of control rather than the actual rate of crime. This has lead to the term "dark figure of crime", the difference between reported crime and the…