Unit 4 SCLY4 - Crime and Deviance with Theory and Methods; Stratification and Differentiation with Theory and Methods
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Summary AQA A-level Sociology Book 2 Crime and deviance: Interactionalism and Labelling Theory A* Revision notes
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Unit 4 SCLY4 - Crime and Deviance with Theory and Methods; Stratification and Differentiation with Theory and Methods
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Unit 4 SCLY4 - Crime and Deviance with Theory and Methods; Stratification and Differentiation with Theory and Methods
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TOPIC 2: INTERACTIONSIM AND LABELLING THEORY
The social construction of crime:
● Becker: deviant = someone who label has been successfully applied
Deviant behaviour: behaviour people label.
● Moral entrepreneurs: lead a moral ’crusade’ to change law
● Becker: new law has 2 effects:
1. Creation of a new group of ‘outsiders’- deviants who break new rule.
2. Creation of social control agency (police) to enforce rule
● Platt: ‘juvenile delinquency’: created to protect young people at risk.
● Becker: social control agencies campaign to change law to increase own power,
redefine behaviour as unacceptable -> new laws being created
Who gets labelled?
Whether a person is arrested, charged and convicted depends on factors such as:
Interactions with agencies of social control e.g. police
● Appearance, background
● Situation/ circumstances of offence.
● Piliavin/ Briar: police decisions to arrest youth were based on physical cues (dress)
Cicourel- the negotiation of justice
Cicourel: officers’ typifications led them to concentrate on certain ‘types’-> law
enforcement showing class bias where WC fitted the police typifications more
closely
Justice not fixed but negotiable. E.g. when MC youth is arrested, less likely to be
charged because background doesn’t fit with police’s ‘typical delinquent’.
Cicourel: statistics don’t give a valid picture of patterns of crime/ cannot be used as
a resource but should be treated as a topic
The social construction of crime statistics:
● Interactionists: OS are socially constructed
● OS count for decisions made by control agents at different stages of justice system
● The dark figure of crime: difference between OS and real rate of crime
● Alternative statistics: Victim surveys (limited: people may forget/ exaggerate)
, The effects of labelling
Primary and secondary deviance
● Primary deviance: deviant acts that have NOT been publicly labelled.
● Lemert: primary deviance unlikely to have a single cause. Primary deviants don’t see
themselves as deviant.
● Secondary deviance: result of societal reaction/ labelling. Individual labelled, others
see him only in terms of the label, becomes his master status -> SFP
● Secondary deviance -> hostile reactions from society/ reinforce deviant’s ‘outsider’
status -> join deviant subculture that offers deviant career opportunities, rewards
deviant behaviour, confirms deviant identity.
● Young: marijuana users in Notting Hill: drugs peripheral to their lifestyle (primary
deviance) -> persecution from police so hippies saw themselves as outsiders ->
formed deviant subcultures + attracted further attention -> SFP
● Not act itself, but hostile societal reaction that creates deviance. Social control
processes produce opposite of law abiding behaviour
● Downes/ Rock: cannot predict if labelled person will follow deviant career (free to
not deviate further)
Deviance amplification spiral
● Attempt to control deviance -> increase deviance -> greater control it -> higher
deviance. More control -> more deviance -> spiral EG: Young’s study of drug hippies
● Cohen: EG: Mods and Rockers moral panic-> press exaggeration -> concern with
moral entrepreneurs -> police responded by arresting more youths which confirmed
truth of original media reaction -> more public concern
● Folk devils vs the dark figure: Folk devils are over-labelled and over-exposed to
public view. Pursuit of folk devils draws resources from punishing dark figures of
crime
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