Labelling Theory

Lesson Objectives

• Introduce the Labelling theory to Crime and Deviance

• Be able to apply Labelling theory to examples of Crime and Deviance

• Evaluate Labelling Theory

Last Lesson Recap

• Examine the role of access to opportunity structures in causing crime and deviance (12 marks)

• 6 AO1• 6 AO2

How to answer • Outline Merton’s Strain to anomie theory- esp. idea that

deviance results from unequal access to legitimate opportunities (education and career).

• Identify different forms of deviance e.g. innovation• Examine Sub cultural theories using Cohen to evaluate

Merton• Link Cohen’s idea of status frustration to blocked

opportunities and explain how subculture provide an illegitimate opportunity structure

• Use Cloward and Ohlin to show that access to illegitimate opportunity structures is unequal and how this gives rise to 3 different subcultures.

• Include evaluation e.g. functionalist assumptions of Cohen and Merton (do all deviants start out sharing mainstream goals?) or their failure to explain other types of crime e.g. corporate

ao2

ao2

ao2

• The concept of labelling has been used not only in explaining crime and deviance, but also in other areas of Sociology.

• How do you think it would relate to Crime and Deviance?

• Who is likely to be labelled and why? • What effect can a label have on how

people who are labelled are treated and how they behave?

Think………….

Labelling as a

form of Social

Control:Stan Cohen (1972/80): ‘Folk Devils & Moral

Panics’…

Cohen was interested in the truth behind the ‘Mods vs.

Rockers’ media hype in the late 1960s. According to the

media the violence between the ‘Mods’ and ‘Rockers’ was a

national problem that represented the decay of society.

Cohen reached very different

conclusions compared to

what the media was

reporting…….

Cohen found the following in his research

(which contradicted the media stories)…..

> The ‘Violence’ that the media reported was actually

minimal.> The majority of young people at the seaside

during these so called ‘riots’ were not Mods or

Rockers.

> The media seemed to have painted a skewed picture of

events & sensationalised the clashes between these two

groups.

In order to understand why this

occurred (occurs), Cohen suggests

we need to understand the concepts

of Social Control, Folk Devils &

Moral Panics .

What is a Moral

Panic?The process of arousing social concern over an issue—usually the work of

MORAL ENTREPENUERS. This inevitably involves the creation of a FOLK

DEVIL.Who are these Moral

Entrepreneurs?A Moral Entrepreneur is a person, group or organisation with the power to

create or enforce rules & impose their morals, views & attitudes on to others

e.g.

> Politicians

> Teachers> Parents> Religious Leaders

What is a Folk

Devil?Over simplified, ill-informed generalisations of particular people/ social groups

who Moral Entrepreneurs wish to demonise e.g

> Mods & Rockers

> Hoodies> Lone-parent Families

> Immigrants

> Young Muslims

> Paedophiles

> Football Hooligans etc……….

By labelling groups and creating Folk Devils – as well as exaggerating the

extent of these ‘problems’ in society through the Media, Moral

Entrepreneurs are able to generate Moral Panics within society:

Social Construction of Crime

Instead of taking the definition of crime for granted, labelling theorists are interested in how and why certain acts come to be

defined or labelled as criminal in the first place.

For labelling theorists, no act is deviant in itself: deviance is a social construct

• Howard Becker (1963) social groups create deviance by creating rules and applying them to particular people whom they label as ‘outsiders’

• Therefore an act or person only becomes deviant when labelled by others as deviant

• Labelling theorists are interested in the role of what Becker calls moral entrepreneurs. These are people who lead a moral ‘crusade’ to change the law in the belief that it will benefit those to whom it is applied.

• The new law however has two effects:1. Creation of a new group of ‘outsiders’-

outlaws or deviants who break the new rule 2. The creation or expansion of a social

control agency (police) to enforce the rule and impose labels on offenders

• It is not the harmfulness of a behaviour that leads to new laws being created, but rather the efforts of powerful individuals and groups to redefine that behaviour as unacceptable.

Differential Enforcement

• Labelling theorists argue that social control agencies (police, courts etc) tend to label certain groups as criminal

• Piliavin and Briar found police decisions to arrest were based on stereotypical ideas about manner, dress, gender, class, ethnicity, time and place

• These stereotypical ideas lead to judgements about a youths character

Effects of Labelling• Labelling Theorists claim that by labelling certain

people as criminal or deviant society encourages them to become more so.

• Primary Deviance- deviant acts that have not been publicly labelled. They may have many causes, are often trivial and mostly go uncaught e.g. fare dodging. Those who commit them do not usually see themselves as deviant

• Secondary Deviance- results from societal reaction i.e. from labelling. Labelling someone as an offender can involve stigmatising and excluding them from normal society. Others may see the offender solely in terms of the label, which becomes the individuals master status or controlling identity

Self Fulfilling Prophecy

• Being labelled may provoke a crisis for the individuals self concept and lead to sfp in which they live up to the label, resulting in secondary deviance

• Further societal reaction may reinforce the individuals outsider status and lead them to joining a deviant sub culture that offer support, role models and a deviant career

Can you give an example?

Activity: Drugtakers and the police: an

amplification spiral

• Lemert and Young illustrates the idea that it is not the act itself, but the hostile societal reaction by the social audience, that created serious deviance.

• Ironically therefore, the social control processes that are meant to produce law- abiding behaviour may in fact produce the very opposite.

Although a deviant career is a common

outcome of labelling, labelling theorists are quick to point out that it is not inevitable

Deviance Amplification

• Deviance Amplification- the attempt to control deviance leads to it increasing rather than decreasing, resulting in grater attempts to control it and in turn more deviance e.g. Hippies

• How is this related to the trouble in Clacton in 1964? (page 83)

• Deviance Amplification is similar to secondary deviance. In both cases the societal reaction to an initial deviant act leads not to successful control of the deviance but to further deviance which in turns leads to greater reaction etc

Jock Young (1967/9) ‘Deviance Amplification

Spiral’Labels, Folk Devils & Moral Panics actually generate more

crime!

E.g. Drug Takers in Notting

Hill…..Police in Notting Hill are susceptible to media stories & stereotypes and as

such target these typical ‘folk devils’ regardless of what they have or have not

done:> Police arrest drug marijuana smokers for minor

offences

> In response to these stories, the police

crack down even harder on these folk

devils.

> This pushes the ‘Drug Takers’ ‘underground’ – this raises police

suspicion & pushes the price of drugs up – the police crack down

even more harshly (More Media Coverage).

> The ‘Drug Taker’s’ start resisting arresting arrest, turn to new types

of drugs and have to organise themselves better (MORE DEVIANCE)

> The media sensationlise these stories and thus have their Folk

Devil ‘The Drug Taker’ and begin to generate a Moral Panic about

‘Drug Takers’.

The more people read about

drug related problems the

more likely they are to see

for themselves what all the

fuss is about.

Moral Panics about Knife Crime means that more

people are fearful of being attacked in the

streets and therefore start carrying knives

themselves. It is a fact that you are more likely

to be stabbed or stab someone else if you get

into an argument/ scuffle if you are carrying a

knife yourself……………………Moral Panics lead

to Deviance Amplification.

Labelling and Criminal Justice Policy

• Research findings indicate that labelling theory has important policy implications. They add weight to the argument that negative labelling pushes offenders towards a deviant career.

• What implications does this have for making laws?

• To reduce deviance, we should make and enforce fewer rules for people to break

Reintegrative Shaming• Most labelling theorists see labelling as

having negative effects. However John Braithwaite identifies a more positive role. He distinguishes between two types of shaming (negative labelling):

• Disintegrative shaming- where the crime and criminal are labelled as bad, and the offender is excluded from society.

• Reintegrative shaming- labels the act but not the actor ‘he has done a bad thing’ not ‘he is a bad person’ (avoids stigmatisation). Person is made aware of the negative impact of their actions and encourages others to forgive them ands accept them back into society

Differences between Labelling and Functionalism

• Functionalists see deviance producing social control

• Labelling Theorists see control producing further deviance

• Summarise the labelling theory

Evaluation

Shows that the law is not a fixed set of rules to be taken for granted, but something whose construction we need to explain

Shows that crime statistics are more a record of activities of control agents not that of criminals

Focuses on the underachievers or people who are regarded as lower in society

Doesn’t look at the motives for why people commit crime

Capitalism is not mentioned in the theory (Marxist Criticism)- role of power

Tends to be deterministic (once someone is labelled a deviant career is inevitable)

The emphasis on the negative effects of labelling gives the offender a kind of victim status, thus ignoring the real victims of crime

Fails to explain why people commit primary deviance firstly, before they are labelled

It implies that without labelling, deviance would not exist. Leading to the conclusion that someone who commits a crime but is not labelled has not deviated. It also implies that deviants are unaware that they are deviant until labelled, yet most are well aware that they are going against social norms

By assuming that offenders are passive victims of labelling it ignore the fact that individuals may also actively choose deviance

The police see hippies

as lazy, dirty drug addicts.

(Labelling)

The police action against

marijuana users makes

them feel different, and from this they

unite together (societal reaction)

The marijuana

users retreat

into small groups.

Deviant norms and

values develop.

They grew their hair long, and drug use becomes more of a

central activity (sfp)

***Jack Young (1971)

Initially drugs were peripheral to the hippies lifestyle (primary

deviance)