5. Labelling Theories Of C&D

Question 1

What are social actions it’s mostly concerned with?

Answer 1

Who is labelled as deviant or criminal and why they are

Question 2

How does society create deviance?

Answer 2

Society creates deviance by creating rules. These may be formal (apply to everyone) or informal (applying to family and friends etc)

Question 3

Who is responsible for deciding what acts are criminal?

Answer 3

Governments and criminal justice systems are responsible for deciding what acts are criminal.

Question 4

What are government and justice systems called?

Answer 4

Moral Entrepreneurs - they make decisions which impact everyone in society.

Question 5

What happens when rules/ laws are broken?

Answer 5

Judgment and punishment

Question 6

What happens to laws before there deemed criminal or not?

Answer 6

Someone has to inforce the rules before it is deemed criminal or deviant when that label is successfully applied.

Question 7

What labels can be applied wrongly?

Answer 7

Deviant/ criminal labels can be applied wrongly e.g false accusations and some criminals are not labelled at all

Question 8

What did Becker say about police?

Answer 8

The way police operate leads to someone being criminal or not; stereotypes & assumptions

Question 9

What do police have preconceived ideas about?

Answer 9

Police have preconceived ideas about who is ‘trouble’

Question 10

Which ares expose more crime?

Answer 10

Targeted areas are inevitable to expose more crime

Question 11

What happens when someone gets labelled as a criminal?

Answer 11

The recognised person internalises the label affecting their self-concept the label becomes reinforced and becomes their master status.

Question 12

What happens when a person develops a master status as a criminal?

Answer 12

The individual may become isolated and may turn to a deviant subculture to be accepted . The deviant label Leeds to a deviant career and the deviant label becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

Question 13

What does Lemert distinguish between?

Answer 13

Primary and secondary deviance as a way to identify a criminal acts that have been committed but not labelled and criminal acts which have been labelled.

Question 14

Define Primary deviance

Answer 14

Deviance that has not been publicly labelled as such. They dot internalise the belief that they are “bad”

Question 15

Define secondary deviance

Answer 15

Deviance that follows once a person has been publicly labelled as deviant

Question 16

What does Stan Cohen say about the media?

Answer 16

The media through exaggerated and sensationalised reporting of crime can whip up a moral panic

Question 17

Define Moral Panic

Answer 17

A wave of public concern about exaggerated threats to society.

Question 18

Define Folk Devil

Answer 18

People that present a threat to society and a reminder of what we should not be

Question 19

Define Deviancy Amplification

Answer 19

The way the media creates / makes worse the very problems they condemn

Question 20

Define Moral Entrepreneur

Answer 20

People / groups with the power to create or enforce rules which define deviance.

Question 21

Strengths of labelling theory (3)

Answer 21

-Provides insights into nature of deviance not provided by structural theories.
-Challenges idea deviants are different to normal people
-Shows importance of stereotyping in understanding deviance

Question 22

Weaknesses of labelling theory (3)

Answer 22

-Assumes an act isn’t deviant until its labelled as such
-Tends to remove the blame of deviance onto those who define him/her as deviant
-Too deterministic

Question 23

Describe the Incestuous Tribe and public shaming case study (Malinowski)

Answer 23

-Incest between cousins seen as deviant but day to day was ignored
-One young man was publicly accused of it by rivals in front of whole community
-Suicide seen as only course of action

Question 24

Negotiation of justice (Cicourel) case study

Answer 24

-Process of dealing with potential deviants involves the police etc making judgements which are often based on pre-conceived ideas
-Decision to arrest suspect is partially based on appearance , manner and replies given to police

Question 25

The Naughty Jury (Box) case study

Answer 25

-Box selected for a jury trail for a women accused of theft
-Money stolen was small amount but she was found guilty.
-After the jury started discussing how they were going to fiddle out of pocked expenses by inflated amounts
-He pointed out memebers of the jury ended up fiddling more money than women they has just convicted.

Question 26

The Saints and the Roughecks Case study (Chambliss)

Answer 26

-Saints were lads from white M/C backgrounds, constantly involved in deviant behaviour
-Roughnecks were lads from W/C backgrounds who were constantly in trouble with the police even though their rate of delinquency was similar.
-Saints used status/reputation to get themselves out of classes, homework etc
-Roughnecks percieved as typical gang members, police looked for oppotunity to arrest then
-Selective perception and labelling results in s,e people seen as deviant and not others