Interactionalist Perspective Flashcards
What are Beckers 6 stages to the labelling process?
What did Becker argue?
Labelling theory. There is no such thing as a deviant act, an act only becomes so when it is perceived as such by other members of society. Police operate based on labels which affects the response they have to these individuals. There are 6 stages to this process.
What is an example of a act that was once seen as deviant but has changed due to society’s changing views?
Homosexuality
What did Cohen say about moral panics?
The Media can sensationalise and exaggerate the reporting of crime and deviance creating moral panics. There are folk devils which the media choses as an example of these groups such as seen in the Mods and Rockers incident. The media uses symbolic short hands which leads to exaggeration and distortion and prediction of further trouble.
What did Jack Young come up with?
He used Beckers approach to study Hippie Marijuana users in London using participants observation over 2 years. He said that they feel prosecuted by police due to their view based on the media and this unites them. They were defined and treated as outsiders and created a self fulfilling prophecy. This reduces the chance of a normal life and increases the chances of a deviant career.
What did Lemert come up with?
He distinguished between primary and secondary deviance. Primary deviance is insignificant that have not been publicly labelled for example stealing something and not got caught. Secondary is the result of societal reaction such as being caught stealing.
What did Goffman come up with?
He studied the treatment of mental patients in institutions and can support Lemerts secondary deviance as he found that deviance can be easily created by society’s reaction to it. When inmates arrive pressure is placed on them to accept the institutions defonition of them, removing the inmates individuality in the mortification process such as having their clothes taken away. This leaves inmates unprepared for life on the outside.They become institutionalised because; #[?÷ accept the label of deviant, they believe they are unable to function and they will only be viewed as an ex mental patient.
Why does Lemert say finding the causes of primary deviance is not very helpful?
Samples of deviants are inevitably based only on those who have been labelled so are unrepresentative. Most deviant acts are so common that they can be seen as normal.
What did Braithwaite argues are the two types of shaming involved in labelling?
Disintegrative shaming and re-integrative shaming.
What’s disintegrative shaming?
Where not only the crime, but the person is labelled negativize and excluded from society.
What’s re integrative shaming?
The act is labelled but not the person for example petty crime. This type of shaming has a more positive role as it avoids stigmatizing the offender but still makes them aware of the negative impact of the offence allowing for forgiveness and reintegration into society. This prevents pushing people back into secondary deviance.
What did Cicourel come up with?
Typifications and negotiations of justice.
What are typifications?
Cicourel argued that officers decisions to arrest are influenced by their stereotypes of offenders, which leads them to concentrate on certain types of offenders, leading to a higher arrest amount of people from certain groups. Agents of social control are also susceptible to these, for example probation officers may see youths from broken backgrounds as more likely to reoffend so are more likely to support non custodial sentences for them. Justice is not fixed but negotiable depending on the background of which the person comes from.
What are 4 strengths of interactionalism?
- It provides explanations for the marginalization of certain groups. 2. It explains discriminatrory actions of police officers. 3. It shows that what defines criminality is not static and changes. 4. It shows how labelling can lead to a self fulfilling prophecy.
What are 4 negatives of interactionalism?
- It doesn’t explain where the stereotypes came from which Marxism does. 2. It doesn’t provide any real policy to prevent crime like functionalism does. 3. The media may exaggerate crime but not cause it. 4. Its too deterministic, not everyone pays attention to labels.
