Interactionism/ Labelling

Question 1

Becker

Answer 1

• focus on construction of crime- a deviant is someone who have been labelled and so is their behaviour
• moral entrepreneurs; individuals who lead a moral crusade to change law in belief it will benefit those who it applies- two effects; creation of outsider, expansion of social control agencies (enforce rule and impose labels on individuals)
• argues not everyone committing crime is punished, depends on interactions with social control agencies- their background/ appearance and personal biography

Question 2

Cicourel (negotiation of justice)

Answer 2

• found officers’ typifications led to concentrate one specific types- led to law enforcement showing class bias to w/c so police patrolling w/c areas more intensively and resulting in more arrests and confirming stereotypes
  -bias reinforced in criminal justice system where probation officers held stereotype and theory that delinquency was based on broken homes, poverty and lone parenting- see youths from w/c as more likely to offend in future
• justice is not fixed but negotiable

Question 3

Lemert

Answer 3

• primary deviance- deviant acts which have not been publically labelled (not part of an organised deviant way of life so rationalsided by offender as moments of madness)
• secondary deviance- deviance as labelled as a result of societal reaction-being caught and labelled may lead to shame and humiliation, exclusion from society- becoming master status or identifying themselves with deviant career (crisis for individual self concept)

Question 4

S. Cohen

Answer 4

• studied society’s reactions to mods and rockers (disturbances of youths at seaside) when press exaggeration and reporting created a moral panic with moral entrepreneurs asking or a ‘crackdown’
• police responded by arresting more youths and harsher penalties, confirming truth of original media exaction and provoking more public concern- upward spiral of deviance amplification
• same time labelling fold devils as outsiders with deviant behaviours

Question 5

Young

Answer 5

• study of hippy marijuana users in Notting Hill
• initially drugs were peripheral to hippie’s lifestyle, but persecution and labelling caused them to become outsiders, creating deviant subcultures where drugs became an integral part or way of life

Question 6

Douglas

Answer 6

• criticises use of official statistics- seen as social constructs as they do nothing to tell us meanings abt individuals decision to commit suicide
• whether a death officially becomes labelled as a suicide depends on interactions and negotiations between social actors eg coroners, relatives, friends

Question 7

Atkinson

Answer 7

• coroner’s ideas abt a typical suicide were important, certain modes of death as well a life history were seen as typical of suicides
• coroners use common sense knowledge to label a death as suicide or not

Question 8

Goffman

Answer 8

• asylums show possible effects of being admitted to a total institution, inmate undergoes mortification of the self upon admission, where their old self is symbolically killed anad replaced with a new one- internalising the new label to where they are unable to readjust to the outside world
• archived through degradation rituals such as confiscation of personal effects