Week 6: Contemporary Labeling Theories Flashcards
What are the labeling/social reaction perspectives?
- Reject using the offender as the starting point in their analysis
- Focus on the behaviour of those who label, react to, and otherwise seek to control offenders
What is the “fulfilling prophecy”?
- Internalizes a label given by society and becoming who you “should be”
What 3 issues does social reaction focus on?
- Asked why certain behaviours were labeled crime and others were not and how definitions change over time
- Asked why everyone who broke the law was not detected or designed criminal
- Asked what the consequences of being labeled were (self-fulfilling prophecy and becomes a master status)
What is the relationship between crime and labeling theory?
- Crime is not a behaviour, but how we respond to behaviour
- Social groups create deviance by making rules
- Moral entrepreneurs work to have their ideas about deviance enshrined in law
What did early criminologists find about placing deviants in prison?
- Could deepen their involvement in crime
What did Tannenbaum say about the “dramatization of evil”?
- Argued “a decisive step in education of the criminal” is being arrested and having criminal status held up for public scrutiny
What did Tannebaum argue was the best way to deal with juvenile delinquents?
- Radical non-intervention
- Not dramatize or draw attention to crime
Why does primary deviance occur?
- Reasons are either individual or situations
- Rationalized and dealt with as functions of a socially acceptable role
When does secondary deviance occur?
- When the individual no longer dissociates from his or her deviation
- Key factor promoting a persons life to come together around deviance is the reactions of others
What was the rise of labeling theory?
- Labeling theory grew in popularity as the 1960s progressed
- Critiqued the states power
Why did Labeling theory fall out of favour?
Empirically weak
- Argued societal reaction was the key in the stability of criminal behaviour; however, research has shown that stability occurs early in the life course before formal interventions
- Does not recognize the impact of criminogenic environments (ex. Dysfunctional family, failing at school, antisocial associates)
What was Chamliss’s study on Saints and Roughnecks?
- Ethnographic study of two groups of high school boys (Saints and Roughnecks)
- Similar amount of wayward behaviour labeled differently (Saints not labeled criminal and escaped life of crime, Roughnecks labeled criminal and often continued criminal trajectory)
- Impact of class status
What were the Saints class?
Upper-middle class white boys
What were the Roughnecks Class?
Lower-class white boys
How did Saints respond to delinquency?
- None arrested during stud
- Seen as less serious
- Sowing oats (behave in a uncontrolled way)
