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Topic Two: Interactionisim and Labelling Theory (Mental illness and…
Topic Two: Interactionisim and Labelling Theory
Interactionisim
: study society on a smaller scale. Research methods - interested in unstructured interviews and observations. Want to gather rich, in depth detailed data (qualitative)
Whereas, structuralists favour quantitative data
Interactionism - social action theory
Synoptic link to EDUCATION, Becker and Labelling Theory
Anti School Subcultures can lead to CRIME (result of labelling)
Deviant behaviour is socially constructed
Depends on:
Culture
Time
Setting
e.g. SPEEDING is criminal but not deviant
Edwin Lemert: Primary and Secondary Deviance
Primary deviance
- deviant acts that have not been publicly labelled. They have many causes, are often trivial and mostly go uncaught. Those who commit them do not usually see themselves as deviant
CRITIQUE: labelling theory fails to explain why people commit primary deviance in the first place, before they are labelled
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 individual's 'master status' or controlling identity
Cicourel: The Negotiation of Justice
Police use typifications (stereotypes) of the 'typical delinquent'
Individuals fitting the typification are more likely to be stopped, arrested and charged:
Working-class and ethnic minority juveniles
are more likely to be arrested. Once arrested, those from broken homes etc are more likely to be charged
Middle-class juveniles
are less likely to fit the typification, and have parents who can negotiate successfully on their behalf. They are less likely to be charged.
The social construction of crime statistics: a topic not a resource
Working class people fit police typifications, so police patrol working-class areas, resulting in more working class arrests
Thus, crime statistics recorded by the police do not give a valid picture of crime patterns
Cicourel argues that we cannot take crime statistics at face value or use them as a resource. We should treat them as a topic and investigate the process by which they are constructed
The dark figure is the difference between the official statistics and the 'real' rate of crime - so called because we do not know for certain how much crime goes undetected, unreported and unrecorded
Stanley Cohen: Folk Devils and Moral Panics
In a deviance amplification spiral, the attempt to control deviance leads to it increasing rather than decreasing - resulting in greater attempts to control it and, in turn, yet more deviance, in an escalating spiral - as with the hippies described by Young
Cohen's study of the mods and rockers uses the concept of deviance amplification spiral:
Media exaggeration and distortion began a moral panic, with growing public concern
Moral entrepreneurs called for a 'crackdown'. Police responded by arresting more youths, provoking more concern
Demonising the mods and rockers as 'folk devils' marginalised them further, resulting in more deviance
Jock Young: Hippies and Marijuana
Self fulfilling prophecy: being labelled may provoke a crisis for the individual's self-concept and lead to a SFP in which they live up to the label, resulting in secondary deviance
Further societal reaction may reinforce the individual's outsider status and lead to them joining a deviant subculture that offers support, role models and a deviant career
Young's study of hippy marijuana illustrates these processes
Drug use was initially peripheral to the hippies' lifestyle (primary deviance) but police persecution of them as junkies (societal reaction) led them to retreat into closed groups, developing a deviant subculture where drug use became a central activity (SFP)
The control processes aimed at producing law-abiding behaviour thus produced the opposite
The link between labelling and social policy/law making
Studies have shown how increases in attempt to control and punish young offenders can have the opposite effect. For example, in the USA, Triplett notes an increasing tendency to see young offenders as evil and to be less tolerant of minor deviance
The CJS system has re-labelled status offences such as truancy as more serious offences, resulting in much harsher sentences
As predicted by Lemert's theory of secondary deviance, this has resulted in an increase rather than a decrease in offending
De Haan notes a similar outcome in Holland as a result of the increasing stigmatisation of young offenders
These findings indicate that labelling theory has important policy implications
They add weight to the argument that negative labelling pushes offenders towards a deviant career. Therefore, logically, to reduce deviance, we should make and enforce fewer rules for people to break
For example, by decriminalising soft drugs, we might reduce the number of people with criminal convictions and hence the risk of secondary deviance
Similarly, labelling theory implies that we should avoid publicly 'naming and shaming' offenders, since this is likely to create a perception of them as evil outsiders and, by excluding them from mainstream society, push them into further deviance
Reintegrative shaming
Most labelling theorists see labelling as having negative effects.
However, Braithwaite identifies a more positive role for the labelling process. He distinguishes between types of shaming (negative labelling):
Reintegrative shaming:
by contrast, labels the act but not the actor - as if to say 'he has done a bad thing', rather than 'he is a bad person'
Disintegrative shaming
: where not only the crime, but also the criminal, is labelled as bad and the offender is excluded from society
The policy of reintergrative shaming avoids stigmatising the offender as evil while at the same time making them aware of the negative impact of their actions upon others, and then encourages others to forgive them
This makes it easier for both offender and community to separate the offender from the offence and re-admit the wrongdoer back into mainstream society
At the same time, this avoids pushing them into secondary deviance.
Braithwaite argues that crime rates tend to be lower in societies where reintegrative rather than disintegrative shaming is the dominant way of dealing with offenders
The effects of labelling
Self fulfilling prophecy
Labelling theorists are interested in the effects of labelling upon those who are labelled
By labelling certain people are criminal or deviant, society (e.g. the media labelling as folk devils - same as scapegoating!) actually encourages them to become more so
Lemert
Offered two definitions of deviance:
Primary deviance
Refers to deviant acts which have not been publicly labelled as deviant.
Most of us have partaken in these at some time or another
Often trivial acts that go undetected
Deviant acts are not part of an organised deviant way of life
Have little significance for the individual's status or self concept
Primary deviants do not see themselves as deviant
Secondary deviance
Refers to acts which have been publicly labelled as deviant and to the deviance which is generated by the labelling
Master status:
This is when deviant acts are labelled
Secondary deviance is the resukt of societial reactions - that is, of labelling
Being caught and publicly labelled as a criminal can involve being stigmatised, shamed, excluded from normal society
Once an individual is labelled, others may come to see them only in terms of the label
This becomes their
master status
or
controlling identity
overriding all others
BECOMES A SELF FULFILLING PROPHECY
The individual becomes what the label says they are
Responses: to accept the deviant label and see themselves as the world sees them
Lemert refers to the further deviance that results from acting out the label as secondary deviance
Deviant career
Secondary deviance is likely to provoke further hostile reactions from society and reinforce the deviant's 'outsider' status. This may lead to MORE deviance and a deviant career. They may join deviant subcultures that offer deviant career opportunities.
Link to Functionalist perspective of Crime - Durkheim Boundary Maintenance
The media can amplify the problem
Deviance amplification spiral
A term labelling theorists use to describe a process in which the attempt to control deviance leads to an increase in the level of deviance
More and more control produces more and more deviance
Case study: Cohen's - Folk Devils and Moral Panics
Press exaggeration and distorted reporting of events begin a moral panic with growing public concern - e.g. GUN CRIME IN AMERICA, knife crime, terrororism
Interactionalism - criticisms
It does not explain why people commit deviance in the first place
It ignores the power of some groups in labelling others
It is deterministic, i.e. denies the fact that people have free will
Realists say that it focuses on the criminal at the expense of the victim
It implies that without labelling there is no deviance. People are aware of wrong doing even if they haven't been caught
Plummer
offers a DEFENCE of labelling: others fail to see that labelling is about examining social processes, power is not ignored - Becker says we need to look at who makes the rules and how labels are applied in different circumstances. Labelling theory never set out to be a universal explanation.
Mental illness and suicide: the sociology of deviance
Interactionists are interested not just in crime but in deviant behaviour more widely
Mental illness and suicide have been regarded as deviant behaviour in society
Not deviant in all societies,
LINK TO BELIEFS
- e.g. in some sects, or fundamentalist movements - suicide bombers
Seen as not being functional for society
Suicide
This has been an important topic in the development of sociology
Durkheim
studied it with the aim of showing that sociology is a science
Using official statistics, he claimed to have discovered the causes of suicide in how effectively society integrated individuals and regulated their behaviour
Can sociology be studied scientifically?
Positivists - YES, you can identify patterns and trends, cause and effect etc. Studying in a objective way
Interactionalists - NO, study case by case, interested in individuals, e.g. using diaries, suicide notes, interviews with family or friends
Durkheim
- lower level of society more likely to commit suicide, alienation, lack of social stability and unity and bonds
Mental Illness
This means that they are simply a record of the activiies of those such as psychiatrists with the power to attach labels such as 'schizophrenic' or 'paranoid' to others
As with crime and suicide, interactionists reject official statistics on mental illness. They regard official statistics as a social construct
Crime, suicide and mental illness statistics are artefacts (things made my human beings), not objective social facts
Mental Illness
Paranoia as a self-fulfilling prophecy
As with crime, interactionists are interested in how a person comes to be labelled as mentally ill, and in the effects of this labelling. An example of this is Lemert's study of paranoia. Lemert notes that some individuals don't fit easily into groups. As a result of this primary deviance, others label the person as odd and begin to exclude him.
His negative response to this is the beginning of his secondary deviance, and it gives others further reason to exclude him. They may begin discussing the best way of dealing with this difficult person. This seems to confirm his suspicions that people are conspiring against him.
His reaction justifies their fears for his mental health, and this may lead to a psychiatric intervention, resulting in being officially labelled and perhaps placed in hospital against his will
As a result, the label 'mental patient' becomes his
master status
. Therefore, everything he says or does will be interpreted in this light.
An example of this comes from Rosenhan's 'pseudo-patient' experiment, in which researchers had themselves admitted to a number of hospitals claiming to have been 'hearing voices'
They were diagnosed as
Institutionalisation
Goffman
shows the possible effects of being admitted to a 'total institution' such as a psychiatric hospital. Patients undergo a 'motification of the self' in which their old identity is 'killed off' and replaced by a new one: 'inmate'. This is achieved by 'degradation rituals', e.g. confiscation of personal effects