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Topic 5- interactionist and labelling theory - Coggle Diagram
Topic 5- interactionist and labelling theory
Interactionists
-act of crime is not inherently criminal. It only becomes so when it is labelled as such
-crime only exists because people in power choose to label certain people as criminals. They ways those in power label others can lead to them to commit further actions (self-fulfilling prophecy) as people internalise. DEVIANCY AMPLIFICATION
-all crime is socially constructed and so are the stats. The stats tell us more about the powerful groups than the criminals
Becker
-Moral entrepreneurs are those that have more power and label others as deviant
-the agents of social control are the police, judges etc
-introduced the idea of the 'master label' and the 'deviant career'. Master labels refers to the label that takes over others (labelled as a criminal not a father). This master label may lead you to following a deviant career
Cicourel
-he is a phenomenologist, studies things that can be seen and experienced. Studied delinquent youth for a long time and saw how different youth were labelled differently by the police
-Negotiation of justice- some groups have more power e.g. mc can negotiate with the police and say it was a 'one off', therefore they don't get labelled. However wc were just stereotyped.
-police focus on typifications- stereotypes of what makes a delinquent
lemert
-distinguishes between primary and secondary deviance
Primary= the initial act of deviance that someone commits
Secondary= further deviance, may come about due to the reaction someone gets from society to there primary deviance, making it worse. Being caught publicly can be shameful and therefore you become excluded from society. The label becomes their master status.
Young
and his studies on hippies
-studied hippy drug users and came to the conclusion that they were labelled and this led to increased police persecution which led to a deviant subculture, performing more deviant behaviour
-this labelling and increased control by the police led to:
-deviancy amplification
Hall
and moral panics
-he's a neo-marxist who did a study on black muggers
-found the media is an example of ideological state apparatus
-argued that the media deliberately reported lots of examples of black people mugging white people which led to tension between then white and black working classes.
-he said they deliberately turned attention away from crimes being committed as a result of capitalism by the rc which was going on at the same time
-he concluded that the media caused a moral panic about black muggers leading to a crackdown by police on the behaviour of young black men and also led to further labelling as deviant criminals which led to deviancy amplification
Braithwaite
-disintegrative shaming (punishment which isolated the individual, the person and the act is bad) e.g. Saville
-reintegrative shaming (punishes in a way that strengthens their bonds with society, the act is bad but not the person) e.g. Trump
EVALUATION:
-doesnt explain where the stereotypes come from
-they assume that we take on the label (deterministic)
-defend the victim by saying if they did it, its because they have been negatively labelled
-fail to explain why people commit crime that haven't been labelled
-doesnt explain why some groups get labelled more than others
Case study
Stan Cohen
mod's and rockers
-two conflicting groups , British youth subcultures.
-media coverage of mods and rockers fighting sparked a moral panic about British Youth, and the two groups became widely perceived as violent. The media exaggerated
-rockers=motorcycling, black leather jackets
-mods=scooters, suits and clean cut outfits
-deviance amplification spiral (media and police tried to stop deviance by monitoring. This created greater societal reaction. They committed more and more deviance. This led to an escalating spiral.
-folk devils (they were labelled as folk devils which led to more deviance as they internalised.
EVALUATION:
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Thorton and McRobbie
suggest moral panics created by the media are less influential due to the fact we have 24 hour news. This creates a stream of moral panics that are routine and have less of an impact.
-in late modernity there is less consensus on what is deviant and what these should be a moral panic about
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Beck
we now live in a risk society, there are so many risks that a moral panic has become a part of normal life