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Hint
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Alternative Statistics
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These are statistics which are not official statistics: -Some sociologists use victim surveys (where people are asked what crimes they have been victims of) or self-report studies (where they are asked what crimes they have committed) to gain a more accurate view of the amount of crime. -These can add to our picture of crime, but they have several limitations. -For example, people may forget, conceal or exaggerate when asked if they have committed a crime or been the victim of one. -In addition, such surveys usually only include a selection of (generally less serious) offences. |
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Interactionism/Labelling Theorists
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These types of sociologists argue that instead of seeking the causes of criminal behaviour, we should ask how and why some people and actions come to be labelled as criminal or deviant, and what effects this has on those who are so labelled: -Similarly, instead of accepting official statistics as a valid picture of crime, they regard them not as hard facts, but as social constructs. -This reflects the origins of labelling theory in symbolic interactionism, which takes the view that individuals construct the social world through their face-to-face interactions. -For these sociologists, this constructionist view also applies to crime and deviance. -Crime is the product of interactions between suspects and the police, for example, rather than the result of wider external social forces such as blocked opportunity structures.
Rather than simply taking the definition of crime for granted, these types of sociologists are interested in how and why certain acts come to be defined or labelled as criminal in the first place: -They argue that no act is inherently criminal or deviant in itself, in all situations and at all times. -Instead, it only comes to be so when others label it as such. -In other words, it is not the nature of the act that makes it deviant, but the nature of society's reaction to the act.
Who gets labelled? Not everyone who commits an offence is punished for it. Whether a person is arrested, charged and convicted depends on factors such as: -Their interactions with agencies of social control. -Their appearance, background and personal biography. -The situation and circumstances of the offence.
This leads these sociologists to look at how the laws are applied and enforced: -Their studies show that agencies of social control are more likely to label certain groups of people as deviant or criminal.
These types of sociologists see the official crime statistics as socially constructed:
-At each stage of the criminal justice system, agents of social control (such as police officers or prosecutors) make decisions about whether or not to proceed to the next stage. -The outcome depends on the label they attach to the individual suspect or defendant in the course of their interactions. -This label is likely to be affected by the typifications or stereotypes they hold about them. -As a result, the statistics produced by the criminal justice system only tell us about the activities of the police and prosecutors, rather than about the amount of crime out there in society or who commits it. -The statistics are really just counts of the decisions made by control agents at the different 'decision gates' or stages in the justice system.
At each 'gate', a decision is made, steadily whittling down the number of people in the system: -Stage 1: Suspect stopped by police. -Stage 2: Arrested. -Stage 3: Charged. -Stage 4: Prosecuted. -Stage 5: Convicted. -Stage 6: Sentenced. |
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Moral Panics
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The term can be applied to any sensationalist, or over-the-top, reaction to an issue that appears to relate to morality: to right and wrong: -Other moral panics that have been of interest to sociologists have included the acid house scene in the late 1980s and the 2011 London Riots. -The implication, in this term, is that the reaction is out of proportion to the act and indeed that the reaction might, in a real sense, create the phenomenon itself. |
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Deviance Amplification Spiral
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This is a term labelling theorists use to describe the process in which the attempt to control deviance leads to an increase in the level of deviance: -This leads to greater attempts to control it and, in turn, this produces yet higher levels of deviance. -More and more control produces more and more deviance, in an escalating spiral.
It is similar to Lemert's idea of secondary deviance: -In both cases, the societal reaction to an initial deviant act leads not to successful control of the deviance, but to further deviance, which in turn leads to a greater reaction and so on. -It also illustrates an important difference between labelling theory and functionalist theories of deviance. -As Lemert (1967) puts it, these theories: 'rest heavily on the idea that deviance leads to social control. I have come to believe the reverse idea, i.e. social control leads to deviance.'. |
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Aaron Cicourel (1968)
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This Interactionist sociologist found: -Police officers had 'typifications' - common sense theories or stereotypes of what a typical delinquent is like which led them to concentrate on certain 'types': -This resulted in law enforcement showing a class bias, in that working-class areas and people fitted the police typifications most closely. -In turn, this led police to patrol working-class areas more intensively, resulting in more arrests and confirming their stereotypes.
He also found: -Other agents of social control within the criminal justice system reinforced this bias. -For example, probation officers held the commonsense theory that juvenile delinquency was caused by broken homes, poverty and lax parenting. -They tended to see youths from such backgrounds as likely to offend in future and were less likely to support non-custodial sentences for them.
In his view, justice is not fixed but negotiable: -For example, when a middle-class youth was arrested, he was less likely to be charged. -This was partly because his background did not fit the idea of the police's 'typical delinquent', and partly because his parents were more likely to be able to negotiate successfully on his behalf, convincing the control agencies that he was sorry, that they would monitor him and ensure he stayed out of trouble in future. -As a result, typically, he was 'counselled, warned and released' rather than prosecuted.
His study has implications for the use we make of official crime statistics recorded by the police: -He argues that these statistics do not give us a valid picture of the patterns of crime and cannot be used as a resource - that is, as facts about crime. -Instead, we should treat them as a topic for sociologists to investigate. -That is, we must not take crime statistics at face value; instead, we should investigate the processes that created them. -This will shed light on the activities of the control agencies and how they process and label certain types of people as criminal. |
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Jack Katz (1988)
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This postmodernist sociologist argues criminal behaviour is not solely driven by rational calculations of benefits and costs but is also influenced by the immediate sensual and emotional experiences that come with committing a crime: -Criminals are attracted to the thrill, excitement and sense of power. -This suggests seductions of crime can override rational decision-making processes and lead individuals to engage in illegal activities, even when the potential benefits are minimal and/or the risks are high.
In reference to working-class crime, young working-class men may lack the means of winning peer group respect and status and the accolades others might achieve through non-criminal leisure-based activities, and for whom it may be a method of expressing hegemonic masculinity. This could be argued to be a focal concern in working-class subcultures.
This sociologist can be linked to 'edgework' as described by Stephen Lyng. |
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Deviant Career
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Secondary deviance is likely to provoke further hostile reactions from society and reinforce the deviant's 'outsider' status - this in turn may lead to more deviance and what this term is called: -For example, ex-convicts find it hard to go straight because no one will employ them, so they seek out other outsiders for support. -This may involve joining a deviant subculture that offers this type of career opportunities and role models, rewards deviant behaviour, and confirms their deviant identity. |
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Anthony Platt (1969)
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This sociologist argues that the idea of 'juvenile delinquency' was originally created as a result of a campaign by upper-class Victorian moral entrepreneurs, aimed at protecting young people at risk: -This established 'juveniles' as a separate category of offender with their own courts, and it enabled the state to extend its powers beyond criminal offences involving the young, into so-called 'status offences' (where their behaviour is only an offence because of their age) such as truancy and sexual promiscuity. |
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Hint
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Jock Young (1971)
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This Left Realist sociologist uses the concepts of secondary deviance and deviant career in his study of hippy marijuana users in Notting Hill: -Initially, drugs were peripheral to the hippies' lifestyle - an example of primary deviance. -However, persecution and labelling by the control culture (the police) led the hippies increasingly to see themselves as outsiders. -They retreated into closed groups where they began to develop a deviant subculture, wearing longer hair and more 'way out' clothes. -Drug use became a central activity, attracting further attention from the police and creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. |
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Rational Choice Theory
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This Right Realist theory states that offenders make rational decisions before committing crimes, weighing up the benefits and costs/risks before choosing whether or not to commit an offence: -Therefore, to deter potential offenders, it is necessary to reduce the opportunities for crime and increase the costs/risks of offending, so conformity offers greater benefits.
In the case of working-class criminals, they may see the benefits of a crime outweighing the costs in many circumstances - they may not have much to lose (linked to Control Theory), and so in many scenarios, the benefits outweigh the costs/risks for them. |
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Stanley Cohen (1972)
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This Functionalist sociologist, in his study, 'Folk Devils and Moral Panics', studied the societal reaction to the 'mods and rockers' disturbances (fights) involving groups of youths at English seaside resorts: -He used a mixture of observation, content analysis and interviews. -He found that while there were some minor scuffles when the different subcultures met on a bank holiday, the media created a story out of these turning it into a much more significant phenomenon. -The reaction meant that the police responded to future conflict more forcefully, arresting more youths, while the courts imposed harsher penalties - thus this created further conflicts. -This seemed to confirm the truth of the original media reaction and provoked more public concern, in an upward spiral of deviance amplification.
-The demonising of the mods and rockers as 'folk devils' caused their further marginalisation as 'outsiders', resulting in more deviant behaviour on their part. -For example, the people involved had read stories about themselves in the media and started to play the parts that were written for them. -Other people wanted to join in: to have their 'five minutes of fame'. -Therefore this press exaggeration and distorted reporting of the events began a moral panic, with growing public concern and with moral entrepreneurs calling for a 'crackdown'.
Folk Devil: He argued that when the media reports on deviant behaviour they construct a narrative which features a clear villain: the folk devil. The creation of folk devils can kickstart a moral panic. |
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Piliavin & Briar (1964)
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These sociologists found that police decisions to arrest a youth were mainly based on physical cues (such as manner and dress), from which they made judgements about the youth's character: -Officers' decisions were also influenced by the suspect's gender, class and ethnicity, as well as by time and place. -For example, those stopped late at night in high-crime areas ran a greater risk of arrest. -Similarly, a study of anti-social behaviour orders found they were disproportionately used against ethnic minorities. |
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Edwin Lemert (1951)
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This Interactionist sociologist distinguishes between primary and secondary deviance: -Primary deviance refers to deviant acts that have not been publicly labelled. -He argues that it is pointless to seek the causes of primary deviance since it is so widespread that it is unlikely to have a single cause, and in any case, it is often trivial, e.g. fare dodging, and mostly goes uncaught. -These acts are not part of an organised deviant way of life, so offenders can easily rationalise them away, for example as a 'moment of madness'. -They have little significance for the individual's status or self-concept. -In short, primary deviants don't generally see themselves as deviant.
However, some deviance is labelled: -Secondary deviance is the result of societal reaction - that is, of labelling. -Being caught and publicly labelled as a criminal can involve being stigmatised, shamed, humiliated, shunned or 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. -In the eyes of the world, they are no longer a colleague, parent or neighbour; they are now a thief, junkie or paedophile - in short, an outsider. -This can provoke a crisis for the individual's self-concept or sense of identity. -One way to resolve this crisis is for the individual to accept the deviant label and see themselves as the world sees them. -In turn, this may lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy, in which the individual acts out or lives up to their deviant label, thereby becoming what the label says they are. -This sociologist refers to the deviance that results from acting out the label as secondary deviance. |
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The Dark Figure of Crime
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This is the difference between the official statistics and the 'real' rate of crime: -It is known as this because we do not know for certain how much crime goes undetected, unreported and unrecorded.
Links to Folk Devils: -Folk devils are in a sense the opposites of this. -While the latter is about unlabelled, unrecorded crime that is ignored by the public and police, folk devils and their actions are 'over-labelled' and over-exposed to public view and the attentions of the authorities. -In terms of law enforcement and the justice system, the pursuit of folk devils draws resources away from detecting and punishing crimes that make up the dark figure, such as the crimes of the powerful. |
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Howard Becker (1963)
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This Interactionist sociologist states: -'Social groups create deviance by creating the rules whose infraction [breaking] constitutes deviance, and by applying those rules to particular people and labelling them as outsiders.' -To him, therefore, a deviant is simply someone to whom the label has been successfully applied, and deviant behaviour is simply behaviour that people so label. -He and other labelling theorists look at how and why rules and laws get made. -They are particularly interested in the role of what he calls 'moral entrepreneurs' - these are people who lead a moral 'crusade' to change the law.
However, he argues that this new law invariably has 2 effects: 1. The creation of a new group of 'outsiders' - outlaws or deviants who break the new rule. 2. The creation or expansion of a social control agency (such as the police, courts, probation officers, etc.) to enforce the rule and impose labels on offenders.
He notes that social control agencies themselves may also campaign for a change in the law to increase their own power: -For example, the US Federal Bureau of Narcotics successfully campaigned for the passing of the Marijuana Tax Act in 1937 to outlaw marijuana use. -Supposedly this was on the grounds of its ill effects on young people, but he argues it was really to extend the Bureau's sphere of influence. -Thus, it is not the inherent harmfulness of a particular behaviour that leads to new laws being created, but rather the efforts of powerful individuals and groups to redefine that behaviour as unacceptable. |
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