Unit 4 SCLY4 - Crime and Deviance with Theory and Methods; Stratification and Differentiation with Theory and Methods
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Summary of Crime and Deviance - Interactionism and labelling theory (AS, A-level and GSCE)
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Unit 4 SCLY4 - Crime and Deviance with Theory and Methods; Stratification and Differentiation with Theory and Methods
Institution
AQA
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AQA A Level Sociology Book One Including AS Level
In-depth notes on Interactionism and labelling theory on Crime and Deviance. It includes the necessary sociologists and recent statistical data to take your grade to the next level. Exams come pre-highlighted to focus on the essential aspects needed in an essay/exam. These notes gave me an A* in So...
Unit 4 SCLY4 - Crime and Deviance with Theory and Methods; Stratification and Differentiation with Theory and Methods
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Crime and deviance - Topic 2:Interactionism and labelling theory
The social construction of crime-sociologist list
Key:
Heheh-Sociologist Heheh-Important information
Key information:
- Labelling theorists want to discover why certain acts are defined as
deviant/criminal in the first place
- Argue that no act is inherently deviant itself, but only when others define it as
such
● Becker (1963)
- Deviance is in the eye of the beholder
- Deviant is a label which has been applied
- Deviant behaviour is the acts that ‘deviants’ commit
- Moral entrepreneurs → people who lead a moral ‘crusade’ to change the law
- New laws invariably create two effects:
1. Creation of a new group of ‘outcasts/outsiders’ → deviants who break rules
2. Creation/expansion of social control agencies to enforce rules and label
offenders
- Social control agencies may try and change the law to give themselves
more power(e.g. US Marijuana Act of 1937 banned the use of the drug →
not to prevent the dangerous effects of the drug, but to increase the US
Federal Bureau of Narcotics power and influence)
- New laws are created by powerful individuals that deem what is, and what isn’t
unacceptable
● Platt (1969)
- ‘Juvenile delinquency’ → created by upper-class Victorian moral
entrepreneurs who wanted to protect the youth at risk
- ‘Juveniles’ → new separate category of the offender with their own courts
→ state has control over the young due to their ‘status offences’(behaviour is
an offence due to their age)
1
, Who gets labelled?
Factors of whether a person is charged, arrested or convicted:
1. Interactions with social control agencies
2. Appearance, background and personal biography
3. situation/circumstances of the offence
- Studies show that ASC(Agencies of Social Control) are more likely to label
certain groups of people as deviant
● Piliavin and Briar (1964)
- Police that were arresting youth were mainly based on physical
cues(manner and dress) → made judgements about the youth’s character
- Other aspects included were the suspects’ gender, class and ethnicity, as
well as time and place(e.g. Stopped and searched late at night → more likely
to be arrested)
- Ethnicity also placed a factor as anti-social behaviour orders were used against
ethnic minorities
● Cicourel: the negotiation of justice
- The officer's decision to arrest is made on stereotypical assumptions
- Officers had ‘typifications’ → common sense theories/stereotypes of what an
ordinary delinquent is, and makes them focused on that particular image
→ Example: class bias- bias against w/class people and areas meant more
police enforcement in these areas, more arrests being made and confirming
the stereotypes
- Other ASC reinforced the bias → probation officers assumed that juvenile
delinquency was due to a broken home, poverty and lax parenting
→ assumed that they would commit crimes in the future and less likely to
support non-custodial sentences
- Justice is negotiable, not fixed → e.g. a middle-class youth may commit a
crime, however, they do not fit the police’s assumptions and therefore will
be less likely to be prosecuted(other factors include their parents to
negotiate with ASCs)
2
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