Evaluation of labelling

• Emphasis on negative effects of labelling gives criminals a victim status. Realists see this is ignoring the real victims of crime
• Ignores that individuals may actively choose deviance
• Why do people commit crimes prior to labels?
• It implies no labels = no deviance. The people who commit crimes but are not labelled on deviant? People are unaware they are deviant until labelled?
• It fails to examine links between labelling and capitalism, so focuses on middle range officials such as police who apply labels rather than the capitalist class that make the rules.

Shaming

The left picture is an example of disintegrative shaming. A type of labelling where not only the crime is labelled as bad but also the offender. This can lead to the offender becoming excluded from society and as Lemert argues can lead to secondary deviance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next picture is reintegrative shaming. (Although, the whole billboard thing is bad anyways). This is where the act itself is labelled as bad rather than the offender. “So she did a bad thing but she is not a bad person”. Reintegrative shaming prevents the individual from being stigmatised; lets the individual know the negative impacts of their actions and makes it easier to be accepted back into mainstream society . This reduces the chance of secondary deviance.

Primary and Secondary Deviance

Primary and secondary deviance is best explained through examples, so I’m going to use the character of Tommy to explain what Lemert means by primary and secondary deviance.

So Tommy is five years old and his mother has taking him to WH Smith. Now everyone knows that WH Smith has a pick and mix stand and Tommy loves his chocolate. So when mummy isn’t looking, Tommy takes some chocolate mice and carries on like nothing happened. Unfortunately, the clerk saw him eat the chocolate and he gets into trouble with mummy.

This is primary deviance. The clerk doesn’t call the police because it’s justified as childhood behaviour. When Tommy gets older, he would describe it as a “moment of madness”. No one has labelled Tommy as a thief. It is not affected his status or how society views Tommy, therefore according to Lemert primary deviance is pointless to study as it has no effect on the individual or society.

However, as Tommy gets older he continues to steal and at the age of 18 Tommy steals a car from the local Mercedes dealership. Tommy gets caught and sent to prison for 10 years but when he comes out he is still viewed as “that thief”. This makes it hard Tommy to get a job and because he needs money to survive, Tommy joins the neighbourhood gang and once again reverts to crime.

This is what Lemert calls secondary deviance – crime caused by a societal reaction. Society viewed Tommy as nothing more than a thief, so “thief” became Tommy’s master status. This puts Tommy in a self-concept crisis because he doesn’t know how he fits into society any more – no one likes him, he cannot get a job – therefore self-fulfilling prophecy occurs and Tommy fulfils his label. He joins neighbourhood gang in order to be around people who accept his master status. Therefore, Tommy reverts to crime because of his label.

A brief history of postcode wars

Deviance Amplification

The best way to explain deviance amplification is through the mods and rockers in the 1960s. Mods and Rockers werre the two youth subcultures that existed in Britain at the time. You could easily tell who they were by their attire and the types of bikes they rode. But first, a video to explain the history of the people… Click the pic!

Cohen highlighted how the media was able to label the Mods & Rockers as folk devils (bad people) and created a moral panic in Britain – people genuinely feared the two subcultures. This led to a sharp increase in the level of social control. Arrests were common and judges were harsher. As with the Brixton Riots, an increase in social control can make things worse not better. People may act out and fulfill their label (self-fulfilling prophecy) which creates more deviance. This leads to more conntrol, which leads to more deviance and the cycle continues… Deviance is amplified.

Labelling and the Brixton Riots

Back in the 1980s (ish) there was some level of crime among the people of Brixton – and for those who don’t know, Brixton is a predominately black area. Now one day, the chief of police decided that there needed to be a crackdown on crime in Brixton. The next day Operation Swamp was born. Now what Operation Swamp meant was that the police had the right to stop and search anyone they felt was suspicious. In theory it made sense – stop trouble before it began. But after a while, it got a bit… out of hand. It was unlikely that a black person would walk out and not get stopped at least once. This was creating a lot of tension in Brixton – people were fed up.

Then one fateful day a black lad got stabbed and a white police officer went to his aid…people got the wrong impression….and the rest is history. Watch me 

The aim of the story above is to explain the role of moral entreprenuers and social control. The moral entreprenuer here was the Chief of Police that decided that Operation Swamp would help reduce people that were victims of crime. What it actually did was simply create another group of people that could be arreseted – it made more deviants. An extension in the number of people you can arrest, inevitably leads to more arrests. the increase in arrests confirmed the police’s label that black people were criminals.  The riot itself shows how social control can cause deviance. This is also referred to as deviance amplification. There was so much attention on the black community, they revolted.

 

Subcultural strain theory

Subcultural strain theories

Cohen focuses on the deviants among working-class boys. He found that the educational system is extremely middle-class. Take English Literature for example, do you remember those times when teachers would be talking about different books they have read like David Copperfield and Great Expectations? Do you also remember how teachers expected you to have read these types of books? For those of us that have been privileged to have access to these books, we manage on all right but there are also people who are culturally and materially deprived and haven’t been given opportunities to access the type of reading. This is what Cohen means when he says the working class are in a middle-class dominated school system. The deprivation felt by working-class poor is gives them a very low status within education and because of the importance of education in the real world, their low status transfers into wider society. When this happens Cohen argues that it creates status frustration. The boys will reject mainstream middle-class values by forming or joining a delinquent subculture.

Status frustration = it is when you are frustrated with your current status whether it is your fault or the fault of others

The values of the subculture would be an inversion (the complete opposite) of mainstream values. So bad was good; good was bad. The boys would have made an illegitimate opportunity structure in which the boys’ status within the group can be improved by delinquent actions. Think of when a group of friends dare you to do a naughty thing and if you do it you are seen as brave but if you don’t you’re a coward.

Small critique: like Merton, Cohen assumes that working class people all strive for middle-class success goals – some don’t really care.

Cloward and Ohlin: three subcultures

Cloward and Ohlin agree with Cohen that when people face strain they can turn to subcultures as a way of responding to it, but Cloward and Ohlin try to explain why different subcultures respond to strain in different ways. They argue that it is not just unequal opportunities in a legitimate society but unequal opportunities to enter an illegitimate subculture. Depending on the neighbourhood you went to, there were different opportunities to start a criminal career. This created three deviants cultures:

The criminal subculture – this occurs in neighbourhoods that have a long-standing and stable criminal culture with a hierarchy of professional adult crime where young people can become apprentices for a career in utilitarian crime. A very good example is the Italian mafia. (I strongly suggest readers watch the Godfather and/or this video on the Gambino Family)

The conflict subculture – when there are a lot of people in an area it is hard for stable, professional criminal career networks to develop so all that is left on loosely organised gangs. They used violence to release their status frustration and improve peer status by winning or protecting turf from rival gangs. Think of the postcode wars in England and street wars in America.

The retreatist subculture – members of the subculture have failed in trying to achieve their goals legitimately but have also failed at trying to have an illegitimate career. Therefore they “dropout” society and become alcohol abusers, drug abusers, vagabonds…

Durkheim and his theory on crime

Durkheim argues that crime is inevitable for two main reasons:

1. Everyone is socialised differently and some people may not be effectively socialised. Poor socialisation means that they do not accept the shared norms and values of mainstream society which can make them deviant.
2. Modern society is also very complex, and especially large cities, there are many people with many different cultures and lifestyles in a concentrated area. This causes the formation of subcultures and the subcultures may have norms and values that do not agree with the norms of mainstream society. For example, in some African cultures it is acceptable to eat with hands but if an African was residing in Europe, mainstream European society may see this as deviant.

Durkheim also believes that there tends to be anomie (normlessness) in modern society caused by the special division of labour. Everyone does their own thing and that leads to a weakened social solidarity and value consensus and Durkheim believes this leads to high levels of crime and deviance.

The functions of crime

It is common belief that Functionalists would argue that crime is bad for society because it can lead to the breakdown of it. Imagine a society where everyone ran by their own rules and there was no control whatsoever. However Durkheim shows that, yes, to much crime is bad but too little crime is also bad for society. He highlights the two functions of crime within any society:

1. Boundary maintenance – the whole purpose of the law and justice system is to “dramatise evil” in order to act as a warning to the law-abiding citizens. Do you remember the huge media frenzy about Anders Breivik? He was so big thatthey had to make a special court just for him! It’s aim is to reaffirm the good values within them which increases social solidarity.
2. Adaption and change – when individuals challenge or go against the norms of their society, at first they are seen as deviants. However challenging the norms of a society is what allows it to adapt and grow so that society can meet the functions of its members. Think of the Suffragettes who challenged patriarchy in order to create society that was in support of women. If society is very controlling then it does not allow this adaption to occur causing it to stagnate. A good example is China which is very oppressive towards anyone that challenges its ideologies and beliefs.

Other functions of crime

• Davis and Polsky – crime such as prostitution and pornography protected nuclear family as it provides a safe way to release sexual frustrations and desires (assuming neither partner gets caught…)
• Cohen – crime is a warning for when lead institution is failing. For example, a rise in truancy may be warning that the education system is not meeting the needs of all its members
• Erikson – the role of agencies such as the police and courts is to maintain a certain level of crime rather than rid crime completely. They also manage and regulate deviants rather than prevent it. For example, young people’s crime may go unpunished as it may be a way of dealing with the transition to adulthood. (A great excuse…)

Criticisms

• Durkheim doesn’t state which level of crime is the right amount
• Just because crime has a function in society does not necessarily mean that society is deliberately creating crime in order for the functions of it to be prevalent.
• It doesn’t focus on how crime affects individuals or groups in society
• It also doesn’t recognise that crime can weaken solidarity and increase isolation – most women stay in at night due to the fear of rape.

Merton: Strain theory

Merton is a functionalist and a study of the American dream led to the creation of strain theory. Merton argues that the American dream is solely based on monetary success and the belief that the American society is meritocratic – if you work hard enough you can all be successful and rich. However Merton argues that society is not like that in reality, factors such as age; ethnicity; sexuality and class can put people at a disadvantage in society. Here he highlights the basis of strain theory:

“Strain occurs when there is a gap between the goals society encourages and how this can be achieved legitimately”.

For example, in society encourages everyone to have a car and a home with a white picket fence but discrimination society means only those of the white upper-middle-class can achieve this, the disadvantaged group will then turn to crime to reach the goal.

The characteristic of the American dream that Merton discovered was that it laid more emphasis on becoming successful then doing so legitimately. It was more important that you played the game rather than playing it by the rules. This led to a rise in utilitarian (practical) crimes such as fraud and theft and Merton refers to this as the strain to anomie.

Responses to strain

Merton realises that not everyone in society will respond strain in the same way. He argues that a person’s social position can affect the way they respond to strain. Merton has identified five reactions to strain in society:

1. Conformity – members of this group will accept the goals of society and the need to do so legitimately. This is more likely to occur in the upper classes but it’s typical of most Americans.
2. Innovators – they accept the goal of society but have created “new” illegitimate ways of achieving these goals. More likely to occur within the lower classes or any disadvantaged group within society
3. Ritualism – members of this group have rejected the goals of society but have accepted the need for legitimate behaviour. Think of people who are in dead-end jobs. They work because it’s the right thing to do but they have no aspirations.
4. Retreatism – these people have completely rejected because the society and its legitimate behaviour and they, in effect, dropout from society. Examples of this are chronic drunks, tramps, drug addicts, vagabonds etc
5. Rebels – rebels reject the goals society because they want to replace them with new ones. They want to cause a revolution and create a better society for all. A good example would be hippies or eco-warriors.

Criticisms of Merton

• This video is a really good critique of the American Dream the theory’s based on: TYT;
• He takes official statistics on crime at face value. These stats are biased and present a working-class phenomenon of crime but it may simply be the fact that upper-class crime is not easily discovered rather than in not existing.
• Merton can only explain utilitarian crimes such as fraud and theft that obviously help to improve one’s monetary status, but it does not explain state crimes such as genocide or smaller scale crimes such as rape and GBH.
• His theories also to deterministic – not everyone will respond as he said
• It ignores the power of the ruling class to criminalise the poor
• And it assumes that everyone believes in this value consensus of shared goals but some may reject it and therefore feel no strain