Carrabine, E., Cox, P., Lee, M., Plummer, K. and South, N. (2009) Criminology: a sociological
introduction (2nd ed.). London: Routledge. CHAPTER 6
Key issues
- What is labelling theory?
- How did conflict theory arise and what are the questions posed by a new
criminology?
- How did the Birmingham centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies provide an
advance over earlier subcultural theories?
- What is the impact of feminism on Criminology?
- What has been the influence of Foucault?
Background
- The National Deviancy Conference NDC was established in 1967 as a reaction against
mainstream criminology – among its key founder members in the UK was Stanley
Cohen, Laurie Taylor, Jock Young, Ian Taylor and Mary Macintosh.
- Its central position was a critique of mainstream criminology.
Briefly the theories proposed:
A turning away from conventional theories of crime which assumed the nature of
criminal categories and control processes and asked questions about the causes of
crime. Crime was a socially constructed category – there could not be any ‘criminal
type’ since criminal types depended on who defined the laws at particular times.
A rejection of the view that crime is caused by pathologies, disorganization, strains,
stresses and leakage within a consensual society – focused to pick up on the theme
of conflict instead. Crime is a special form of conflict.
Ways of seeing crime and deviance as ideologically driven categories that stretched
the concerns of criminology away from offenders onto the role of social control.
Re-examination of youth subcultural theories of crime, greater emphasis upon
culture and cultural forms
Fresh concern with gender – issue of gender was brought into criminology as a key
element for thinking about crime
A move to see criminology as part of the very problem it tries to solve.
Deviance and ‘labelling’
- Labelling theory highlights social reaction; became the dominant sociological theory
of crime which is odd as it does not try to understand what made people criminal.
- It assumes we would all be criminal if we could.
Becker, Lemert and Cohen
- Lemert argued that many episodes of norm violation – from truancy to under-age
drinking – often provoke little reaction from others and have little effect on a
, persons self-concept – ‘primary deviance’. Secondary deviance – individual engages
in repeated norm violations and begins to take on a deviant identity.
- Howard, S Becker – second generation Chicago sociologist, work focused on
marijuana use and its control. Becker challenged standard definitions of deviant
behaviour – sanctions against drug use led to distinctive subcultures and careers as
drug users which wouldn’t exist without the sanctions, sanctions shaped the nature
of drug use.
- Stanley Cohen – folks devil and moral panics – looked at first major youth
phenomena in the UK. 1960: mods and rockers, apart from the Teddy Boys of the
1950’s these were the first major youth phenomenon of the post-war era, great deal
of controversy. The mods and rockers came into being, because of the responses of
the media, the police and the courts who helped define and shape them. The term
moral panic introduced to capture the heightened awareness of certain problems at
key moments
- Moral panic: a condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become
defined as a threat to societal values and interests; its nature presented in a stylised
and stereotypical fashion by the mass media; the moral barricades are manned by
editors, bishops, politicians and other right thinking people.
- Moral panics have traditionally been short-lived and focused; paedophile, murder,
violent crime
Wider contributions of labelling theory
- Thomas J. Scheffs Being Mentally Ill 1966; controversial theory of mental illness
based upon labelling dynamics, suggesting that there was no such simple thing as
mental illness, rather the role of the mentally ill depended upon a major
identification process.
- Recognized that labelling was a political act – Becker 1963
- This sociology changed the theoretical base for the study of criminals and brought in
a restructuring of empirical concerns. Sociologists turned their interests to the world
of expressive deviance.
Problems with labelling theory
- It is seen as a liberal theory; little attention to the state, power and the economy
- Overly sympathetic to the criminal and deviant from the political right perspective
- Untestable – or if it is tested, lacks supportive evidence for rigorous positivist minded
social scientists
- Criminologists usually unhappy about its neglect of the origins of deviance – labelling
theory fails to address motivations behind deviance
- Labelling theorists rescued the deviants from the deterministic constraints of
biological, psychological and social forces only to enchain them again in a new
determinism of societal reactions (Plummer 1979)
introduction (2nd ed.). London: Routledge. CHAPTER 6
Key issues
- What is labelling theory?
- How did conflict theory arise and what are the questions posed by a new
criminology?
- How did the Birmingham centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies provide an
advance over earlier subcultural theories?
- What is the impact of feminism on Criminology?
- What has been the influence of Foucault?
Background
- The National Deviancy Conference NDC was established in 1967 as a reaction against
mainstream criminology – among its key founder members in the UK was Stanley
Cohen, Laurie Taylor, Jock Young, Ian Taylor and Mary Macintosh.
- Its central position was a critique of mainstream criminology.
Briefly the theories proposed:
A turning away from conventional theories of crime which assumed the nature of
criminal categories and control processes and asked questions about the causes of
crime. Crime was a socially constructed category – there could not be any ‘criminal
type’ since criminal types depended on who defined the laws at particular times.
A rejection of the view that crime is caused by pathologies, disorganization, strains,
stresses and leakage within a consensual society – focused to pick up on the theme
of conflict instead. Crime is a special form of conflict.
Ways of seeing crime and deviance as ideologically driven categories that stretched
the concerns of criminology away from offenders onto the role of social control.
Re-examination of youth subcultural theories of crime, greater emphasis upon
culture and cultural forms
Fresh concern with gender – issue of gender was brought into criminology as a key
element for thinking about crime
A move to see criminology as part of the very problem it tries to solve.
Deviance and ‘labelling’
- Labelling theory highlights social reaction; became the dominant sociological theory
of crime which is odd as it does not try to understand what made people criminal.
- It assumes we would all be criminal if we could.
Becker, Lemert and Cohen
- Lemert argued that many episodes of norm violation – from truancy to under-age
drinking – often provoke little reaction from others and have little effect on a
, persons self-concept – ‘primary deviance’. Secondary deviance – individual engages
in repeated norm violations and begins to take on a deviant identity.
- Howard, S Becker – second generation Chicago sociologist, work focused on
marijuana use and its control. Becker challenged standard definitions of deviant
behaviour – sanctions against drug use led to distinctive subcultures and careers as
drug users which wouldn’t exist without the sanctions, sanctions shaped the nature
of drug use.
- Stanley Cohen – folks devil and moral panics – looked at first major youth
phenomena in the UK. 1960: mods and rockers, apart from the Teddy Boys of the
1950’s these were the first major youth phenomenon of the post-war era, great deal
of controversy. The mods and rockers came into being, because of the responses of
the media, the police and the courts who helped define and shape them. The term
moral panic introduced to capture the heightened awareness of certain problems at
key moments
- Moral panic: a condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become
defined as a threat to societal values and interests; its nature presented in a stylised
and stereotypical fashion by the mass media; the moral barricades are manned by
editors, bishops, politicians and other right thinking people.
- Moral panics have traditionally been short-lived and focused; paedophile, murder,
violent crime
Wider contributions of labelling theory
- Thomas J. Scheffs Being Mentally Ill 1966; controversial theory of mental illness
based upon labelling dynamics, suggesting that there was no such simple thing as
mental illness, rather the role of the mentally ill depended upon a major
identification process.
- Recognized that labelling was a political act – Becker 1963
- This sociology changed the theoretical base for the study of criminals and brought in
a restructuring of empirical concerns. Sociologists turned their interests to the world
of expressive deviance.
Problems with labelling theory
- It is seen as a liberal theory; little attention to the state, power and the economy
- Overly sympathetic to the criminal and deviant from the political right perspective
- Untestable – or if it is tested, lacks supportive evidence for rigorous positivist minded
social scientists
- Criminologists usually unhappy about its neglect of the origins of deviance – labelling
theory fails to address motivations behind deviance
- Labelling theorists rescued the deviants from the deterministic constraints of
biological, psychological and social forces only to enchain them again in a new
determinism of societal reactions (Plummer 1979)
