Crime and Deviance
Assess the view that Crime and Deviance are product of labelling.
The labelling theory was developed by sociologist Howard S. Becker. Becker believed that deviance is not inherent to an act, but rather instead focuses on the tendencies of vast majorities to negatively label minorities or those seen as deviant from norms.
Deviance on the whole is perceived as a social process, this is down to the idea that each society or culture creates rules of behaviour by which its members are governed and, of necessity, controlled. Ideology is crucial in defining certain behaviour as deviant and others as non-deviant because the concept is critical in terms of understanding and explaining deviance. However, ideology alone isn’t a sufficient enough explanation as it is evident that people are able to think what they like about their own and other people's behaviour, (you are free, for example, to believe it is not deviant to spit on the streets or litter). What is important is the person’s ability to enforce these as ‘normalities’ or an act of deviance.
According to Becker (63), a deviant is simply someone to whom the label of ‘deviant’ has been successfully applied upon, so therefore deviant behaviour is simply the behaviour that people label so, this goes back to my point on ideology being insufficient due to free will of what individuals perceive as ‘deviance’. Some people are more likely to be labelled as a deviant than others due to the perceived ideas of race, gender and class.
Not everyone who commits an offence is punished for doing so. There are a number of factors as to whether or not the person should be arrested, charged and convicted. Significantly, a person’s appearance, background and personal life reflect who they are, for instance if a sophisticated, white, upper class student of Eden was to be caught vandalizing or drinking underage, the punishment would be far more lenient than if it were a Afro Caribbean, working class student of Scunthorpe
The labelling theory was developed by sociologist Howard S. Becker. Becker believed that deviance is not inherent to an act, but rather instead focuses on the tendencies of vast majorities to negatively label minorities or those seen as deviant from norms.
Deviance on the whole is perceived as a social process, this is down to the idea that each society or culture creates rules of behaviour by which its members are governed and, of necessity, controlled. Ideology is crucial in defining certain behaviour as deviant and others as non-deviant because the concept is critical in terms of understanding and explaining deviance. However, ideology alone isn’t a sufficient enough explanation as it is evident that people are able to think what they like about their own and other people's behaviour, (you are free, for example, to believe it is not deviant to spit on the streets or litter). What is important is the person’s ability to enforce these as ‘normalities’ or an act of deviance.
According to Becker (63), a deviant is simply someone to whom the label of ‘deviant’ has been successfully applied upon, so therefore deviant behaviour is simply the behaviour that people label so, this goes back to my point on ideology being insufficient due to free will of what individuals perceive as ‘deviance’. Some people are more likely to be labelled as a deviant than others due to the perceived ideas of race, gender and class.
Not everyone who commits an offence is punished for doing so. There are a number of factors as to whether or not the person should be arrested, charged and convicted. Significantly, a person’s appearance, background and personal life reflect who they are, for instance if a sophisticated, white, upper class student of Eden was to be caught vandalizing or drinking underage, the punishment would be far more lenient than if it were a Afro Caribbean, working class student of Scunthorpe