Labelling Theory: Understanding the Impact of Social Labels on Deviance, Slides of Criminology

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Labelling Theory

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Aims

 Define Labelling Theory  Who Labels Whom?  Howard Becker  Jock Young  Edwin Lemert  Chambliss - Saints and Roughnecks  Criticisms 2

Who Labels Whom?

 “People who represent the forces of law and order, or are able to impose definitions of conventional morality on others, do most of the labelling”  Thus by “wealthy for the poor, by men for women, by older people for younger people, and by ethnic majorities for minority groups”

• (Giddens, 2006:p800) 4

Howard Becker

 Becker believed that the act done by the person was not deviant, rather that the labelling caused it to be viewed as such.  Becker’s Outsiders (1963) shows that smoking of marijuana in the early 1960s, was a marginal activity, within sub-cultures.  Also that it depended on acceptance into the culture, association with current users and disassociation with non-users.  Meaning that labelling caused the users to come together and go ‘underground’. 5

Edwin Lemert

2 Primary Deviance Secondary Deviance 7

Saints and Roughnecks

 William Chambliss (1973) studied 2 groups of delinquents in an American school. The Saints and the Roughnecks.  Both were constantly involved in petty crimes such as drinking, truancy, vandalism and theft; however the roughnecks were constantly in trouble, whereas the Saints never had any.  This was because of different views and resources between classes 8

Funny Labels

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