This document introduces the concept of labelling theory in criminology. It discusses three key points: 1. Labelling theory argues that deviance is a social construct - certain acts are defined as criminal or deviant due to moral entrepreneurs labelling them as such, not because the acts are inherently harmful. 2. Once labelled, individuals may engage in secondary deviance by adopting the deviant identity ascribed to them through the labelling process. This can lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy of increased criminal behavior. 3. Labelling and differential enforcement of laws can spark a process of deviance amplification, where attempts to control certain groups end up increasing rather than decreasing deviant acts, due to the

1. Labelling Theory

2. Lesson Objectives
• Introduce the Labelling theory to Crime
and Deviance
• Be able to apply Labelling theory to
examples of Crime and Deviance
• Evaluate Labelling Theory

3. Last Lesson Recap
• Examine the role of access to
opportunity structures in causing crime
and deviance (12 marks)
• 6 AO1
• 6 AO2

4. How to answer
• Outline Merton’s Strain to anomie theory- esp. idea that
deviance results from unequal access to legitimate
opportunities (education and career).
• Identify different forms of deviance e.g. innovation
ao2 • Examine Sub cultural theories using Cohen to evaluate
Merton
• Link Cohen’s idea of status frustration to blocked
opportunities and explain how subculture provide an
illegitimate opportunity structure
• Use Cloward and Ohlin to show that access to illegitimate
ao2 opportunity structures is unequal and how this gives rise to 3
different subcultures.
• Include evaluation e.g. functionalist assumptions of Cohen and
ao2 Merton (do all deviants start out sharing mainstream goals?)
or their failure to explain other types of crime e.g. corporate

5. Think………….
• The concept of labelling has been used not
only in explaining crime and deviance, but
also in other areas of Sociology.
• How do you think it would relate to Crime
and Deviance?
• Who is likely to be labelled and why?
• What effect can a label have on how
people who are labelled are treated and
how they behave?

6. Label ling as a form
of Social Control:
anics’…
‘Folk D evils & Moral P
Stan C ohen (1972/80):
s vs. Rockers’
ehind the ‘Mod
d in the truth b the media the
Cohe n was intereste
late 196 0s. According to problem
me dia hype in the s’ and ‘Rocker s’ was a national
violence b etween the ‘Mod ociety.
d the decay of s
that represente
different
Coh en reached very
ed to what
co nclusions compar
eporting…….
the media was r

7. his research
Cohen found the following in
edia stories)…..
(which con tradicted the m
ally minimal.
at the media r eported was actu
> The ‘Violence’ th de during
f young pe ople at the seasi
> The majority o re not Mods or
Rockers.
‘riots’ we
these so called
of events &
o have painted a skewed picture
> The media seemed t between these t
wo groups.
the clashes
sensationalised
and why this
In order to underst suggests we
occurred (occurs), Cohen
concepts of
need to understand the
Devils & Moral
Socia l Control, Folk
Panics .

8. nic?
What is a Moral Pa k of MORAL
al concern over an issue—usually the wor
ocess of arousing soci a FOLK DEVIL.
The pr
is inevitably in volves the creation of
ENTREPENUERS. Th
eneurs?
Who are these Moral Entrepr
e power to create
is a person, group or organisation with th
A Moral Entrepreneur views & attitudes on to
others e.g.
se their morals,
or enforce rules & impo
> Politicians
> Teachers
> Parents
> Religious Leaders
evil?
What is a Folk D / social groups who
ormed generalisatio ns of particular people
Over simplified, ill-inf
demonise e.g
Moral Entrepreneurs wish to
> Mods & Rockers
> Hoodies
> Lone-parent Families
> Immigrants
> Young Muslims
> Paedophiles
c……….
> Football Hooligans et

9. ting the extent
eating Folk Devils – as well as exaggera
labelling groups and cr epreneurs are able
By
society through th e Media, Moral Entr
of these ‘problems’ in in society:
to genera te Moral Panics with

10. Social Construction of Crime
Instead of taking the definition of crime for
granted, labelling theorists are interested in
how and why certain acts come to be defined or
labelled as criminal in the first place.
For labelling theorists, no act is deviant in
itself: deviance is a social construct

11. • Howard Becker (1963) social groups
create deviance by creating rules and
applying them to particular people whom
they label as ‘outsiders’
• Therefore an act or person only
becomes deviant when labelled by
others as deviant

12. • Labelling theorists are interested in the
role of what Becker calls moral
entrepreneurs. These are people who lead a
moral ‘crusade’ to change the law in the
belief that it will benefit those to whom it is
applied.
• The new law however has two effects:
1. Creation of a new group of ‘outsiders’-
outlaws or deviants who break the new rule
2. The creation or expansion of a social control
agency (police) to enforce the rule and
impose labels on offenders

13. • It is not the harmfulness of a behaviour
that leads to new laws being created,
but rather the efforts of powerful
individuals and groups to redefine that
behaviour as unacceptable.

14. Differential Enforcement
• Labelling theorists argue that social
control agencies (police, courts etc)
tend to label certain groups as criminal
• Piliavin and Briar found police decisions
to arrest were based on stereotypical
ideas about manner, dress, gender,
class, ethnicity, time and place
• These stereotypical ideas lead to
judgements about a youths character

15. Effects of Labelling
• Labelling Theorists claim that by labelling certain
people as criminal or deviant society encourages them
to become more so.
• Primary Deviance- deviant acts that have not been
publicly labelled. They may have many causes, are often
trivial and mostly go uncaught e.g. fare dodging. Those
who commit them do not usually see themselves as
deviant
• Secondary Deviance- results from societal reaction i.e.
from labelling. Labelling someone as an offender can
involve stigmatising and excluding them from normal
society. Others may see the offender solely in terms of
the label, which becomes the individuals master status
or controlling identity

16. Self Fulfilling Prophecy
• Being labelled may provoke a crisis for
the individuals self concept and lead to
sfp in which they live up to the label,
resulting in secondary deviance
• Further societal reaction may reinforce
the individuals outsider status and lead
them to joining a deviant sub culture
that offer support, role models and a
deviant career
Can you give an example?

17. Activity: Drugtakers and the
police: an amplification spiral

18. • Lemert and Young illustrates the idea that it
is not the act itself, but the hostile societal
reaction by the social audience, that created
serious deviance.
• Ironically therefore, the social control
processes that are meant to produce law-
abiding behaviour may in fact produce the
very opposite.
Although a deviant career is a common
outcome of labelling, labelling theorists are
quick to point out that it is not inevitable

19. Deviance Amplification
• Deviance Amplification- the attempt to control
deviance leads to it increasing rather than
decreasing, resulting in grater attempts to
control it and in turn more deviance e.g. Hippies
• How is this related to the trouble in Clacton in
1964? (page 83)
• Deviance Amplification is similar to secondary
deviance. In both cases the societal reaction to
an initial deviant act leads not to successful
control of the deviance but to further deviance
which in turns leads to greater reaction etc

20. piral’
eviance Amplification S
Jock Y oung (1967/9) ‘D
more crime!
Moral Panics actually generate
Labels, Folk Devils &
Notting Hill…..
E.g. Drug Takers in types and as such
are susceptible to m edia stories & stereo not done:
Police in Notting Hill hat they have or have
vils’ regardless of w
target these typical ‘folk de
r minor offences
> Police arrest drug marijuana smokers fo
eir Folk Devil ‘The
nlise these stories and thus have th
> The media sensatio c about ‘Drug Takers
’.
n to generate a Moral Pani
Drug Taker’ and begi
ies, the police crack
> In re sponse to these stor
these folk devils.
down even harder on
ises police suspicion
g Takers’ ‘underground’ – this ra
> This pushes the ‘Dru en more harshly
drugs up – th e police crack down ev
& pushes the price of
).
(More Media Coverage
turn to new types of
art resist ing arresting arrest,
> The ‘Drug Taker’s’ st er (MORE DEVIANCE
)
ga nise themselves bett
drugs and have to or

21. at more
Moral Panics about Knife Crime means th
the streets
people are fearful of being attacked in It
carry ing knives themselves.
and therefore start stabbed or
is a fact that you are more likely to be
ument/
stab someone else if you get into an arg
ing a knife
sc uffle if you are carry to Deviance
yourself……………… ……Moral Panics lead
Amplification.
about
The more people read re
drug rela ted problems the mo
r
like ly they are to see fo
ss is
them selves what all the fu
about.

22. Labelling and Criminal Justice
Policy
• Research findings indicate that labelling
theory has important policy implications.
They add weight to the argument that
negative labelling pushes offenders
towards a deviant career.
• What implications does this have for
making laws?
• To reduce deviance, we should make and
enforce fewer rules for people to break

23. Reintegrative Shaming
• Most labelling theorists see labelling as having
negative effects. However John Braithwaite
identifies a more positive role. He distinguishes
between two types of shaming (negative
labelling):
• Disintegrative shaming- where the crime and
criminal are labelled as bad, and the offender is
excluded from society.
• Reintegrative shaming- labels the act but not the
actor ‘he has done a bad thing’ not ‘he is a bad
person’ (avoids stigmatisation). Person is made
aware of the negative impact of their actions and
encourages others to forgive them ands accept
them back into society

24. Differences between Labelling
and Functionalism
• Functionalists see deviance producing
social control
• Labelling Theorists see control
producing further deviance

25. • Summarise the labelling theory

26. Evaluation
Shows that the law is not a fixed set of
rules to be taken for granted, but
something whose construction we need
to explain
Shows that crime statistics are more a
record of activities of control agents
not that of criminals

27.  Focuses on the underachievers or people who
are regarded as lower in society
 Doesn’t look at the motives for why people
commit crime
 Capitalism is not mentioned in the theory
(Marxist Criticism)- role of power
 Tends to be deterministic (once someone is
labelled a deviant career is inevitable)
 The emphasis on the negative effects of
labelling gives the offender a kind of victim
status, thus ignoring the real victims of crime

28. Fails to explain why people commit primary
deviance firstly, before they are labelled
 It implies that without labelling, deviance would
not exist. Leading to the conclusion that
someone who commits a crime but is not
labelled has not deviated. It also implies that
deviants are unaware that they are deviant until
labelled, yet most are well aware that they are
going against social norms
 By assuming that offenders are passive victims
of labelling it ignore the fact that individuals
may also actively choose deviance

29. ***Jack Young (1971)
Initially drugs were peripheral to the
hippies lifestyle (primary deviance)
The police see The police The Deviant norms
action against and values
hippies as lazy, marijuana develop. They
dirty drug marijuana users users grew their hair
makes them
addicts. feel different,
retreat into long, and drug
small use becomes
(Labelling) and from this
more of a
they unite groups.
central activity
together (sfp)
(societal
reaction)