Crime and Deviance Are the Product of the Labelling Process

Crime is simply an activity that breaks the criminal law and criminals are the people who behave in this way, whereas deviance is behaviour that does not conform to a society or a group and is defined or created by the social group. The labelling theory takes a very different approach to other theories as it focuses on how and why some people and their actions come to be labelled as criminal or deviant and what effects this has on those who are labelled, whereas other theories only focus on the causes of criminal behaviour. The labelling theory is an interactionist theory as it takes the view that individuals construct the social world through their face to face interactions and crime is the product of interactions between suspects and police for example, rather than the result of external social forces such as blocked opportunities. The labelling approach claims that by labelling certain people as criminal or deviant, society actually encourages them to become more so. Most of the labelling theory on crime and deviance stems from Edwin Lemert and Jock Young, who both illustrate the idea that it is not the act itself but the societal reaction by the social audience that creates serious deviance.

Lemert considers two concepts and distinguishes between them; they are primary and secondary deviance. Primary deviance refers to acts that have not been publically labelled and is pointless to seek the causes of primary deviance because it is so widespread and mostly goes uncaught. They also have little significance for the individual’s status or self-concept. However secondary deviance is the result of societal reaction and is when an individual is caught and publically labelled as a criminal, this can involve being stigmatised, shamed, humiliated and so on. Once an individual is labelled others may come to seem them only in terms of that label, this becomes the master status and overrides all other statuses that the individual may have. This can provoke a crisis for the...