Deviance. How does labelling someone deviant create further deviance?
Crime and Deviance
How does labelling someone deviant create further deviance?
Many believe that the process in which an individual is labelled deviant results to further deviance. This view is generally held by Interactionist. Interactionist and subcultural theory believes that deviance is socially constructed. Any phenomenon which is socially constructed is "invented" by participants in a particular culture or society, therefore deviance is relative and not absolute(Haralambos and Holborn, 1995), meaning it can change depending on these factors; time, society and issues. For instance the social standards in Britain have changed. Using Cannabis is was once socially acceptable to smoke cannabis - it was even used for medicinal purposes - but it is now considered deviant behaviour. In Holland however Cannabis use is not seen as deviant and is also legal.
There are two types of deviance: primary and secondary (Fulcher & Scott, 1999). Lemert notes that primary deviation are acts which have not been labelled by society and therefore they are ignored or treated in a low-key way that defines them as bizarre, atypical, or significant aberrant. This behaviour is normalised by identifying the deviant act separate to the individual. E.g. A man is seen as aggressive because he is ‘under stress’ at work, a woman behaves oddly because it is ‘that time of the month’; an elderly woman steals from a supermarket because she is ‘confused’, a young man runs outside naked because he is not 'aware' of his actions. But what happens if other people begin to take notice of the individual's deviance and make something of it? If, for example, people begin to describe the young man as a ‘boozer’ and push him out of their social circle, he may become embittered, drink even more and seek the company of other who condone his behaviour. Therefore the response to the initial deviance can set in motion secondary deviance, where 'an individual engages in repeated norm violations and begins to take on a deviant identity' (Macionis and Plummer). The development of secondary deviance is one application of the Thomas theorem which states, ‘Situations defined as real become real in their consequences’. Lemert therefore argues that Societal reaction is the cause of deviance. Primary Deviation is not important as there are many initial reasons for deviating. What is important is Secondary Deviation .i.e. after the person has been labelled. His study of Stuttering in North American Indians shows how stuttering virtually doesn’t exist without Societal Reaction to it (Haralambos and Holborn, 1995). Consequently Lemert's view on deviance shows that deviant behaviour can be a “means of defence, attack, or adaptation to the overt and covert problems created by the societal reaction to primary deviation.”
