Evaluation: Social Explanations of Crime

Labelling
1. The labels people are given help others make judgements on the kind of person they are. If a person is labelled a 'criminal' or 'deviant', they will be defined by these labels and this will affect how members of society behave towards them.
2. Advocates of labelling theory are more interested in how and why some behaviours are seen as criminal or non-criminal, rather than what makes a behaviour criminal or non-criminal. It is argued that powerful groups in society create deviance by making up rules and applying them to people they see as outsiders - in other words, crime is a social construct and behaviours only become criminal when people label it so.
  1. Labelling theory has been criticised for being only a partial explanation to crime. It suggests that without labelling, crime would not exist. This seems to present the idea that someone who has committed an offence but has not been labelled is not a criminal, which is problematic. Furthermore, most people would agree that serious offences like murder are more than just a social construct, and that people who murder are criminals whether they are labelled as one or not. This suggests that the labelling theory of offending is too simple and that it cannot be the single explanation of crime.
    1. Another weakness is that there is a lack of evidence for labelling as applied to crime. Although there have been many studies exploring labelling (and self-fulfilling prophecy), a lot of this research is limited to to educational settings, such as Rosenthal and Jacobson (see self-fulfilling prophecy evaluation). Teacher-student relationships could be very particular in which expectations have an important bearing on a child's educational attainment, and it is very difficult to replicate such studies at a societal level and in context of criminal activity. There are too many factors affecting the relationship between labelling and crime to study it effectively.
Self-fulfilling Prophecy
1. The theory of self-fulfilling prophecy takes labelling a step further, and suggests that individuals internalise the labels that they have been given by society and begin to act in a way which 'fits' that label. For example, someone labelled a 'deviant' by society would start to see themselves in this way, making deviant behaviour more likely as they will act to fit that label. The individual being stigmatised and isolated from society may then find support from deviant cultures and sub-groups, and from there they are drawn further into crime, confirming their 'deviant' label.
  1. There is a lot of evidence supporting the idea of self-fulfilling prophecy. For example, Rosenthal and Jacobson found that children labelled as 'bloomers' had a larger increase in IQ than the children labelled as 'standard' at the start of the year to their teachers. This suggests that the children may have achieved higher educational attainment by living up to their label. However, this study was done in an educational context, so cannot necessarily be generalise to crime and wider society.
  2. There is evidence which supports the idea of self-fulfilling prophecy in relation to crime. Jahoda studied the Ashanti in Ghana where boys are named after the day on which they were born. 'Monday' boys are thought to be even-tempered compared to the more aggressive 'Wednesday' boys. Jahoda found that 'Wednesday' boys were 3x more likely to be involved in crime compared to the 'Monday' boys over a 5 year period. This suggests that self-fulfilling prophecy based on cultural expectations has had an influence on the behaviour of these boys.
    1. However, Zebrowitz found that 'baby-faced' boys were more likely than boys with a more mature face to be involved with crime, perhaps because they were overcompensating for the perception that they may be weaker or more childlike, suggesting that self-fulfilling prophecy does not always explain criminal behaviour.
Social Learning
1. Criminal behaviour could be learned indirectly through observing and imitating the actions of deviant others. To learn a criminal act, the behaviour must be attended to, recalled and the individual must have the motivation, skill and capacity to perform the behaviour successfully.
2. An individual can get vicarious reinforcement through seeing the large sums of money an individual could get from criminal behaviours, such as theft and robbing people. Furthermore, they could be vicariously reinforced by seeing someone gain increased status in a criminal gang after performing deviant behaviour,
3. Role models could include individuals such as gang leaders, as they see them with command and respect.
4. Bandura found that children who observed an adult role model acting aggressively would replicate this behaviour, particularly if they were being vicariously reinforced by watching the role model being rewarded for that behaviour. This suggests that social learning theory is a credible explanation for the acquisition of behaviours, and aggression is linked to anti-social and criminal activity in many cases. However, the results lack generalisability as the study was only done on young, impressionable and inquisitive children, rather than older individuals who may be getting involved in crime.
Application
1. Knowledge of labelling could help reduce the negative effects it has. Braithwaite suggests that societies have a lower crime rate and rate of reoffending if they communicate shame about crime effectively. For example, if the criminal receives support and is helped back into society rather than demonised, they are less likely to continue offending. This suggests that how offenders are labelled may influence how well they fit back into society,

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Evaluation: Social Explanations of Crime

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