THE AMPLIFICATION OF DEVIENCE

 

 Needed to answer questions of deviance, amplification, relationship between media and crime waves, also arguments to evaluate interactionist theories or questions about crime statistics.

WHAT IS DEVIENCE AMPLIFICATION?

  •  Can be looked at from different perspectives, though particularly associated with interactionist approach.
  • Can mean:
    •   More deviant acts
    •   More serious acts
    •   People think there's more crime
    •   Increased fear of crime
  •  Last two are social reaction, which can cause more devience/reaction. A combination of these can cause a real or imagined crime wave.

THE INTERACTIONIST APPROACH

  •  S. Cohen studied the mods and rockers fights, studying how minor fights on a beach, were labeled as riots between mods and rockers, which led to more fighting as it was a self-fulfilling prophesy and more extensive policing produced more arrests.
  •  J. Young showed how police amplify deviancy, negate reality and translate fantasy.  eg. minor drug use, social reaction from media and police isolates drug users, there's even more or a social reaction, and even worse drug use.
  •  E. Lemert said primary deviance is the first offence, but secondary deviance results as labeling a person a deviant. He applied this approach to show how social reaction amplified mental illness and stuttering.

THE CONFLICT APPROACH

 S.Hall applied Marxist thinking to the moral panic about muggings in the 70's. Street crime was falsely identified as a black crime which white statistics, which divided the working class on ethnic lines and allowed the introduction of more repressive policing.

THE FUNCIONALIST APPROACH 

  •  The approach is structuralist, focusing on how consensus can be maintained rather than on underlying conflict between groups.
  •  Durkheim saw the function of social reaction as reinforcing the collective consciousness.
     K. Erikson said medieval witch-hunts help clarify and reinforce norms of behaviour. The panic was invented as puritan society did very little that could be considered deviant.
  •  M. Douglas described persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses in WWII as they wouldn't salute the flag, they were a common enemy that united the country divided by economic depression, but after pearl harbour, there was a new scapegoat.

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