Question

Sociologists argue that deviance is largely a product of social inequality, where the actions of working and lower class people are more likely to be labeled deviant and punished than the actions of middle and upper class people. Can you think of recent examples that support this difference? Can you think of any examples that contradict this idea, where an upper-class person was punished more harshly for a crime? Is there a way that we could change this relationship, and make sure that punishments are equal to the crimes rather than the people who commit the crimes?

Answer 1

This theory is referred to as the labelling theory of crime.

According to this theory, the behavior of an individual get influenced by the type of terms that would be used for classifying these individuals. This is also associated with the theory of self fulfilling prophecy as well as stereotyping.

It has often been thought that the white collar crimes are carried out by people of higher socio economic status, whereas, people with lower socio economic status are thought to be involved in more horrendous crimes such as murder or theft. One example was of the Texas jury, where a black person was convicted for a crime, which decision had been overturned by the Supreme Court, rejecting racial biases to be included in a conviction.

This example shows both racial discrimination and contradiction of this idea.

In order to change the relationship between labelling and crime rates, it is important to look at people for the crimes that they do and not for who they are.