Interactionist Theory of Crime: Becker and Labelling
The Interactionist Challenge
Functionalist and structural theories ask why certain social conditions (strain, status frustration, class inequality) lead to crime. Interactionist sociology asks a different question: who decides what counts as criminal or deviant in the first place, and what happens to individuals once they are labelled? This shift of focus — from the causes of rule-breaking to the social processes of labelling — produced one of the most influential perspectives in the sociology of crime.
Interactionism argues that social reality is constructed through interaction and the meanings people assign to actions. Applied to crime and deviance, this means that an act has no inherent criminal quality — it becomes deviant only when someone with the power to make the label stick successfully defines it as such.
Becker: Labelling Theory
Howard Becker, in Outsiders (1963), set out the foundational argument of labelling theory. Becker argued that deviance is not a property of the act itself but of the interaction between the person who acts and those who observe and respond to the act. Whether a label of “deviant” or “criminal” is applied depends on who commits the act, when and where it is committed, who observes it, and the negotiations between the various parties involved.
Becker observed that not all rule-breakers are caught, and not all who are caught are labelled. Whether a label sticks depends on factors beyond the act itself: the social characteristics of the actor (class, ethnicity, age, gender), the discretion of those with formal power (police, teachers, courts), and the social context. Two young people committing the same act may receive very different responses depending on where they are and who they are. Becker’s insight was that the criminal justice system is not a neutral machine but a social process shaped by power.
Becker (Outsiders, 1963) argued that deviance is not a property of the act but is created by the reactions of others. An act only becomes deviant when a label is successfully applied by someone with the power to make it stick.
Master Status and the Deviant Career
Once a label has been publicly and officially applied, Becker argued, it tends to become the person’s master status. Before the label, a young person might be seen as a student, a friend, a neighbour. After being officially convicted and labelled a “criminal”, this identity overshadows all others. Assumptions are made about the person’s character, reliability and likely future behaviour — assumptions that can follow them into every interaction: with employers, with landlords, with teachers, with family members.
The consequences of master status may trigger what Becker described as a deviant career. As the labelled individual is rejected from legitimate social roles — turned down by employers, excluded from educational opportunities, cut off from conventional social networks — the label itself makes conventional life harder to sustain. This rejection can produce a self-fulfilling prophecy: the individual increasingly identifies with the label and seeks out others who share it, joining organised deviant groups with their own norms, values and identity. In this way, the labelling process can transform an isolated act of rule-breaking into an ongoing criminal lifestyle — not because the individual was inevitably going to become a criminal, but because the social reaction created the conditions for it.
Primary and Secondary Deviance
Primary deviance refers to the original act of rule-breaking, before any label has been applied. Most people commit acts of primary deviance at some point (minor theft, underage drinking, breaking traffic rules) without it becoming part of their identity. Secondary deviance occurs when an individual internalises the deviant label and begins to act in accordance with it. The distinction is important: the theory argues that secondary deviance is produced not by the original act but by the social reaction to it.
Moral Entrepreneurs and Moral Panics
Becker also introduced the concept of moral entrepreneurs — individuals and groups who use their social influence to get particular behaviours defined as deviant. They may lobby parliament for new legislation, campaign in the media, or pressure institutions to act. Their success depends on their social power and their ability to frame the issue in ways that resonate with public anxieties.
Related to this is the concept of a moral panic. When the media, police and public respond to a perceived threat in a disproportionate and amplified way, the resulting attention can itself increase the visible scale of the problem through a process of deviancy amplification: increased police attention leads to more arrests, which generates more media coverage, which fuels further anxiety and policing. The labelling process escalates. Critics argue that moral panics have historically targeted specific groups (young working-class men, ethnic minority communities) who are portrayed as “folk devils” — symbols of social threat.
Feminist perspective: Feminist sociologists broadly welcome the insight that labelling is not neutral. Heidensohn noted that the criminal justice system has historically applied labels differently to men and women: women offenders are sometimes treated more leniently (the “chivalry thesis”) when they conform to feminine stereotypes, but women who deviate from expected gender roles may be judged more harshly. Feminist criminologists argue that the identity of the label-appliers — predominantly male judges, police and juries — shapes who is targeted and how they are treated.
Marxist perspective: Marxist sociologists argue that labelling theory does not go far enough because it focuses on individual interactions without asking why the police and courts are more likely to label working-class people as criminal. The answer, for Marxists, lies in the class structure: the bourgeoisie controls the legal system and ensures that the label “criminal” is attached primarily to acts associated with the proletariat (street crime, theft, benefit fraud) rather than to the far more costly but largely tolerated crimes of the powerful (corporate fraud, tax avoidance, environmental damage). Selective law enforcement reflects and reinforces class inequality.
Labelling theory has been criticised from multiple directions: Marxists argue it doesn’t explain why labels fall on the working class (class power); feminists argue gender shapes both labelling and its consequences; critics also note that not everyone who is labelled accepts or acts on the label (determinism).
Strengths: Labelling theory challenges the view that crime statistics are an objective reflection of criminal behaviour, showing instead that they reflect the activities of the police and courts. It draws attention to the unequal application of labels across social groups. It helps explain patterns such as recidivism (re-offending after conviction), which purely structural theories struggle to account for.
Weaknesses: Labelling theory has been criticised for being too deterministic — not everyone who is labelled becomes a career criminal; many labelled individuals resist and reject the identity. It focuses on the label-givers (police, courts) but underplays the role of the actor’s own choices and motivations. Functionalists argue that labelling theory cannot explain why some acts (serious violence) are universally condemned regardless of the social identity of the actor.