Moral Entrepreneur
Definition
Becker's term for an individual or group that campaigns to create or enforce moral rules, defining what will count as deviant and pressing institutions to apply the label. Rule creation and rule enforcement are seen as political acts, not neutral responses to harm.
- Origin
- Howard Becker, Outsiders (1963)
- Theory family
- Labelling theory
- Two roles
- Rule creators and rule enforcers
- Core claim
- Deviance is a social label, not an inherent property of an act
Common questions
What is a concrete example of a moral entrepreneur?+
Becker's own case study was Harry Anslinger's campaign to criminalise marijuana in the 1930s United States, using media and legislative lobbying to redefine cannabis use from a private habit into a criminal, morally condemned act.
How does this differ from a lawmaker simply doing their job?+
The distinction is about motive and process: a moral entrepreneur actively campaigns to shift where the line of acceptable behaviour sits, often driven by moral conviction rather than a neutral response to measured harm, whereas ordinary lawmaking can proceed without that campaigning element.
Why does this matter for forensic and criminological practice?+
It reframes what counts as crime as partly a product of social and political processes rather than a fixed category, which shapes how practitioners interpret enforcement patterns, sentencing disparities, and which behaviours attract disproportionate criminal justice attention.
Related terms
- Deviant Career
- Becker's concept describing how an individual moves sequentially through stages of deviance, from initial rule-breaking through labelling and eventually into immersion in...
- Primary Deviance
- Rule-breaking behaviour that precedes or occurs without official labelling. Lemert argued that primary deviance is common and does not in itself alter...
- Secondary Deviance
- Deviant behaviour that arises as an adaptation to the social reaction to primary deviance. Once labelled, a person restructures their identity and...
- Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
- A situation in which a definition, though originally inaccurate or arbitrary, provokes behaviour that makes it accurate. In labelling theory, treating someone...
- Stigma
- Goffman's term for a deeply discrediting attribute that reduces the bearer to a spoiled identity in others' eyes. A criminal conviction functions...