The psychosocial method of labeling theory elaborates on how social labeling contributes to the tenets of criminal behavior and deviance. The theory postulates that although deviant behavior can initially be caused by a variety of factors and circumstances, once someone has been classified as deviant, they frequently experience new issues as a result of how others and themselves react to the stigma associated with the deviant label. (Becker, 1963; Lemert, 1967). The distinctive environment can, in turn, raise the possibility that illegal and deviant behavior will persist and become chronic. According to Lemert, deviant behavior can be used as a form of assault, defense, or adaptation to the issues brought on by deviant labeling. (1967). Thus, being labeled or defined by others as a disregard or criminal personality may tend to reinforce or stabilize involvement in crime and deviance, nature of the behavioral pattern and the psychosocial conditions that existed prior to labeling.
Labeling Theory
Labeling theory has at times been hotly contested on validity since 1970s in deviance and crime .While social labels generally constitute a part of the cultural framework that people use to define and categorize the social world, deviant labels are special in that they are stigmatizing labels or markers. This assumption is fundamental to labeling theory due to the psychological impact of feeling disconnect from social nature.
Deviant labels, criminal labels in particular, are associated with stigma, which means that the mainstream culture has attached specific, negative images or stereotypes to deviant labels (Link & Phelan, 2001). Negative stereotypes of criminal offenders are manifested in the mainstream culture in various ways, for example in films, books, mass media, and even everyday .Walt Disney’s Beagle Boys provide an example of how criminals are often portrayed as innately immoral, devious, and fundamentally different from Individuals labeled as criminals or delinquents tend to be set aside as fundamentally different from others, and they tend to be associated with stereotypes of undesirable traits or characteristics ,therefore deviant status may become a master status for the person, that is, the negative images attached to the deviant label can override other attributes a person may have. (Becker 1963; Goffman, 1963; Link & Phelan, 2001; Simmons, 1965-6).
Specifically, people presume that the labeled person is unable or unwilling to act as a moral being and therefore might break other important rules. Moreover, once individuals have been typified as deviant, any future (or past) misbehavior on their part tends to be taken as an indication of their essential deviant or criminal nature.
To be formally processed as a criminal or a delinquent one has to testify to and brings attention to the persons immorality and inability to follow important social norms. The stigma of having been formally processed as a criminal offender tends to stick to the person since there are no detailed official ceremonies in place to overcome the criminal stigma during punishment.
An important aspect of labeling theory argues that disadvantaged groups are more likely than other groups to experience labeling. Aggressive policing of lower-class Communities raises the likelihood of lower-class people and minorities experiencing police intervention. Moreover, stereotypes of minorities and disadvantaged groups often entail images of criminality and dangerousness, and hence members of such groups may be more readily policed, sanctioned, and stigmatized, even net of actual criminal offending (Warren, Tomaskovic-Devey, Smith, Zingraff, & Mason, 2006).
Research has found that encounters between police and citizens are more likely to lead to an arrest if the citizen is a minority, regardless of the nature and seriousness of the offense ,individuals of low socioeconomic status tend to receive more severe sentences, regardless of the seriousness of the offense that they have been charged with and prior criminal record (Bontrager, Bales,& Chiricos, 2005; Steffensmeyer, Ulmer, & Kramer, 1998), but not all studies support this finding (Albonetti & Hepburn, 1996). As a result, deviant labeling may lead to involvement in deviant groups due to anticipated rejection as an inner reflection of self-concept and how we are viewed in the society, which is by itself an important risk factor for crime and deviance (Becker, 1963; Braithwaite, 1989). In support, Bernburg (2006) have argued that deviant groups represent a source of social support in which deviant labels are accepted, while at the same time providing collective rationalizations, attitudes, and opportunities that encourage and facilitate deviant behavior.
Labeling may increase primitive involvement in deviant peer groups due to three main processes. First, labeling can bring on rejection from conventional peers and from other community members who may fear and mistrust them. For example, parents may prevent their children from associating with known delinquents. By associating with deviant groups, known delinquents can receive a more positive image of themselves from the standpoint of significant others (Braithwaite, 1989; Matsueda, 1992). On the other hand it therefore means that labeling may result in withdrawal from encounters with conventional peers, because such encounters may entail shame, embarrassment, and uneasiness.
Finally, to accept this hypothesis of labeling theory in criminology, youths tend to make friends with those who are similar to themselves. Youths that have a deviant self-concept may seek the friendship of individuals that share the deviant self-concept. However, labeling theory has faced criticism some of which had been prejudice and was abandoned prematurely before sociologists again embarked on research. Labeling theorists are interested in the effects of labeling on those labeled. They claim that, by labeling certain people as criminal or deviant, society actually encourages them to become more so.
Edwin Lemert (1972) developed the concepts of primary and secondary deviance to emphasize the fact that everyone engages in deviant acts, but only some people are caught being deviant and labeled as deviant. Primary deviance refers to acts which have not been publicly labeled, and are thus of little consequence, while secondary deviance refers to deviance which is the consequence of the response from others, which is significant. To illustrate this, Lemert studied the coastal Inuit of Canada, who had a long-rooted problem of chronic stuttering or stammering. Lemert suggested that the problem was ’caused’ by the great importance attached to ceremonial speech-making. Failure to speak well was a great humiliation. Children with the slightest speech difficulty were so conscious of their parents’ desire to have well-speaking children that they became over anxious about their own abilities. It was this anxiety, which lead to chronic stuttering.
Lemert compared the coastal Inuit which emphasized the importance of public speaking to other similar cultures in the area which did not attach status to public-speaking, and found that in such culture, stuttering was largely non-existence, thus Lemert concluded that it was the social pressure to speak well (societal reaction) which led to some people developing problems with stuttering. In this example, chronic stuttering (secondary deviance) is a response to parents’ reaction to initial minor speech defects (primary deviance).
Labeling theory implies that we should avoid ‘naming and shaming’ offenders since this is likely to create a perception of them as evil outsiders and, by excluding them from mainstream society, push them into further deviance. Most interactionist theory focuses on the negative consequences of labeling, but John Braithwaite (1989) identifies a more positive role for the labeling process.
A policy of reintegrate shaming avoids stigmatizing the offender as evil while at the same time making them aware of the negative impact of their actions on others. Victims are encouraged to forgive the person, but not the act, and the offender is welcomed back into the community, thus avoiding the negative consequences associated with secondary deviance.
Braithwaite argues that crime rates are lower where policies of reintegrated shaming are employed because labeling tends to be deterministic, not everyone accepts their labels, it assumes offenders are just passive – it doesn’t recognize the role of personal choice in committing crime, emphasizes on the negative sides of labeling rather than the positive side, and it fails to explain why acts of primary deviance exist, focusing mainly on secondary deviance. Structural and behavior sociologists argue that there are deeper, structural explanations of crime, it isn’t all just a product of labeling and interactions alone.
Evaluation
Current work on labeling theory, in particular efforts to clarify and elaborate the criminogenic processes involved, underscores that the theory not only fits well with other theories of crime and deviance, but that its primary focus on social exclusion complements other sociological theories arguing that weak social bonds, blocked opportunities, and association with deviant groups are important factors explaining individual deviant behavior.
The law is not ‘set in stone’ – it is actively constructed and changes over time, enforcement is often discriminatory and agents of social control may actually be one of the major causes of crime, so we should think twice about giving them more power therefore we cannot trust crime statistics .In regard, the theory should be rejected while creating crime control policies since there are still important gaps in the research.
References
Bernburg, J. G., & Krohn, M. D. (2003). Labeling, life chances, and adult crime: The direct and indirect effects of official intervention in adolescence on crime in early adulthood. Criminology, 41, 1287-1318.
Bernburg, J. G., Krohn, M. D., & Rivera, C. (2006). Official labeling, criminal
Theory, and subsequent delinquency: A longitudinal test of labeling theory.
Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 43, 67-88.
Howard Becker* (1963)Deviancy is not a quality of the act a person commits, but rather a consequences of the application by others of rules and sanctions to an ‘offender’. Deviant behavior is behavior that people so label.”The Outsiders (1963).
