Labeling Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Labeling - Research Paper Example While labeling theory is not as popular as it once was, it has not been completely discredited as a way to understand how social processes lead to deviant behavior. Labeling Theory & Who Labels Whom? Labeling theory argues that just observing the delinquent, or its characteristics, will not provide a whole image of deviance or crime. A complete picture has to include community/society responses to such incidents (Traub and Little 291). Labeling theory is used as a way to understand deviant behavior, including crime, as a consequence of social differentiation processes in which some of society's members are singled out, identified, and defined as deviant, while others are not (Traub and Little 289-295). The causal proposition of labeling theory is that the act of treating a person as a deviant, in itself, can lead to deviant behavior on the part of that person. The punishment of deviant behavior often has an ironic effect: efforts at social control lead to decreased control (Schur 10) . Social definitions of deviance and their accompanying social sanctions somehow pressure labeled individuals into further deviant behaviors. Loosely speaking, a "label," or, a definition of a person as deviant, may be thought of as an independent variable, or, a cause of deviant behavior (Akers 121). The process by which a person is labeled as deviant may be summarized as follows. First, an act is deemed as deviant. Second, the person committing the act is deemed as deviant. And third, a moral condemnation is placed upon this person (Traub and Little 289). According to labeling theory, then, reactions to criminal behavior should be considered at least as important as the behavior itself, if not more. Labeling theory took a lesson from Kai Erikson (p. 11), who argued that the "social audience," not the individual, is the critical variable in studying deviance because it is the audience who decides which acts, or types of acts, deserve the deviant label. In their coverage of labeling theory, Traub and Little (p. 290) wrote "it is the definition of an individual's behavior as deviant, rather than the behavior itself, that can cause a marked change in status which transforms a person's conception of self and initiates the process of locking that person into a 'deviant career'." Thus, it is the community and authority figures such as the police, judges, teachers, parents, and psychiatrists, who label persons as "criminal," "delinquent," "bad kid," "mentally ill," "poor student," and so on. Consequences of Labeling Labeling theory argues that public deviant labeling can have a profound impact on the ability of the labeled person to participate in mainstream society. In one sense, this is an all-too-obvious observation. Societal sanctions have obnoxious effects for the offender of social norms. This assumption is central to the classic school in criminology, namely the deterrence approach to crime and punishment (Gennaro 196). This perspective argues that being caug ht and punished for a crime should decrease one's future rate of offending. Punished individuals should tend to desist from crime to avoid the pain of punishment in the future. However, in direct contrast to this traditional view, labeling theory points out that the ability of the individual to engage in rational decision-making is not the only relevant factor in determining the consequences of punishment. Labeling theory looks beyond individual-level processes and