Labeling Theorist

So often, especially in our teenage years, individuals worry what their peers will think of them. This concern often determines the people you associate with, how you dress, the way you speak (i.e. slang), the kinds of music you listen to and so on. It is heard time and again by teenagers that, "My parents expect me to mess up, so this won't be any shock to them" after they have either done poorly in school, committed a crime or simply just found themselves in a less than desirable predicament. It is because of thoughts such as these, where actions are brought about by others perceptions or labels of you that labeling theorists began their work.

Why certain acts were defined as criminal or deviant, and why other acts were not is what drive the research of labeling theorists today. They question how and why certain people became defined as criminal or deviant. In their research theorists perceived criminals, not as evil persons who engaged in wrong acts, but as individuals who had a criminal status placed upon them by both the criminal justice system and the community at large, thus the example of the teenager that feels their parents expect them to mess up or do wrong. From this point of view, criminal acts thus themselves are not significant; it is the social reactions to them that are.

"Deviance is not a quality of the act the person commits, but rather a consequence of the application by others of rules and sanctions to an offender. The deviant is one to whom that label has successfully been applied; deviant behavior is behavior that people so label," (Becker, 1963). When it becomes evident that an individual has taken part in deviant acts, she or he is then segregated from society and thus labeled, "whore," thief," "abuser," "junkie," and other such similar classifications. Becker noted that this process of segregation creates "outsiders", who are outcast from society, and then begin to associate with other individuals who have also been cast out. When more and more people begin to think of these individuals as deviants, they respond to them as such; thus the deviant reacts to such a response by continuing to engage in the behavior society now expects from them. (Becker, 1963).

In the social learning theory individuals learn to be deviants through those they associate with. Put another way, "just as people must learn though socialization how to conform to their society's norms, they must also learn how to depart from those norms. In other words, deviance, like conforming behavior, is a product of socialization," (Calhoun 176).

Once a juvenile had been processed by the juvenile justice system for something as minor as smoking, he or she was labeled a deviant and was more likely to commit subsequent deviant acts. Juvenile sex acts are very common. Kids