This study will analyze the crime theory of labeling, discussing labeling in terms of its applicability to the behavior of criminals. The study will also consider how labeling relates to my own perception of crimes.
The question of labeling is the question of who defines what crime is and what a criminal is. Labeling essentially has to do with a person becoming what he is perceived as being. If the child steals a toy and is told that he has made a mistake and that he should not do it again, he will be more likely to avoid further criminal activity than if he were to be grabbed by the back of the neck, thrown into jail or juvenile hall, and called ("labeled") a criminal.
Hart, Corrier and Binder express the socio-psychological
view when they write that "There is no such thing as right and wrong. There are only expressions of complete or incomplete feelings, and they are neither right nor wrong. We understand that society labels certain moral, ethical, and social acts as right or wrong. The humanitarian, police officer, good boy, devoted husband, air polluter, thief, chaste wife, blood donor, strict father---all are expressing themselves from a point on the continuum" of labeling (Hart, 1979, p. 354).
The labeling theory has it that the criminal is created
by society, rather than that he is necessarily predisposed either biologically or psychologically to what is termed
In that context, then, crime is a matter of social
conditioning, in that the individual is shaped and molded by the labels which society puts on him and to which he responds
Again, in the context of this theory, the behavior of the
criminal is the result of a deviance not in himself but in the society which creates him, in the very language which that society uses to brand him and to separate itself from him.
By separating the criminal from the society through
labeling, the others in society are able to see themselves as
"norm...