Labeling Theory

Empirical Tests

David P. Farrington, Joseph Murray, David P. Farrington, Joseph Murray

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781138511477
• eBook ISBN: 9781351509886
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Criminology
• Index: Social Sciences

Labeling theory has been an extremely important and influential development in criminology, but its recent advances have been largely neglected. This volume aims to reinvigorate labeling theory by presenting a comprehensive range of its modern applications. In the first section, Ross Matsueda chronicles the early history of the theory. Fred Markowitz then reviews labeling theory research as applied to mental illness. Francis T. Cullen and Cheryl Lero Jonson discuss the relationship between labeling theory and correctional rehabilitation. The second section, which is focused on previous tests of labeling theory, begins with a review of prior empirical tests by Kelle Barrick. Anthony Petrosino and his colleagues then summarize their meta-analysis of the impact of the juvenile system processing on delinquency. Lawrence Sherman then discusses experiments on criminal sanctions. The final segment on empirical tests of labeling theory begins with a chapter by Marvin Krohn and his colleagues on the effects of official intervention on later offending. The long-term effects of incarceration are then investigated by Joseph Murray and his colleagues. Finally, Steven Raphael reviews the effects of conviction and incarceration on future employment. This landmark book presents the most comprehensive and up-to-date knowledge about labeling theory, and illustrates the importance of this theory for policy and practice. It is the latest volume in Transaction's acclaimed Advances in Criminological Theory series.

Part I
Development of Labeling Theory

2

The Natural History of Labeling Theory

Ross L. Matsueda

Labeling theory remains a major theoretical perspective in the study of crime and deviance. To gain a thorough understanding of labeling theory, it is important to trace the rich history of the perspective, including the way labeling theorists have grappled with fundamental social-scientific issues such as the definition of deviance, the use of functionalist explanations, the distinction between realist versus constructionist epistemologies, and the status of causal explanation. Despite continuing debates over key issues, labeling theory has succeeded in producing a body of important empirical research, as exemplified in this volume.

This chapter chronicles the early history of labeling theory and is divided into five parts. Part one summarizes symbolic interaction theory, the underlying set of ideas that provided the impetus for labeling perspectives. Part two presents the initial statements of labeling theory including statements by George Herbert Mead, Frank Tannenbaum, Edwin Lemert, Emile Durkheim, Kai Erikson, and Howard Becker. Part three discusses the controversy, first identified by Becker (1963), over “actual deviance,” and shows how this controversy is rooted in the distinction between normative and interpretative paradigms. Part four proposes a solution to the controversy by returning to seminal ideas of Mead’s pragmatism. Finally, part five discusses three promising avenues for future research, including building on recent integrated theories of primary and secondary deviance, applying the medicalization of deviance perspective to advances in pharmacology and behavioral genetics, and using labeling theory as a framework for examining the alarming trends in incarceration in the United States.

Symbolic Interactionist Theory: The Underlying Perspective for Labeling Theory

Herbert Blumer (1969) coined the term “symbolic interactionism” to refer to the ideas of George Herbert Mead, John Dewey, William James, W. I. Thomas, Charles Horton Cooley, Robert E. Park, Ernest Burgess, Robert Faris, and others. These social philosophers and social scientists drew from the philosophical school of American Pragmatism, which assumes that social reality, and by extension, society, is an ever-changing social process, rather than a static structure consisting of unchanging functional positions. Members of society both adapt to societal constraints and structures, and contribute to the creation and re-creation of such constraints and structures. Social order is not a given static property of society; rather, it is constructed through social interaction and negotiation between individuals. For Blumer (1969), the important element of social interaction is the creation of shared meanings using common language or symbols. Through symbolic interaction, individuals reciprocally interpret significant symbols and jointly construct a common definition of the situation, which in turn calls for particular purposive action. In the famous words of W. I. and Dorothy Thomas, “If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences” (Thomas and Thomas, 1928). Thus, what is important for the consequences or outcomes of interaction is not only the objective situation, but also the situation as defined by the interactants. As we shall see later, labeling theorists applied this dictum to deviant labels, arguing that regardless of whether a person is objectively deviant or not, if that person is defined as deviant, negative consequences will result.

Mead (1934), the most important figure among symbolic interactionists, argued that a fruitful approach to studying society begins with the analysis of the social act or face-to-face interaction. Through a process of communication using language—or to use Mead’s term, “significant symbols”—individuals construct shared meanings and understandings. Perhaps the most important shared meaning concerns that of the self. The self arises through role-taking, the process of taking the role of the other, that is, viewing one’s self from the perspective of the other and controlling one’s behavior accordingly. For example, when adults label a youth a “troublemaker,” the youth may come to see himself as a troublemaker, eventually adopting an identity as a troublemaker. In this way, the self is a reflection of appraisals made by significant others (Matsueda, 1992). Cooley used the term “the looking glass self” to emphasize that one’s self is a reflection of how others see one.

Among the significant others who help form stable selves or identities are members of primary groups, such as families and peers. Such groups are termed as “reference groups” because they provide an individual with a perspective, a point of reference, and a comparison group (Matsueda, 1992). By taking the roles of reference groups, one comes to see oneself from the perspective of those groups. Moreover, one can take the role of individual significant others serially, or consider the role of the organized group, as in Mead’s (1934) term, the “generalized other,” which includes the norms and rules by which the group is organized. In this way, symbolic interactionists link organized social groups, including their structures, to an individual’s self or identity: as an individual participates in multiple groups, the self becomes multidimensional. Structural symbolic interactionists stress this link through the concepts of role-identity, identity-salience, and role-commitment (e.g., Stryker, 1980).

A key hypothesis of symbolic interactionism, derived from Mead (1934), is that an individual’s line of action is influenced by the multidimensional self or identity. Most behavior is habitual, non-reflective, and automatic, following directly from past behavior and generally consistent with one’s identity. But when a situation becomes problematic and habitual behavior is blocked or impeded, individuals take the role of others and consider alternative lines of action from the standpoint of those others. An alternative elicits an evaluative response and if inhibited by a negative evaluation, elicits another alternative from the standpoint of others. This continues until an alternative is tried in overt interaction and solves the problematic situation.

Mead (1934) argued that reflective behavior, which entails self-conscious thinking, is a form of role-taking that occurs in the mind and allows people to consider the consequences of their behavior before acting overtly. Dewey (1922) referred to this as engaging in an imaginative rehearsal. Thus, people are able to rehearse various lines of action in their imagination before carrying out the action, in the same way that actors rehearse scenes before going onstage. Moreover, because role-taking involves considering lines of action from the standpoint of reference groups, it follows that behavior is controlled by social groups.

In summary, symbolic interactionism implies that the labeling or appraising of individuals by social groups affects the individuals’ identities or social selves. Those identities, in turn, influence subsequent behavior through taking the role of the other, which amounts to a thorough social cognitive process. It follows that, if reference groups or powerful groups, such as the adult members of a community, define a youth as “evil” or “bad,” the youth may come to internalize the label as a part of his or her identity, which may increase the likelihood of future deviance. Moreover, if the legal system enters this labeling process and further stigmatizes a youth with officially legitimized designations such as “juvenile delinquent” or “person in need of supervision,” the youth may not only take on the corresponding identity, but may also become isolated from conventional reference groups, thereby reinforcing his or her deviant identity and deviant behavior. It is precisely these social processes to which labeling theory turned its attention.

Initial Statements of Labeling Theory

The Psychology of Punitive Justice

The earliest statement of ideas that became central to labeling theory was made by Mead (1918) in his analysis of punitive justice. According to Mead, the usual societal response to criminal acts is hostility toward the criminal. Crime unites otherwise disparate individuals with conflicting interests, values, and attitudes against a common enemy: one who has violated the sanctity of property or individual rights. For example, the thief brings the value of private property into relief for all citizens, who put aside their differences and respond with a set of narrowly delimited impulses of hostility and anger.

Individual selves become one with the community, organizing around a hostile response to a common enemy and increasing the solidarity of the community. The community’s response of hostility rather than understanding, anger rather than sympathy, and stigma rather than forgiveness reduces the criminal to a stigmatized enemy in need of retribution, deterrence, and exclusion. Moreover, the hostile response literally constitutes or defines the law in action as well as the sanctity of the violated rights. Without the criminal to bring property and individual rights into sharp focus, those rights could not be sustained indefinitely. The system of punishment fails to deter offenders adequately; in fact, it actually works to preserve a criminal class. For Mead (1918: 224), “the attempt to utilize these social attitudes and procedures to remove the causes of crime, to assess the kind and amount of punishment which the criminal should suffer in the interests of society, or to reinstate the criminal as a law-abiding citizen has failed utterly.”

Mead (1918) contrasts the hostile response of the punitive justice system to the criminal with the response of the traditional juvenile court to the young delinquent. Here the hostile impulse is restrained, opening the perceptual field to complexities, such as a child’s family situation, emotional problems, and developmental progress, and opening the range of responses for helping (not stigmatizing) the child by addressing the child’s problems, integrating the child back into the community, and considering the role of the child within social institutions. The community attempts to solve a social problem using reflective intelligence rather than merely venting hostility and isolating the offender.

The Functions of Deviance for Society

Within his general functionalist theory of social integration, Emile Durkheim (1964) developed ideas, similar to Mead’s, about the functions of deviance for society. For Durkheim (1964), in relatively undifferentiated and undeveloped societies, social order is achieved through mechanical solidarity, in which criminal laws reflect the collective conscience or shared morality of members of society.¹ The societal reaction to crime is punitive, which serves twin positive functions for society as a whole. First, because a criminal act shocks the collective conscience, attacks the shared morality, and therefore threatens the social order, punishment of the criminal serves to reaffirm the moral order and strengthen the collective conscience. Second, because morality is neither absolute nor inherent in objective behavior, but instead is relative to a given society and historical period, societal punishment serves the function of defining moral boundaries for members of society. On every occasion that calls for the punishment of a criminal, the line between moral and immoral behavior is explicitly drawn for members of society. Punishment is often doled out in public settings, such as floggings, hangings, and executions, which maximize its symbolic value of reaffirming the moral order and defining moral boundaries. For Durkheim (1964), in a “society of saints,” in which there is no violence, theft, or robbery, crime would still exist, but would consist of trivial acts of deviance that we would consider merely “bad taste.” Those acts, while trivial in seriousness, would nevertheless elicit punishment of the offender for the functions of reinforcing the moral order and defining moral boundaries. For Durkheim, a certain amount of deviant behavior is “normal”—that is, functional—for society.

Kai Erikson (1962, 1966) drew on the ideas of Durkheim, and to a lesser extent, Mead, in expanding labeling theory to include the functions of deviance for society. Erikson (1962) noted that labeling entails a very explicit process of selection. Even hardened criminals engage in conventional routine behavior most of their days, but society singles out a “moment of deviation”—a small island of deviance in a sea of conformity—as a measure of the kind of person he or she “really is.” The result may be jail or hospitalization. Erikson (1966) argued that this very selective labeling occurs in a community to define moral boundaries and to develop a sense of group identity. Labeling is not a quiet act of censure; rather, as in the case of a criminal trial, it is a public ceremony used to announce the moral boundary, degrade the deviant, and thereby reaffirm the community’s identity. Moreover, Erikson (1966) observed that societal reactions to deviance—including imprisonment, rehabilitation, and hospitalization—do not appear to reform the criminal, which is their manifest function. Instead they appear to stigmatize the offender, segregate the offender with other deviants, and evoke a feeling of distrust from the community. The result is a self-fulfilling prophecy, in which deviants return to their deviant ways. Thus, societal reactions serve a latent function of providing society with a pool of offenders for defining moral boundaries and reaffirming social solidarity. In Wayward Puritans, Erikson (1966) examined the Salem witchcraft trials in early Puritan settlements, showing that criminal laws and punishments were invoked against alleged witches in ways that defined moral boundaries and reaffirmed the moral order. The Puritans expressed their emotional hysteria by condemning the witches and labeling them sinners, criminals, and agents of the devil, which in turn helped reduce the factions and tensions between Puritans, Quakers, and other religious sects within the settlements.

Dramatization of Evil

The historian and social scientist, Frank Tannenbaum (1938), explicitly developed most of the arguments of labeling theory in Crime and the Community. Influenced by Chicago School sociologists, and particularly Frederic Thrasher’s (1927) discussion of spontaneous play groups, sorting on the streets, and formation of delinquent gangs, Tannenbaum used the term “dramatization of evil” to characterize the labeling process, which at its core originates from conflict between youth and the adult community over definitions of situations. From the standpoint of youth, their acts of breaking windows, climbing over roofs, and stealing from street vendors are forms of play, adventure, excitement, mischief, and fun. From the standpoint of the community, these acts are forms of evil, nuisance, and delinquency, which require control, chastisement, and punishment (Tannenbaum, 1938: 17). Repeated conflict between unruly youth and the adult community creates increasing polarization and hardening of attitudes. On one side, the community gradually shifts from defining specific acts as “evil” to defining the perpetrator as “an evil person.” Eventually, the youth’s c...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Part I: Development of Labeling Theory
• Part II: Reviews of Empirical Tests
• Part III: Specific Empirical Tests
• About the Authors
• Index