A critical evaluation of labelling theory.

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S.J.Manniex

A critical evaluation of labelling theory.

It is a common assumption in our society that the function of the criminal justice system is to punish wrong doers and dissuade them from repeating their actions.  The result of this is that crime rates are reduced and criminals become rehabilitated back into society as good citizens.

However one set of theorists that would contend this assumption strongly are labelling theorists.  They believe instead that rather than diminishing criminal activity, the effect of the criminal justice system may have exactly the opposite result, by labelling offenders as ‘ex-cons’ or ‘criminals’ they may actually have the consequence of continuing and worsening the behaviour they aim to put a stop to.

Labelling theorists argue that the criminal justice system can have a significant influence on causing deviant and criminal behaviour to continue.  When people go through the justice system the very fact that they have now been given a label can result in their adherence to criminality, rather than curing them of the problem.

Before labelling theory came into being, criminologists usually defined crime as ‘behavior that violates criminal laws’ (Lilly 2002: 106).  However although this definition was useful in providing a rough guideline of what to look for when studying crime, it failed to take into account the many ways in which crime and criminality evolves over time, and the particular social circumstances that determine why some types of behaviour are criminal, and why some people are given labels and the implications having these labels can have upon their behaviour patterns.

This definition was what labelling theorists sought to correct.  They believed that what makes an act criminal is the label given to it by the criminal justice system and society as a whole.  Pfohl discussed this idea in using the example of homicide, and argued that although there are many types of killing, some are defined differently as homicide while some are excused as necessary, for example a police officer shooting a criminal.  Therefore although the actual act of killing is seen as abhorrent, in some contexts it may be defined as less serious than others. (Pfohl 1985, in Lilly 2002: 106)

One of the main areas that labelling theorists have studied is where criminal labels come from and how an individual acquires one.  Howard Becker provides a major contribution with his book ‘Outsiders’ where he studies the process by which marijuana smoking was made a crime and smokers of it were considered to be criminals and ‘junkies’.  Becker believed that the moral outrage created by the state, where pot smokers were painted with a new negative image as uncontrolled delinquents who committed senseless crimes, only served to make the problem worse by marginalizing the smokers.  (Becker 1963).

Another labelling theorist who attempted to show how crimes have been ‘created’ was Kathleen Tierney, who studied wife-beating, and how the emergence and major growth of feminism resulted in domestic violence being made socially visible, and of course, pounced upon by the media, who dramatized it and turned it into an immediate moral panic. (Tierney 1982 in Lilly 2002: 107)

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The question now seems to be, what happens now the labels have been created, and forms of behaviour have been newly defined as criminal?  Labelling theorists claim that the behavior of the individual in question is only one factor when bestowing a criminal label on them.  They also go so far as to claim that the criminal justice system could even create crime rather than preventing it.  

Career criminals are those who offend for a living.  They become criminals as children, and as life progresses become involved in greater levels of crime.  Labelling theorists believe that the best place ...

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