Labeling, Interaction, and Crime: Societal Reaction and the Creation of Criminals

Labeling, Interaction, and Crime: Societal Reaction and the Creation of Criminals

Part VII

Unlike other sociological theories, the labeling/social reaction perspectives reject using the offender as the starting point in their analysis◦ Rather, these theories focus on the behavior of

those who label, react to, and otherwise seek to control offenders

◦ These social control efforts are what trigger the processes that trap individuals in a criminal career Self-fulfilling prophecy

Labeling/Social Reaction Perspectives

Early criminologists recognized that placing people in prison, or “houses of corruption,” could deepen involvement into crime

Tannenbaum discussed the “dramatization of evil”◦ Argued “a decisive step in the

education of the criminal” is being arrested and having the criminal status held up for public scrutiny Thus, criminals are made when

they are defined as such

Creating Criminals

Tannenbaum argued being arrested and labeled as criminal forced the person to:◦ Associate with others defined

as criminal

Leads to the exposure of criminalvalues

◦ Think of himself as a criminal and thus begin to act as a criminal

Tannenbaum argued the best policy in dealing with juvenile delinquents is to not dramatize or draw attention to the crime

◦ Radical nonintervention

Creating Criminals

Edwin Lemert (1951) discussed primary and secondary deviance◦ Primary deviance: “polygenic, arising out of a

variety of social, cultural, psychological, and physiological factors” Peripheral to the person’s identity so does not

influence how the person views him/herself

Rationalized and dealt with as functions of a socially acceptable role

Lemert: “Primary and Secondary Deviance”

Edwin Lemert (1951) discussed primary and secondary deviance◦ Secondary deviance: occurs after the deviance inspired a

social reaction When a person begins to employ his deviant behavior or

role based upon it as a means of defense, attack, or adjustment to the overt and covert problems created by the consequent societal reactions to him/her

This affects identity and conception of self

Narrows the ability to choose conventional ways of life

One’s “life and identity are organized around the facts of deviance”


Seldom one deviant act will provoke a strong enough societal reaction to create secondary deviance, unless the individual projects anticipatory fears onto the situation

Frequently, there is a progressive reciprocal relationship between the deviation of the person and the social reaction


The sequence leading to secondary deviance is as follows:

1. Primary deviation

2. Social penalties

3. Further primary deviation

4. Stronger penalties/rejections

5. Further deviation (perhaps with hostilities and resentment upon those doing the penalizing)

6. Crisis reached in the tolerance quotient, formal action by the community stigmatizing the deviant

7. Strengthening of the deviant conduct as a reaction to the stigmatizing and penalties

8. Ultimate acceptance of the deviant social status and efforts at adjustment on the basis of the associated role


Current research suggests that crime is rooted more fully in individual differences and in family, school, and community life

However, societal reaction is not inconsequential ◦ Not the main source of persistent criminality, but

societal reaction can reinforce a criminal lifestyle and make desistence more difficult


In the 1960s, based off the work of Lemert and Tannenbaum, criminologists focused on social reaction, not the offender

Focused on three main issues1. Asked why certain behaviors were labeled as crime and

others were not and how definitions change over time

2. Asked why everyone who broke the law was not detected and designated as criminal

Howard Becker argued “social groups create deviance by making the rules whose infraction constitutes deviance” and applying those rules to particular people

3. Asked what the consequences of being labeled were Self-fulfilling prophecy

Becomes a master status

The Rise and Fall of Labeling Theory

Drawing on the sociological theory of symbolic interactionism, labeling theorists argue a person’s identify is shaped by the messages other people deliver as to who the person is◦ Over time, people begin to embrace the label, which

shapes their behavior

Labeling also shapes a person’s social relationships◦ Once stigmatized as criminal, the person loses

conventional relationships and is forced to associate mainly with other criminals

◦ Also is denied opportunities (e.g., employment) in conventional society


Labeling theory grew in popularity as the 1960s progressed◦ An interesting theory

◦ Critiqued the state’s power

However, labeling theory soon fell out of favor◦ Empirically weak

Argued societal reaction was the key in the stability of criminal behavior; however, research has shown that stability occurs early in the life course before formal interventions

Does not recognize the impact of criminogenic environments (e.g., dysfunctional family, failing at school, antisocial associates)


Many abandoned labeling theory as it did not have empirical support

Recently, a revisionist position has emerged arguing that societal reactions can impact criminal behavior◦ Several studies show contact with the CJS

increases recidivism Imprisonment disrupts family relationships and

decreases job prospects

Contemporary Labeling Theories

Three theoretical developments have emerged that helped revitalize the study of social reactions

1. Matsueda’s focus on informal reactions

2. Braithwaite’s focus on reintegrative shaming

3. Sherman’s focus on defiance

Contemporary Labeling Theories

Labeling theory is usually interpreted as contending that the application of formal criminal sanctions is the key societal reaction leading to subsequent criminal behavior◦ Less attention paid to informal sanctions

Reactions of parents, friends, neighbors, etc.

Ross Matsueda argues that a key proximate cause of delinquent behavior is the “reflected appraisals of others”◦ The person’s perception that others view them

as delinquent or deviant

Matsueda and Informal Sanctions

When kids are labeled as delinquent or troublemakers, they perceive themselves as others see them and act upon that perception

Labeling creates a delinquent self that prompts deviant behavior

Matsueda has found support for his proposition of informal sanctions

Matsueda and Informal Sanctions

Other revitalizations have argued that the effects of societal reactions are contingent on a range of factors◦ All reactions do not increase criminal behavior (e.g.,

rehabilitation)

John Braithwaite argues when a criminal act occurs attempts are made to “shame” the person◦ Whether shaming makes things worse depends on the

quality of the societal reaction

Braithwaite’s Theory of Reintegrative Shaming

Seeks to specify the types of shaming which cause and prevent crime

Stigmatizing shaming leads to subsequent criminal behavior

The key to crime control is cultural commitments to shaming in ways that are reintegrative

Braithwaite: Crime, Shame and Reintegration

The consequence of stigmatization is the attraction to criminal subcultures◦ Formal criminal punishment has a degradation

ceremony and has maximum prospects for stigmatization

The consequence of reintegrative shaming is that criminal subcultures appear less attractive


Reintegrative shaming is more likely when:

◦ Individuals are enmeshed in multiple relationships of interdependency

◦ They live in a communitarian society

◦ Notice some of these factors can be seen in other theories Interdependency—control theories Stigmatization and reintegrative shaming—labeling theories Subculture—subcultural theories and social learning theories Opportunity—opportunity theories


Reintegrative shaming works to prevent crime by:1. Specific deterrence—people fear the shame of intimates

more than formal sanctions2. General deterrence—deters others who wish to avoid

shame3. These effects are greater for those who remain strongly

attached in relationships of interdependency and will accrue greater costs from shame

4. Stigmatizing shame can be counterproductive by breaking attachments to those who shame future criminality

5. Shaming leads to the cognition that certain types of crime are unthinkable


Reintegrative shaming works to prevent crime by:6. Shaming followed by forgiveness and repentance builds

more commitment to the law than shaming alone

7. Shaming builds consciences through citizens being instruments and targets of social control

8. Once consciences have been formed, pangs of conscience become the most effective punishment for crime

9. Shaming is both the social process which builds conscience and the most important backstop to be used when conscience fails to deliver conformity

10. Gossip within wider circles of acquaintances and shaming of offenders not even known to those who gossip are important for building consciences


Reintegrative shaming works to prevent crime by:11. Public shaming puts pressure on parents, teachers, and

others to ensure that they engage in private shaming which is sufficiently systematic.

Public shaming has a more important role with adult offenses because adults are further removed from the influence of the school and family

12. Public shaming generalizes familiar principles to unfamiliar or new contexts

13. Cultures with a heavy emphasis on reintegrative shaming establish a smoother transition between socialization practices in the family and socialization in wider society

This cultivates internal controls


Reintegrative shaming works to prevent crime by:14. Gossip and other modalities of shaming can be

especially effective when the targets of shame are not directly confronted with shame, but are directly confronted with gestures of forgiveness or reintegration

15. The effectiveness of shaming is often enhanced by shame being directed not only at the individual offender but also at the offender’s family, workplace, etc.

These collectivities are put on notice to exercise informal social control over their members


Key concepts of reintegrative shaming◦ Interdependency

Condition of individuals Extent to which individuals participate in networks

wherein they are dependent on them Approximately equivalent to social bonding,

attachment, and commitment elements in control theory

Measured by age, gender, marital status, employment, and educational and occupational aspirations


Key concepts of reintegrative shaming◦ Communitarianism

Condition of societies

In communitarian societies, individuals are densely enmeshed in interdependencies that have the special qualities of mutual help and trust

Interdependencies have symbolic significance in the culture of group loyalties which take precedence over individual interests

Invoke personal obligation to others in a community of concern

Resists interpretations of dependency as weak or threatening individual autonomy

Measured by urbanization and residential mobility


Key concepts of reintegrative shaming◦ Shaming

All social processes of expressing disapproval which have the intention or effect of invoking remorse in the person being shamed and/or condemnation by others who become aware of the shaming

Sets out to moralize with the offender to communicate reasons for the evil of the person’s actions

Most shaming done by individuals within interdependent communities of concern


Key concepts of reintegrative shaming◦ Reintegrative shaming

Shaming which is followed by efforts to reintegrate the offender back into the community of law-abiding or respectable citizens through words/gestures of forgiveness or ceremonies to decertify the offender as deviant

Shaming and reintegration occur sequentially with reintegration occurring before deviance becomes a master status

Label the act as evil while striving to preserve the identity of the offender as essentially good

Shaming of criminal behavior is complemented by ongoing social rewarding of alternative behavior patterns

Has a finite duration and is terminated by forgiveness

Efforts to maintain bonds of love and respect are shown throughout the shaming period


Key concepts of reintegrative shaming◦ Stigmatization

Disintegrative shaming

No effort made to reconcile the offender with the community

The offender is an outcast

Deviance becomes the offender’s master status


Key concepts of reintegrative shaming◦ Criminal subcultures

Sets of rationalizations and conduct norms which cluster together to support criminal behavior

Provides systematic social support for crime Provides criminal opportunities, values, and attitudes


In communitarian societies with highly interdependent individuals, shaming can be either stigmatizing or reintegrative

In places where the shaming is reintegrative, low crimes rates will be the result

In places where shaming is stigmatizing, criminal subcultures will be attractive and the individual is cut off from mainstream society◦ This supplies criminal role models, training, and attitudes

These areas will have higher crime rates


High levels of stigmatization is one factor that encourages criminal culture formation by creating populations of outcasts with no stake in conformity

Another factor leading to the development of deviant subcultures is the systematic blockage of legitimate opportunities for factions of the population◦ Subcultures develop in these outcast areas that supply

illegitimate opportunity structures


A communitarian culture nurtures deviants within a network of attachments to conventional society and inhibits the widespread outcasting of those who violate the law


Within the U.S., restorative justice programs most closely mirror Braithwaite’s admonition to meld shaming with reintegration◦ The goal is to restore the victim, the offender, and the

community Victims receive restitution and a public apology

Offenders are granted a measure of forgiveness by victims and are reaccepted by their families and the community

Evaluations have yielded some promising results


Lawrence Sherman observes that, depending on the circumstances, interventions can have diverse effects

Legal punishments either reduce, increase, or have no effect on future crimes depending on the types of offenders, offenses, social settings, and levels of analysis

Sherman: “Defiance Theory”

Attempts to move beyond the labeling and deterrence perspectives to develop a comprehensive theory of the criminal sanction

◦ Accounts for when sanctions create defiance, deterrence, or are irrelevant

Sherman discusses three theories that offer promise in solving the stalemate between deterrence and labeling theories

1. Braithwaite’s theory of reintegrative shaming2. Tyler’s study of compliance3. Scheff and Retzinger’s sociology of the “master emotions” of

pride and shame that dominate human responses to experienced and vicarious sanctions


Braithwaite (1989)◦ Reintegrative shaming controls crime◦ Stigmatizing shaming increases crime

Tyler (1990)◦ Sanctions citizens perceive as fair increase compliance

with the law◦ Sanctions citizens perceive as unfair reduce compliance

Scheff and Retzinger (1991)◦ Individuals vary in their emotional response to

sanctions/shaming depending on the social bond to the sanctioning agent and to society in general


Proposes that in the face of criminal penalties, “defiance” and thus greater crime are likely to result when offenders are poorly bonded to society and define the sanctions against them as stigmatizing and unfair

Recidivism is less likely when offenders have close ties to conventional society and see the sanctions against them as deserved and fairly applied

Offenders may react to the same sanction differently depending on their social bonds and sensitivity to justice◦ Suggests the quality of the behavior of the police, court,

and correctional officials plays a role in precipitating or depressing the likelihood of defiance


There are four key concepts in the emotional response to sanctioning experiences:

1. Legitimacy

Degree of legitimacy the sanctioned offender grants to the sanctioning agent’s behavior, driven more by the agent’s respectfulness and procedural fairness than the substance of the morality the agent enforces

2. Social bonds

The bond the offender has to the sanctioning agent, the community in whose name the sanctioning agent was acting, and other close attachments


There are four key concepts in the emotional response to sanctioning experiences:3. Shame

The offender either acknowledges or bypasses the shame, respectively repairing or weakening social bonds to the agent or community

4. Pride The source of pride the offender feels in the aftermath

of the sanction; social solidarity with the relevant community or isolation from that community as an unconquerable soul


Defiance theory argues:◦ Sanctions provoke future defiance of the law

(persistence, more frequent or more serious violations) to the extent that offenders experience the sanctioning conduct as illegitimate, have weak bonds to the sanctioning agent and the community, and deny their shame and become proud of their isolation from the sanctioning community


Defiance is the net increase in the prevalence, incidence, or seriousness of future offending against a sanctioning community caused by a proud, shameless reaction to the administration of a criminal sanction

Specific defiance is the reaction of one person to that person’s own punishment

General defiance is the reaction of a group or collectivity to the punishment of one or more of its members


Direct defiance is a crime committed against a sanctioning agent

Indirect defiance is the displaced just deserts committed against a target vicariously representing the sanctioning agent(s) provoking the anger

Defiance explains variation in criminal events, not criminality


Defiance occurs under four conditions:1. The offender defines a criminal sanction as

unfair

2. The offender is poorly bonded to or alienated from the sanctioning agent or the community the agent represents

3. The offender defines the sanction as stigmatizing and rejecting a person, not a lawbreaking act

4. The offender denies or refuses to acknowledge the shame the sanction has actually caused him to suffer


Sanctions are defined as unfair when:1. The sanctioning agent behaves with disrespect

toward the offender, or toward the group to which the offender belongs, regardless of how fair the sanction is on substantive grounds

2. The sanction is substantively arbitrary, discriminatory, excessive, undeserved, or otherwise objectively unjust


Defining sanctions as unfair:◦ Respect

Respect by punishers for the punished Matter of treating people with human dignity Offenders’ interpretations they are getting a fair hearing and

the sanctioning decision maker considers and respects that viewpoint

Groups receiving the most disrespect from the police also have the highest participation rates in crime The lower class and minorities are much more exposed to police

disrespect and brutality vicariously and in person prior to their peak years of first arrest and initial involvement in crime


Defining sanctions as unfair:

◦ Substantive unfairness

Those who approach authority with defiant attitudes are often punished for their speech rather than for any substantive offense

When a sanction is used in this fashion, it is substantively unjust and another potent source of defining police as illegitimate

Disrespect toward police increases the odds of being arrested

Increases the chance that the police are seen as unfair

Nonenforcement of minor offenses with arbitrary or discriminatory cases of enforcement also leads to feelings of unfairness

Implies police laziness in looking for the truly guilty

Personal experience with unfairness may be the greatest spark of defiance


Anger and displaced just deserts◦ Anger often displaced onto other people besides the

police

◦ Often borne out of disrespect shown to the offender from the police, courts, or correctional officials

◦ Deals with the conduct of everyday discourse with alienated persons who react with indignation to any hint of social disapproval Recognize large numbers of highly touchy, angry

people ready to punish any available target for the sins of their past insulters


Defiance theory argues:◦ Sanctions produce future deterrence of law-

breaking (desistance, less frequent or less serious violations) to the extent that offenders experience the sanctioning conduct as legitimate, that offenders have strong bonds to the sanctioning agent and community, and the offenders accept their shame and remain proud of their solidarity with the community


Defiance theory argues:◦ Sanctions become irrelevant to future law-

breaking (no effect) to the extent that the factors encouraging defiance and encouraging deterrence are fairly evenly counterbalanced


Testing defiance theory◦ Need to conduct:

Randomized experiments

Ethnographic studies

Longitudinal studies Conduct interviews

immediately after arrestand on subsequent occasions


Traditionally, labeling theories have stressed radical nonintervention ◦ Due to the powerful labeling effect, legal interventions

were uniformly harmful However, Braithwaite and Sherman endorse

restorative justice rather than radical nonintervention◦ Dislodge the state from its traditional role as an

adversary and instead have the state be an arbiter who works with the victim and the offender to reduce the harm associated with the criminal act

Policy Implications from Braithwaite and Sherman’s Work

Restorative justice in practice◦ Key component is the conference

Attended by the victim, offender, both their families, other community members, and a mediator

Reach a consensus on a plan that will allow the offender to restore the harm that has been caused

Reject incarceration, rather having the offender work in the community to restore their harms and receive support

Research has shown restorative justice has:◦ Increased victim satisfaction◦ Decreased recidivism

Policy Implications from Braithwaite and Sherman’s Work

Labeling theory traditionally focused on the effects of labeling a person as deviant rather than focusing on the offender him/herself◦ Traditional labeling theories did not have much

empirical support

More recent theories (Matsueda, Braithwaite, and Sherman) have focused on the conditions under which the criminal sanction has criminogenic or deterrent effects◦ Out of this research, the policy of restorative justice

has been proposed with evidence showing it can be effective and increase victim satisfaction

Summary

Documents

Labeling, Interaction, and Crime: Societal Reaction and the Creation of Criminals