Editing Labeling theory (section)

==Theoretical basis==

===George Herbert Mead===
One of the founders of social [[interactionism]], [[George Herbert Mead]], focused on the internal processes of how the mind constructs one's self-image. In ''Mind, Self & Society'' (1934),<ref>{{cite book |last1=Mead |first1=George H. |title=Mind, Self & Society |date=1934 |publisher=The University of Chicago Press |location=Chicago, Illinois |page=107 |url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.275359/page/n141/mode/2up |access-date=23 April 2024}}</ref> he showed how infants come to know ''persons'' first and only later come to know ''things''. According to Mead, thought is both a ''social'' and ''[[pragmaticism|pragmatic]]'' process, based on the model of two persons discussing how to solve a problem. Mead's central concept is the self, the part of an individual's personality composed of self-awareness and self-image.<ref>Macionis, John J. 2012. ''Sociology'' (14th ed.). Boston: [[Pearson Publishing|Pearson]]. {{ISBN|978-0-205-11671-3}}.<br /></ref>

===Frank Tannenbaum===
[[Frank Tannenbaum]] first introduced the idea of "tagging."<ref>O'Grady, William. 2011. ''Crime in Canadian Context''. Ontario: [[Oxford University Press]].</ref> Kerry Townsend (2001) writes about the revolution in criminology caused by Tannenbaum's work:<blockquote>"The roots of Frank Tannenbaum's theoretical model, known as the 'dramatization of evil' or labeling theory, surfaces in the mid- to late-thirties. At this time, the 'New Deal' legislation had not defeated the woes of the Great Depression, and, although dwindling, immigration into the United States continued.<ref name=":1">Sumner, C. 1994. ''The Sociology of Deviance: an Obituary''. New York: [[Continuum Publishing]].</ref> The social climate was one of disillusionment with the government. The class structure was one of cultural isolationism; cultural relativity had not yet taken hold. 'The persistence of the class structure, despite the welfare reforms and controls over big business, was unmistakable.'<ref name=":1" />{{Rp|117}}

"One of the central tenets of the theory is to encourage the end of labeling process. In the words of Frank Tannenbaum, 'the way out is through a refusal to dramatize the evil", the justice system attempts to do this through diversion programs. The growth of the theory and its current application, both practical and theoretical, provide a solid foundation for continued popularity."<ref>Townsend, Kerry. 2001. "[https://web.archive.org/web/20090426080156/http://www.criminology.fsu.edu/crimtheory/tannenbaum.htm Frank Tannenbaum: 'Dramatization of Evil']." ''Florida State University''. Archived from [http://www.criminology.fsu.edu/crimtheory/tannenbaum.htm the original] on 2009-04-26. Retrieved 2010-05-29.</ref>

Tannenbaum discusses criminal behavior, with a focus on those who commit crimes professionally or as a career. He classifies criminals into six types: occasional, financially motivated, vagrants, unintentional, mentally ill, and professional.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Barmaki |first=Reza |date=2017-12-26 |title=On the Origin of "Labeling" Theory in Criminology: Frank Tannenbaum and the Chicago School of Sociology |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01639625.2017.1420491 |journal=Deviant Behavior |volume=40 |issue=2 |pages=256–271 |doi=10.1080/01639625.2017.1420491 |issn=0163-9625|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Frank Tannenbaum's explanation of Labeling Theory highlighted the negative consequences of police interactions with children which argues that arresting youth leads to a "dramatization of evil". His research indicated that youth being arrested and labeled as criminals shapes their self-perception to fit that label.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Smith |first1=Meghan L. |last2=Hoven |first2=Christina W. |last3=Cheslack-Postava |first3=Keely |last4=Musa |first4=George J. |last5=Wicks |first5=Judith |last6=McReynolds |first6=Larkin |last7=Bresnahan |first7=Michaeline |last8=Link |first8=Bruce G. |date=2022-02-14 |title=Arrest history, stigma, and self-esteem: a modified labeling theory approach to understanding how arrests impact lives |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00127-022-02245-7 |journal=Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology |volume=57 |issue=9 |pages=1849–1860 |doi=10.1007/s00127-022-02245-7 |pmid=35157092 |issn=0933-7954|url-access=subscription }}</ref>[https://kb.gcsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1130&context=thecorinthian]</blockquote>

===Edwin Lemert===
Edwin M. Lemert was an influential American sociologist and criminologist known for his contributions to labeling theory and the study of social deviance.<ref name=":6">{{Cite journal |last=Rosenburg |first=Michael |date=2010 |title=Encyclopedia of Criminological Theory |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781412959193.n151 |journal=SAGE Publications, Inc.|doi=10.4135/9781412959193.n151 |url-access=subscription }}</ref> He introduced the concepts of '''primary''' and '''secondary deviance'''—primary deviance being minor, initial acts of rule-breaking that don't alter self-identity, and secondary deviance occurring when an individual internalizes the deviant label imposed by society, leading to further deviant behavior. Lemert’s work emphasized how societal reactions to deviance can reinforce and escalate it, shaping an individual’s identity as deviant. Lemert's popular books, such as '''"Social Pathology"''' (1951) and '''"Human Deviance, Social Problems, and Social Control"''' (1967), have had a lasting impact on criminology and sociology.<ref name=":6" /> [[Edwin Lemert]] writes: "His acts are repeated and organized subjectively and transformed into active roles and become the social criteria for assigning status.…When a person begins to employ his deviant behavior or a role based on it as a means of defense, attack, or adjustment to the overt and covert problems created by the consequent societal reaction to him, his deviation is secondary."<ref>[[Edwin Lemert|Lemert, Edwin M]]. 1951. ''[[iarchive:socialpathologys00leme|Social Pathology]]''. New York: [[McGraw-Hill Education|Mcgraw-Hill]].</ref>{{Rp|75–6}}

===Howard Becker===
While it was Lemert who introduced the key concepts of labeling theory, it was [[Howard S. Becker|Howard Becker]] who became their successor. He first began describing the process of how a person adopts a deviant role in a study of dance musicians, with whom he once worked. He later studied the identity formation of marijuana smokers. This study was the basis of his ''Outsiders'' published in 1963. This work became the manifesto of the labeling theory movement among sociologists. In his opening, Becker writes:<blockquote>"…social groups create deviance by making rules whose infraction creates deviance, and by applying those rules to particular people and labeling them as outsiders. From this point of view, deviance is not a quality of the act the person commits, but rather a consequence of the application by other of rules and sanctions to an 'offender.' The deviant is one to whom that label has been successfully applied; deviant behavior is behavior that people so label."<ref name="Becker_26" />{{Rp|9}}</blockquote>While society uses the stigmatic label to justify its condemnation, the deviant actor uses it to justify his actions. He wrote: "To put a complex argument in a few words: instead of the deviant motives leading to the deviant behavior, it is the other way around, the deviant behavior in time produces the deviant motivation."<ref name="Becker_26">[[Howard S. Becker|Becker, Howard]]. 1973 [1963]. ''Outsiders''. New York: [[Free Press (publisher)|Free Press]].</ref>{{Rp|26}}

Becker's immensely popular views were also subjected to a barrage of criticism, most of it blaming him for neglecting the influence of other biological, genetic effects and personal responsibility. In a later 1973 edition of his work, he answered his critics. He wrote that sociologists, while dedicated to studying society, are often careful not to look too closely. Instead, he wrote: "I prefer to think of what we study as ''collective action.'' People act, as Mead and Blumer have made clearest, ''together''. They do what they do with an eye on what others have done, are doing now, and may do in the future. One tries to fit his own line of action into the actions of others, just as each of them likewise adjusts his own developing actions to what he sees and expects others to do."<ref name="Becker_26"/>{{Rp|26}}

Francis Cullen reported in 1984 that Becker was probably too generous with his critics. After 20 years, Becker's views, far from being supplanted, have been corrected and absorbed into an expanded "structuring perspective."<ref>Cullen, Francis. 1984. ''Rethinking Crime and Deviance Theory''. Totowa, NJ: Bowman and Allanheld.</ref>{{Rp|130}}

===Albert Memmi===
In ''The Colonizer and the Colonized'' (1965), [[Albert Memmi]] described the deep psychological effects of the social stigma created by the domination of one group by another. He wrote:<blockquote>The longer the oppression lasts, the more profoundly it affects him (the oppressed). It ends by becoming so familiar to him that he believes it is part of his own constitution, that he accepts it and could not imagine his recovery from it. This acceptance is the crowning point of oppression.<ref>[[Albert Memmi|Memmi, Albert]]. 1965. ''The Colonizer and the Colonized''. New York: Orion Press.</ref>{{Rp|321–2}}</blockquote>In ''Dominated Man'' (1968), Memmi turned his attention to the motivation of stigmatic labeling: it justifies the exploitation or criminalization of the victim. He wrote:<blockquote>Why does the accuser feel obliged to accuse in order to justify himself? ''Because he feels guilty toward his victim.'' Because he feels that his attitude and his behavior are essentially unjust and fraudulent.… Proof? ''In almost every case, the punishment has already been inflicted''. The victim of racism is already living under the weight of disgrace and oppression.… In order to justify such punishment and misfortune, a process of rationalization is set in motion, by which to explain the ghetto and colonial exploitation.<ref>[[Albert Memmi|Memmi, Albert]]. 1968. ''Dominated Man''. New York: Orion Press.</ref>{{Rp|191–3}}</blockquote>Central to stigmatic labeling is the attribution of an inherent fault: It is as if one says, "There must be something wrong with these people. Otherwise, why would we treat them so badly?"

===Erving Goffman===
Perhaps the most important contributor to labeling theory was [[Erving Goffman]], President of the [[American Sociological Association]] (ASA), and one of America's most cited sociologists. His most popular books include ''[[The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life]]'',<ref>[[Erving Goffman|Goffman, Erving]]. 1959. ''The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life''. New York: [[Anchor Books]].</ref> ''Interaction Ritual'',<ref>{{harvp|Goffman|1982}}</ref> and ''Frame Analysis''.<ref>[[Erving Goffman|Goffman, Erving]]. 1974. ''Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience''. Cambridge: [[Harvard University Press]].</ref>

His most important contribution to labeling theory, however, was ''Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity'' published in 1963.''<ref name=":0" />''

==== Goffman's key insights ====
The modern nation state's heightened demand for normalcy. Today's stigmas are the result not so much of ancient or religious prohibitions, but of a new demand for normalcy: <blockquote>"The notion of the 'normal human being' may have its source in the medical approach to humanity, or in the tendency of large-scale bureaucratic organizations such as the nation state, to treat all members in some respects as equal. Whatever its origins, it seems to provide the basic imagery through which laymen currently conceive themselves."''<ref name=":0">[[Erving Goffman|Goffman, Erving]]. 1963. ''Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity''. Englewood Cliffs, NY: [[Prentice Hall|Prentice-Hall]].</ref>''{{Rp|7}}</blockquote>Living in a divided world, deviants split their worlds into: (1) forbidden places where discovery means exposure and danger; (2) places where people of that kind are painfully tolerated; and (3) places where one's kind is exposed without need to dissimulate or conceal.''<ref name=":0" />''{{Rp|81}}

Dealing with others is fraught with great complexity and ambiguity: <blockquote>"When normals and stigmatized do in fact enter one another's immediate presence, especially when they attempt to maintain a joint conversational encounter, there occurs one of the primal scenes of sociology; for, in many cases, these moments will be the ones when the causes and effects of stigma will be directly confronted by both sides."''<ref name=":0" />''{{Rp|13}}

"What are unthinking routines for normals can become management problems for the discreditable.… The person with a secret failing, then, must be alive to the social situation as a scanner of possibilities, and is therefore likely to be alienated from the simpler world in which those around them apparently dwell."''<ref name=":0" />''{{Rp|88}}</blockquote>Society's demands are filled with contradictions:<blockquote>On the one hand, a stigmatized person may be told that he is no different from others. On the other hand, he must declare his status as "a resident alien who stands for his group."''<ref name=":0" />''{{Rp|108}}

"One has to convey the impression that the burden of the stigma is not too heavy yet keep himself at the required distance. "A ''phantom acceptance'' is allowed to provide the base for a ''phantom normalcy."<ref name=":0" />''{{Rp|7}}</blockquote>Familiarity need not reduce contempt. In spite of the common belief that openness and exposure will decrease stereotypes and repression, the opposite is true: <blockquote>"Thus, whether we interact with strangers or intimates, we will still find that the fingertips of society have reached bluntly into the contact, even here putting us in our place."''<ref name=":0" />''{{Rp|53}}</blockquote>

===David Matza===
In ''On Becoming Deviant'' (1969), sociologist David Matza<ref name=":2">Matza, David. 1969. ''On Becoming Deviant''. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: [[Prentice Hall]].</ref> gives the most vivid and graphic account of the process of adopting a deviant role. The acts of authorities in outlawing a proscribed behavior can have two effects, keeping most out of the behavior, but also offering new opportunities for creating deviant identities. He says the concept of "affinity" does little to explain the dedication to the behavior. "Instead, it may be regarded as a natural biographical tendency born of personal and social circumstances that suggests but hardly compels a direction or movement."<ref name=":2" />{{Rp|93}}

What gives force to that movement is the development of a new identity:<blockquote>"To be cast as a thief, as a prostitute, or more generally, a deviant, is to further compound and hasten the process of becoming that very thing."<ref name=":2" />{{Rp|157}}

"In shocked discovery, the subject now concretely understands that there are serious people who really go around building their lives around his activities—stopping him, correcting him, devoted to him. They keep records on the course of his life, even develop theories on how he got that way.... Pressed by such a display, the subject may begin to add meaning and gravity to his deviant activities. But he may do so in a way not especially intended by agents of the state."<ref name=":2" />{{Rp|163–4}}

"The meaningful issue of identity is whether this activity, or any of my activities can stand for me, or be regarded as proper indications of my being. I have done a theft, been signified a thief. ''am'' I a thief? To answer affirmatively, we must be able to conceive a special relationship between being and doing—a unity capable of being indicated. That building of meaning has a notable quality."<ref name=":2" />{{Rp|165–70}}</blockquote>