Apply labelling perspective to youth crime

The labelling theory is a dominant paradigm in explaining deviance. It holds that deviant behaviour is the one that people define as deviance and deviant is the one to whom that label is applied. While this view of deviance was first established by Lemert (1951), the labelling theory was built on Becker’s statement that “Social groups create deviance by making the rules whose infraction constitute deviance, and by applying those rules to particular people and labelling them as outsiders—-deviance is not a quality of the act of a person commits, rather a consequence of the application by others of rules and sanctions to an ‘offender’ (Becker, 1963:9). Therefore, deviance results not from the act itself but from the responses others give to that act (Macionis and Plummer, 2005). This means that deviant behaviour is socially constructed in the same manner as a youth.

Labelling perspective argues that deviance is a label that can create further deviance. To explain this, Lemert (1972) distinguished deviance into primary and secondary deviation. Primary deviance refers to deviant acts which have not been labelled as deviant by the public. According to Lemert, this type of deviance has only little effect on a person’s perception of self because he or she does not see himself or herself as deviant (Ugwudike, 2015). Contrary, the secondary deviance is the result of society labelling an action as unacceptable. It not only results in a crisis of self-identity but can lead to a deviant career (Goffman 1963). Those who are caught engaging in criminal activities are often publicly labelled as criminals. Powerful negative social labels like this can become a person’s master status. Becker (1963) argued that ‘the names or labels others use to define us affect how we view ourselves and our status in society and how others treat us’ (Ugwudike, 2015:43). Therefore, deviance results from the reaction of others. Intolerance by society and attached stigmas can change individuals’ self-concept, he might start to see himself in terms of that label and actually engage in a criminal career. In other words, the person becomes the label. This is, in particular, relevant to young offenders; Bernburg et al. (2006) found that those who receive youth justice labels at an early age tend to pursue their criminal career and further commit offences. According to Creaney, because they experience ’negative social reaction’ at the young age it is harder to resist and the label of deviance becomes easily incorporated (Creaney, 2012). In addition, a stigmatised individual might join a deviant subculture. The study of Jock Young (1971)hippy marijuana smokers found that at the beginning illegal drugs were only a small part of their culture, however, because police saw them as dirty, deprived drug takers, it became the central concern. Negative label united hippies and they became a deviant subculture (Young, 1971). Therefore, a social reaction can produce a self-fulfilling prophecy of an individual.

Moreover, other scholars have applied the labelling argument to group behaviour. Wilkins (1964) noted those societies who had developed an intolerant response to deviancy, defined more crimes as criminal and took more formal action against criminals and this resulted in the growth in crime by deviant groups (McLaughlin and Muncie, 2001). Sometimes, the attempt to control deviance only increases it, which is known as ‘deviant amplification’. This obverse reaction is mainly caused by the fact that formation about activities of the deviant groups ‘travels quite a distance through several media before it reaches the majority’ (Downes and Rock, 2011). However, media tends to exaggerate news and create ‘fantasy crime waves’ which results in moral panics about young people (Young in Ugwudike, 2015). Thus, while moral panics are simply an aggressive overreaction to the activities of a group that threatens ‘the moral fabric of society’, deviancy amplification is the product of this social reaction (Case et al., 2017:177). For example, it is common to see articles in the media about young drug users, but often reporters exacerbate the problem and create public fear. The public’s response ‘creates new deviant identities and new contexts for further deviant acts’ such as further drug use (Ugwudike, 2015). Overall, the concept of deviancy amplification reflects many propositions of labelling approach which is very similar to Lemert’s idea of secondary deviation and similarly argues that it is not the act which is decent but society’s response to it (SAGE:137) and (Ugwudike, 2015).

The concept of deviancy amplification was also used by Stan Cohen in his (1972) study of Mods and Rockers. He noted that sensationalised media reports about clashes between rival groups created a series of moral panics which resulted in higher prosecution levels and produced real levels of deviancy (Ugwudike, 2015). 'The Mods and Rockers took on aspects of their new publicly defined personas' and actually engaged in some gang activities, which otherwise would not have been the case (McLaughlin and Muncie, 2001:137) For this reason, Wilkins argued that to control deviancy we need to build social systems that could tolerate differences and reduce the number of people being labeled as deviant (McLaughlin and Muncie, 2001).Therefore, the concept of deviancy amplification together with the labelling approach brought attention to the consequences of social reactions and police actions (McLaughlin and Muncie, 2001)

Three significant policies flow from the labelling theory: decriminalisation, restorative justice and diversion. Firstly, decriminalisation of ‘softer’ drugs, like marijuana, would decrease the number of charged offenders and would resolve the harmful effects of drug-related stigma. As Becker (1963) argues, formulation of rules creates deviance because rules create rule violators (Ugwudike, 2015:47). Even-though sentences are harsh, a large number of young people as well as adults smoke cannabis occasionally (Mann, 2014). However, if eventually caught and drawn to the criminal justice system, they are likely to get a criminal record and be labelled as ‘criminals’. In the study of marijuana users, Becker argued that the new law criminalising marijuana use created a new group of outsiders because those who were caught smoking or carrying marijuana were labelled as deviant (Ugwudike, 2015:47). He further suggested that 'the stigma attached to deviant labels might undermine the ability of labelled deviants to lead legitimate lifestyles in mainstream society’ (Ugwudike, 2015:47) which means that it can affect their chances in gaining employment, good accommodation or even access to education (Ugwudike, 2015). However, social exclusion is likely to ‘worsen their situation’ and possibly lead to further offences or a deviant career (Ugwudike, 2015: 44). As a result, some countries including Portugal, Germany, Netherlands and Australia have legalised marijuana use. These not only reduced the number of people labelled as criminals and change into secondary deviance but additionally, had a positive effect on their economy.

Secondly, to reduce long-lasting implications of stigma some jurisdictions have adopted restorative justice (Ugwudike, 2015). It is based on John Braithwaite’s (1989) idea of ‘reintegrative shaming’ which seeks to label only the offence but not the offender. Therefore, an offender is given an opportunity to repair the harm caused. According to restorative justice, this can be done by providing reparation to the victim (Case et al., 2017: 566). When reparation to the injured party is done, the offender is able to re-enter society (Ugwudike, 2015). The policy of reintegrative shaming is particularly important when dealing with young offenders because, as has been discussed earlier, a criminal label can reduce many opportunities and destroy their lives at a very young age. According to the Restorative Justice Council, it reduces youth reoffending by 14% (Restorative Justice Council, 2015). Therefore, thanks to the restorative justice offenders can make amends and learn about the negative impact of their offence without being stigmatised. Additionally, it encourages forgiveness.

Diversion programs could be understood to be one more policy which arose from the labelling theory. Youth diversion schemes were created to divert young people out of the juvenile justice system which is influenced by the labelling perspective arguments which suggest that conviction can have an effect of stigmatisation and social exclusion (McLaughlin and Muncie, 2001). Juvenile diversion redirects youth away from the process of the juvenile court to less stigmatising social services but still holds them accountable for their actions (Crimesolutions.gov, 2019). While some officials hold the opinion that low-level offences are just a beginning of young offenders criminal career and therefore should be handled by the juvenile court to deter him or her from future offending, research shows the opposite (Petrosino, Turpin-Petrosino and Guckenburg, 2010). Petrosino and colleagues (2010) conducted a study on the negative impact of formal system processing and found that, first of all, juvenile system processing has no crime control effect and secondly, the likelihood of reoffending actually increases, possibly because of the ‘label’ effect. This supports the idea of using diversion programs and keeping youth away from the court and in particular, from custody (Downes, Rock and McLaughlin, 2016). Therefore, the smart use of diversion can reduce crime and avoid the effect of labelling associated with offending.

However, there are problems in the application of the labelling perspective. The perspective is often criticised for being overly deterministic because it appears to suggest that once someone is labelled, the deviant career is unavoidable (Pfohl, 1994 in Ugwudike:56). Some critics, including Marxist criminologists, pointed out that ‘the labelling perspective casts the labelled deviant as a passive underdog who is incapable of escaping the unfortunate impact of the label’ (Taylor et al, 1973). In other words, it overlooks the ability to reject a deviant label (Ugwudike:56). Additionally, writers on the rights criticise labelling perspectives for being more concerned with the plight of the criminal rather than the victim (Ugwudike, 2015). According to Alvin Gouldner (1973: 38–9) the perspective gives the deviant a victim status and portrays him more as a ‘man-on-his-back’ than that of a ‘man-fighting-back’ (Ugwudike, 2015:56). Another weakness of labelling theory is that it fails to explain why people engage in criminal activities in the first place (Ugwudike, 2015). This criticism is particularly applicable to youth crime because to prevent young people from getting into trouble with the law, first we have to understand what triggers their behaviour of committing offences. Furthermore, the labelling perspective ignores certain crimes as well as individuals who actively pursue criminality.

Liazos (1972) pointed out that the deviant theorists concentrated on labelled deviants, ‘nuts, sluts and pervert’, therefore, the acts which produce significant victimisation but are not labelled as deviant, because of the powerful perpetrators who t can avoid deviant label, were left unexplored (Ugwudike, 2015:57).