criminal is the result of a deviance not in himself but in the union which creates him, in the very phraseology which that society uses to brand him and to separate itself from him.
By separating the criminal from the society through
labeling, the otherwises in society are able to chaffer themselves as
"normal," as "non-deviant." This is not to say that there is no deviance in the individual criminal, for there is certainly such(prenominal) deviance, or the potential for it, in any individual. But the wait on of labeling simply nurtures that deviance and thereby brings it to a fruition in an individual that otherwise might not have occurred at all. As Hart et al. write, "We know that individual craziness be come ons heterogeneous in social craziness" (p. 354).
The definition of crime is criminally subjective. So is society's response to persons who commit crimes. Crime is an act that is believed to be socially harmful by a group that has index number to enforce its beliefs and that provides negative sanctions to be applied to persons who commit these acts (Oatman, p. 49).
Oatman goes on to note that Durkheim pointed out that a
society needs to label the acts of around criminals because
otherwise there would be no standards by which to adjudicate non-criminals "non-criminal."
societies. For example, the criminal is not sole(prenominal) labeled as criminal, he is also often expound as being criminal by nature, as if he had no choice but to be a criminal. Whether this is true or not, of course, the individual who hears himself so labeled over again and again will soon have little hope that he will ever be capable of anything but such criminality.
The police, the courts, and the schools have the power to classify individuals as deviant, incorrigible, delinquent, criminal, or mentally ill. The exercise of this power often leads to the transformation of a insouciant or occasional deviant into a confirmed outsider. This pull in is known as labeling theory because it draws specific attention to the demeanor officials classify or label the suspected men and women with whom they come into contact.
Labeling reflects . . . the power of organized society to impose its stamp upon the human beings through official agencies. Secondly, the weaker elements of society are the ones who must buckle under to the labeling process. Lower-class youth typically lack the influence others quarter bring to bear in resisting deviant labels (Broom, pp. 44-45).
Why labeling is in particular detrimental and destructive when applied to young people is that it is scarce such people who are in the process of forge their own identities in the society.
bind which deepens the impact of labeling in this and other
Oatman writes that Durkheim "said that even in a society of saints there would still be crime, by which he meant that
Broom and Selznick holler Cicourel and Daniels as important
criminality. (A Princeton psychologist) opined that 'criminals, misdemeanants, delinquents, and other antisocial groups are in some all cases persons of low mentality'" (Mitford, p. 48).
The young person who engages in a petty crime with his or her peers is seeking acceptance and flattery from those peers, and perhaps is attempting to establish his own identity separate from his elders who he knows woul
Order your essay at Orderessay and get a 100% original and high-quality custom paper within the required time frame.
No comments:
Post a Comment