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The Labeling Process: Reinforcement and Deterrent?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

Bernard A. Thorsell  and
Lloyd W. Klemke
Bernard A. Thorsell
Affiliation:
San Fernando Valley State College
Lloyd W. Klemke
Affiliation:
Oregon State University
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Extract

The labeling theory approach to the analysis of deviance depicts stable patterns of deviant behavior as products or outcomes of the process of being apprehended in a deviant act and publicly branded as a deviant person. The involvement of an individual in this process is viewed as depending much less upon what he does or what he is than upon what others do to him as a consequence of his actions. Deviant persons are regarded as having undergone a degradation ceremony with the result that they have been relegated to membership in a deviant group. In the process, they are thought to have come to acquire an inferior social status and to have developed a deviant view of the world and all the knowledges, skills, and attitudes associated with that status.

Type
Research Article
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 6 , Issue 3 , February 1972 , pp. 393 - 403
Copyright
Copyright © 1972 The Law and Society Association

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Footnotes

AUTHORS' NOTE: This is a revised version of a paper presented at the Annual Meetings of the American Sociological Association, Washington, D.C., August 31-September 3, 1970.

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