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Introduction:
The intent of this paper is to discuss the impact labeling theory has had on juvenile justice. To examine juvenile justice in the United States and labeling theory, the paper will focus on a brief history of the juvenile justice in the United States, starting with colonial times up until the reform agenda of the late 1970s, when labeling theory made its impact on policy changes in the juvenile justice system. In terms of labeling theory, the theories and contributions of Frank Tannenbaum, Edwin M. ... As well, the criticisms of labeling theory will be discussed to display its fault in explaining delinquency, but its success in changing policy.
The history of handling the juvenile delinquent in the United States can be divided into seven periods colonial, houses of refuge, juvenile court, juvenile rights, the reform agenda of the late 1970’s, social control and juvenile crime in the 1980’s, and delinquency and U. ...
The history of juvenile justice in the United States began in the colonial period, (1636-1823). ...
Juvenile lawbreakers did not face a battery of police, probation, or parole officers, nor would the juvenile justice system try to rehabilitate them, as they would today. ... ” Houses of refuge reflected a new direction in juvenile justice, for no longer were parents and family the first line of control for children. ... The juvenile court law proposes a plan whereby he may be treated, not as a criminal, or legally charged with crime, but as a ward of the state, to receive practically the care, custody, and discipline that are accorded the neglected and dependent child, and which, as the act states, “shall approximate as nearly as may that which should be given by its parents (Bartollas, 1999: 13). ...
The juvenile court period did not see radical change in the philosophy of juvenile justice, because the family continued to be subservient to the state and children still could be institutionalized. ...
Society extended its control over the young in several other ways. ... The court was widely accused of dispensing capricious and arbitrary justice. ... Supreme Court responded to this criticism with a series of decision that changed the course of juvenile justice: Kent v. United States, 1996; In re Gault, 1967; In re Winship, 1970; McKeiver v. ... The intent of the Court decisions was to ensure that children would have due process rights in the juvenile justice system
Reformers also believed that inconsiderate treatment by the police, five-minute hearings in juvenile courts, and degrading sometimes brutal training schools fostered rather than reduced juvenile crime. Lower-level federal courts responded to the curbstone justice that resulted from police decisions and repressive justice in training schools by handing down numerous decisions that brought more due process rights to juveniles at the time they were arrested and taken into custody and more humane conditions during their time of confinement (Bartollas, 1999: 14).
Community-based programs received an enthusiastic response in the late 1960s and early 1970s as more and more states began a process of deinstitutionalization under which only hard-core delinquents were sent to long-term training schools. ...
The reform agenda of the mid to late 1970s was in response to the policy implications of labeling theory. The reform agenda of the mid to late 1970s emphasized reducing the use of juvenile correctional institutions, diverting minor offenders and status offenders from the juvenile justice system, and reforming the juvenile justice system. ... Status offenders received such an emphasis because of the mandate of the federal Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974. ... ”
Labeling theory, also referred as the interact ional theory of deviance or the social reaction perspective, is based on the premise that society creates deviants by labeling those who are apprehended as different from other individuals, when in reality they are different only because they have been tagged with a deviant label (Bartollas, 1999: 170). Accordingly, labeling theorists focus on the processes by which individuals become involved in deviant behavior and stress that part played by social audiences and their responses to the norm violations of individuals (Bartollas, 1999: 170).
Labeling theory is built upon the work of three prominent students of crime and delinquency, Frank Tannenbaum, Edwin Lemert, and Howard Becker. ... In 1938, Frank Tannenbaum developed the earliest formulation of labeling theory in his book Crime and the Community. ... “Tannenbaum theorized that this process produced a change in both how those individuals were handled by the justice system and how they came to view themselves:
The process of making the criminal, therefore, is a process of tagging, defining,
identifying, segregating, describing, emphasizing, making conscious and self-conscious; it becomes a way of stimulating, suggesting, emphasizing, and evoking the very traits that are complained of (Bartollas, 1999: 170-171). ...
The process of tagging a juvenile resulted in the youth’s becoming involved with other delinquents and that theses associations represented an attempt to escape the society that was responsible for negative labeling. The delinquent then becomes involved in a deviant career, and regardless of the efforts of individuals in the community and justice system to change his or her “evil” behavior; the negative behavior became increasingly hardened and resistant to positive values (Bartollas, 1999: 171). ...
The social reaction theory developed by Edwin M. Lemert provided a distinct alternative to the social disorganization theory of Shaw and McKay, the differential association notion of Sutherland, and the social structural approach of Merton. ...
Lemert’s concept of primary and secondary deviation is regarded as one of the most important theoretical constructs of the labeling perspective. ... Secondary deviance, in contrast, refers to behavior that results after a person’s primary deviance is reacted to by authorities, particularly social control agents of the criminal justice system. ... This occurs partly as a result of having to deal with others’ labeling and partly because of who the person has become as a result of the social reaction to the primary deviance. ... Repeated, forceful negative definition of these people’s identity can raise serious question for them about who they are and result in identity transformation through self-labeling. ... Social reaction is a general term that summarizes both the moral indignation of others toward deviance and the action directed toward its control. ... He found that the effects of an activity were a consequence of how a person interprets their experience (Lanier and Henry, 1998: 169).
Howard Becker, another major labeling theorist, conceptualized the relationship between the rules of society and the process of being labeled as an outsider:
“Social groups create deviance by making the rules whose infraction constitutes deviance, and by applying those rules to particular people and labeling them as outsiders.
Approximate Word count = 5366
Approximate Pages = 21.5
(250 words per page double spaced)
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