The Labelling Theory Movement Among Criminologist And...

INTRODUCTION Howard Becker is renowned as the person who established the modern labelling theory. Becker also developed the term moral entrepreneur to portray the person in power which campaign to make certain deviant behaviour outlawed (Becker, 1963). He suggests that most laws are founded on that basis, and the behaviour that is classified as criminal is ever changing. Thus, the criminal behaviour is impertinent to the labelling theory. What actually matters is which outlaws are arrested and processed by the criminal justice system (Becker, 1963). Due to the belief that societal and personal factors do not kick in as motivations for criminal behaviour, there has been little study of the aforementioned factors. This facet of Labelling Theory is still debated. Becker’s work has become the focus point of the labelling theory movement among criminologist and sociologists. In his introduction, Becker writes: ...social groups create deviance by making rules whose infraction creates deviance, and by applying those roles to particular people and labelling 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 behaviour is behaviour that people so label. Society uses the religion to justify its moral action whereas the deviant actor uses it to justify hisShow MoreRelatedLabel Theory4470 Words   |  18 Pagescurious to know if the labeling theory was a useful theory. I have always considered the labeling theory to be a hard theory to measure. It is hard to measure if a label becomes the cause for a person to become delinquent. Is it the label or some other factors? This paper will go into detail about some of the main contributors to the labeling theory. It will explain how the contributors applied the labeling theory. This paper will also explain how the labeling theory grew into what it is today.Read MoreAn Essay Against Anti - Social Activities Not More Than 350 Words? Read More: Http: //Wiki.Answers.Coan Essay Against Anti Social Activities Not More Than 3505893 Words   |  24 Pagessocial problem in and of itself, pointing instead to the social problems thought to underlie it. Significant sections of the left, influenced in part by radical criminologists in the USA, challenged the panics - as they saw them - promoted by the so-called New Right. They questioned the official statistics on crime, challenging the labelling of deviants by agents of social control, and attacked the moral and political basis of these panics (6). Thus, the idea that crime was a broader social problem