Essay On Labeling Theory

There are many theories that are very crucial in our court system. The labeling theory was developed by sociologists during the 1960s. Labeling theory is one of the most important ones in order to understand criminal behavior. This theory takes a view that when a person is labeled as a criminal, they start to accept their label and change their identity. The Labelling theory is mainly focus on the the groups or individuals who are deemed to be criminals, because that's what the society labelled them as. This theory relates to a criminal justice policy called stop and frisk. This policy was created in a way of stopping crime by detaining and asking questions to pedestrians if they look suspicious or are doing something that they should not
A normal teenager could be living in an urban areas where there is known to be gangs, the teenager would be labeled as a gang member. This theory is connected to the policy stop and frisk. They both go together, whenever there is a person walking in a urban street, the officers would assume that he is up to no good. The officers would just label the person as a criminal and apply the policy stop and frisk. They have no prove that this person is a criminal or is doing something wrong, the officers would just go by how the person looks and their race. There is a higher chance that a black or hispanic person would get stopped instead of a white person. Racial profiling plays a big part, black and latino man are highly disproportionately stopped just because they are labeled as criminals. A person knowing that blacks and hispanics are bad and that's almost our whole prison population could indeed start to believe that their race are meant to be criminals. Officers should not stop a person just by looking at the heritage. They need a cause to stop them and not just label them as criminals just by what their color of their skin is. The officers believe that hispanics and black are mostly involved with gangs and drugs, but not all of them