The Labeling Theory

Conflict and radical theories ascribe several categories of crime and criminal laws to the self-interest of powerful segments of society. In common with labeling theory, the amount of objective evidence available to document these social process theories is limited and inconsistent. In the ideal and harmonious family, parents refrain from affixing labels to their children, either good or bad. It is understood that, taken to an extreme, such verbal reinforcers can easily become "self fulfilling prophecies." Supporters of labeling theory believe that a person with a deviant self-image will then suffer from reduced conventional opportunities. Over time, legal processing is felt to "steer" the individual farther and farther down the road to increased lawlessness. Future criminal offenses become statistically more likely, according to some. The risk of possible discrimination in the application of labels and legal sanctions is felt to be balanced/affirmed if the potential for continued criminality by the individual can be prophylactically curtailed. The label may reduce the overall number of victims.

Critics contend that a strong, negative social reaction to wrongdoing can lead the criminal to become even more deviant.
University faculty members were busy defining the scope of sociology as a discipline. In attempting to understand criminal behavior and our legal system, they advocated for field observations and analysis of individuals within their natural environments. These principles gradually developed into the branch of symbolic interactionism. Simply put, basic realities (what the uneducated man might call 'common sense' or 'cause and effect') were recast based on formal ethnographic, psychological, and anthropologic