Classical theories ask why someone commits crime. Labeling turns the question around and asks something different: who decides what counts as crime and who gets pursued. Its uncomfortable thesis is that society does not merely discover criminals: in part it manufactures them by naming them.
Labeling at a glance
- Authors
- Tannenbaum · Lemert · Becker · Cohen
- Year / era
- 1938 · canonical in 1963
- Family
- Critical (symbolic interactionism)
- Idea
- Deviance is not in the act, but in the social reaction to it
Act + labeling social reaction → stigma → secondary deviance// OriginSymbolic interactionism
The idea goes back a long way. Frank Tannenbaum (1938) called it the dramatization of evil: publicly singling out, judging and punishing a young person ends up fixing in them the very identity it meant to correct. It has roots in George H. Mead and Charles Cooley (the "looking-glass self": we see ourselves as we believe others see us). Edwin Lemert distinguished between primary and secondary deviance, and Howard Becker, in Outsiders (1963), gave the canonical formulation: deviance is not a quality of the act, but of the social reaction to it.
Becker added two key pieces. The moral entrepreneurs —lawmakers, media, moral crusaders— are those with the power to create and apply the labels: not every harmful act is pursued, and not everyone pursued is equally harmful. And the master status: once someone is "the criminal", that label swallows all the others —neighbor, parent, worker— and comes to organize how the world sees them and, later, how they see themselves.
That emphasis on power pushed labeling toward critical criminology. If crime is, in large part, what the powerful decide to pursue, the question stops being "why do the poor commit crime?" and becomes "why are some acts pursued and others tolerated?". The sociology of crime thus turns into a sociology of control: who defines, who punishes and whom. It is the bridge through which labeling entered the radical tradition of the seventies and ceased to be a neutral theory to become, also, a political one.
Primary and secondary deviance
Primary deviance is the isolated, almost anecdotal act that the subject does not yet integrate into their identity. Secondary deviance appears when, after being labeled and treated as deviant, the person reorganizes their life and self-image around that label —often as a form of defense against the social reaction. The stigma stops describing and starts producing.
From an act to an identity
- 1Primary devianceAn isolated act the subject does not yet integrate into their identity
- 2Social reactionInstitutions and community detect, judge and label the subject
- 3Master statusThe «criminal» label eclipses the rest of their roles
- 4Secondary devianceThe person reorganizes their self-image and life around the label
If the reaction is massive (moral panic), the spiral amplifies exactly the behavior it feared.
// In fictionBecoming the label
Kira is the perfect example: the world christens the invisible killer as "Kira", and he decides to embody that name until it devours him. Dos Caras shows the other side: an upright prosecutor whom tragedy and the villain label finish transforming. In both, the role precedes the identity.
When the assigned role ends up writing who you are.
// The spiralMoral panic
The label acts not only on the individual, but on society too. Stanley Cohen showed how a frightened community turns a group into a folk devil —the popular demon of a moral panic— and reacts so disproportionately that it magnifies exactly what it fears. Media coverage, raids and emergency laws do not reduce the labeled deviance: they amplify it, in a spiral that ends up confirming the initial fear.
// CriticismsWhat the label does not explain
Its limit is clear: it explains the amplification of deviance, not its origin. It does not tell us why the first act was committed —for that we need other theories, such as strain or learning. It is also reproached for stripping the individual of agency, as if they were a mere product of others’ labels.
For years the theory was said to be impossible to test, but recent research has rehabilitated it. The longitudinal studies of Bernburg and Krohn showed that going through the penal system while young —being officially labeled— increases the probability of offending afterward, partly because it closes doors to employment and school. It is what Sampson and Laub called cumulative disadvantage: the label marks not only identity, it also cuts down real opportunities. That is why measures such as Ban the Box (removing the criminal-record checkbox from job applications) have gained traction: they lower the label precisely when it most sabotages desistance.
// The alternativeRepair instead of mark
From this diagnosis comes one of the most influential penal alternatives of the last half century: restorative justice. Instead of a trial that labels and expels, it proposes a meeting between the one who caused the harm, the victim and the community to repair —acknowledge the harm, take responsibility, make amends— without hanging on an indelible stigma. It is Braithwaite’s reintegrative shaming made procedure, and the accumulated evidence is remarkable: in many contexts, these encounters reduce reoffending and leave victims more satisfied than ordinary criminal proceedings. The watchword is simple: label the act, never the person. And it is not softness: a good restorative circle usually demands from the offender a far more uncomfortable and personal responsibility than signing some papers and serving a sentence in silence.
From marginal theory to reintegration policy
Labeling took criminology out of the offender’s laboratory and turned it into a sociology of control: who defines, who punishes and whom. During the seventies it fed critical criminology and, despite being dismissed as untestable, longitudinal research rehabilitated it by showing that going through the penal system while young increases later reoffending. From this were born restorative justice, diversion programs and campaigns such as Ban the Box.
- 1938Tannenbaum describes the dramatization of evil.
- 1963Becker publishes Outsiders: deviance is the social reaction to the act.
- 1972Cohen formulates the moral panic and folk devils.
- 2003Bernburg and Krohn prove the criminogenic effect of the official label.
// Why it mattersStigma and reintegration
If the label shapes behavior, a criminal record can act as a self-fulfilling prophecy: it closes doors to employment and housing and pushes those trying to get out back into reoffending. Hence the diversion programs (getting the minor out of the penal circuit before marking them), protective juvenile justice and record expungement. John Braithwaite added a constructive way out: reintegrative shaming —shaming the act without stigmatizing the person for life, always leaving them a door back—, the opposite of the stigma that expels.
Lights and shadows
- Shifts the focus to power: it asks who defines crime and who is pursued, not only why crime is committed.
- It has modern empirical support: the official label (a record, going through the system) increases future reoffending.
- It inspired humane and effective alternatives: restorative justice, diversion, record expungement and reintegrative shaming.
- It explains well the amplification of crime and media moral panics.
- It does not explain the origin of the first act: for that we need strain, learning or control.
- It tends to strip the individual of agency, as if they were a mere product of others’ labels.
- For decades it was accused of being hard to test empirically.
- It can fall into a certain relativism: not all pursued harm is a mere «construction» of power.
Three key takeaways
- Deviance is not a quality of the act, but of the social reaction to it (Becker): to label is an act of power.
- Primary vs secondary deviance (Lemert): the person reorganizes their identity around the label pinned on them.
- It explains the amplification of crime, not its origin; hence diversion, record expungement and reintegrative shaming.
Sources · further reading
- Tannenbaum, F. (1938). Crime and the Community. Ginn and Company.
- Cooley, C. H. (1902). Human Nature and the Social Order.
- Lemert, E. M. (1951). Social Pathology. McGraw-Hill.
- Becker, H. S. (1963). Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance. Free Press.
- Cohen, S. (1972). Folk Devils and Moral Panics. MacGibbon & Kee.
- Braithwaite, J. (1989). Crime, Shame and Reintegration. Cambridge University Press.
- Bernburg, J. G. & Krohn, M. D. (2003). «Labeling, Life Chances, and Adult Crime». Criminology, 41(4).