Labeling Delinquent Children Based on Social Status

Labeling Delinquent Children Based on Social Status

The Saints and the Ruffians were two groups of high school boys that lived in the suburbs, both

were persistently involved in underage drinking, daredevil driving, skipping school, petty theft,

and vandalism. There their similarities ended. None of the Saints were ever arrested, but every

Ruffian was habitually in trouble with the police and townspeople. Why the inequality in their

treatment? The difference was the social class of the two groups.

The Saints were able to hide behind a false wall of respectability. They came from "good

families", were active in school organizations, showed interest in going to college, and received

good grades. The townspeople and their families just saw their acts as "sowing wild oats" and

"boys will be boys". On the otherhand, the Ruffians didn't have such an aura of respectability.

They had beat up old cars, were usually bad in school, and were looked at with suspicion no

matter what they did.

The Ruffians were labeled "troublemakers," when the Saints were seen as "fun loving

kids." Both of these groups were gangs of delinquents or deviants. A deviant person is one whose

behavior violates the standards of conduct or expectations of a group or society. Underage

drinking, daredevil driving, skipping school, petty theft, and vandalism were all acts of deviant

behavior. But, how was one group labeled deviant while the other was not?

Many sociologist have turned to the labeling theory as a method of explaining this

difference. The labeling theory does not focus on why people commit deviant acts to begin with,

but it is concerned with the processes by which the label deviant comes to be attached to specific

people and behaviors (Agnew 1989).

The first time a child acts up in class, it may be caused by a bad mood or high energy.

What happens in the future of this child depends oh how others see and interpret the act. This is

the key to the labeling theory, sometimes called societal reaction approach. It is the response to

an act and not the behavior itself that determines deviance. It is also a repeating process. First the

teachers, counselors, and other children label the child a troublemaker, then the parents reinforce

the idea and treat the child as a troublemaker, then the child may accept this definition as part of

the self-concept (how we see ourselves) and act as a troublemaker.

There are many different aspects of the labeling theory, including power and labeling as

well as sin and sickness. A very crucial part of the theory, is recognizing who has the ability to