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Labeling Theory

In: Philosophy and Psychology

Submitted By adinamdvn
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Labelling Theory and Symbolic Interaction

„No very sharp line can be drawn between social pshycology and individual pshycology”
George Herman Mead

Introduction In recent years, renewed and increased attention has been given to the need to organize a variety of theories into an interdisciplinary or integrated theory that captures tile contributions that can be made from the many explanatory approaches that have emerged over the last one hundred years. This move towards integrated or interdisciplinary theory represents a new stage of development in the field and requires a careful reassessment of the perspectives that have formed the core of criminological thought.[1] Each era of social and political turmoil has produced profound changes in people’s lives. Perhaps no such era was as significant for criminology as the 1960s. A society with conservative values was shaken out of its complacency when young people, blacks, women and other disadvantaged groups demanded a part in the shaping of national policy. They saw the gaps between philosophical political demands and reality: Blacks had little opportunity to advance women were kept in an inferior status; old politicians made wars in which the young had to die. Rebellion broke out, and some criminologists joined the revolution.[2] These criminologists turned away from theories that explained crime by characteristics of the offender or of the social structure. They set out to demonstrate that individuals become criminals because of what with power, especially those in the criminal justice system, do. Their explanations largely reject the consensus model of crime, on which all earlier theories rested. Their theories not only question the traditional explanations of the creation and enforcement of the criminal law but also blame that law for the making of criminals. It may not sound so

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