	New content
Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency

Restricted access

Research article

First published February 2006

Official Labeling, Criminal Embeddedness, and Subsequent Delinquency: A Longitudinal Test of Labeling Theory

Jón Gunnar Bernburg, Marvin D. Krohn, and Craig J. RiveraView all authors and affiliations

Volume 43, Issue 1

https://doi.org/10.1177/0022427805280068

Abstract
References

Get access

Abstract

This article examines the short-term impact of formal criminal labeling on involvement in deviant social networks and increased likelihood of subsequent delinquency. According to labeling theory, formal criminal intervention should affect the individual’s immediate social networks. In many cases, the stigma of the criminal status may increase the probability that the individual becomes involved in deviant social groups. The formal label may thus ultimately increase involvement in subsequent deviance. We use panel data of a sample of urban adolescents to examine whether involvement in deviant social groups mediates the relationship between juvenile justice intervention and subsequent delinquent behavior. Using measures from three successive points in time, the authors find that juvenile justice intervention positively affects subsequent involvement in serious delinquency through the medium of involvement in deviant social groups, namely, street gangs and delinquent peers.

Get full access to this article

View all access and purchase options for this article.

Get Access

1. This is not to say that deviant labeling only arises as a result of formal proceedings. Labeling theorists have pointed out that the sources of deviant labeling can be informal as well (see Matsueda 1992; Triplett and Jarjoura 1994).

2. The modified labeling theory of mental illness (Link 1982; Link et al. 1989) has emphasized that in addition to direct discrimination, social withdrawal of the labeled individual due to his or her expectation of rejection may play an important role in isolating labeled individuals from conventional ties and social settings.

3. A square-root transformation is often appropriate for variables that have zeros but no negative values (Rummel 1970:280-6).

4. The peer delinquency variable had a high number of missing cases, most likely because some subjects are unwilling to answer questions about or do not know about the delinquent behaviors of their friends. Therefore, in the analyses using peer delinquency, listwise deletion leaves a total number of 814 valid cases (and not 870 cases as in the other analyses). The deletion of the additional 56 cases does not at all change the demographic characteristics of the sample (see Table 1) nor the prevalence of serious delinquency at Wave 4.

5. We used the formula provided by Baron and Kenny (1986) to calculate the approximate t value for an indirect effect. The calculated t value for this indirect effect is 2.8.

6. The approximate t value for this indirect effect is 2.7.

7. We recognize that our measure of peer delinquency may be subject to same-reporter bias, resulting in an overestimate of the relationship between respondent’s delinquency and peerdelinquency because respondents are likely to project from their own delinquent behavior to the delinquent behavior of their friends (Aseltine 1995; Zhang and Messner 2000). Our measure of gang membership, on the other hand, is not threatened by a similar concern. Given that both measures of deviant groups are significantly related to delinquent behavior and mediate some of the relationship between juvenile justice intervention and delinquent behavior, we can be confidant in our interpretation of our findings.

8. This point is noteworthy in light of the history of antagonism toward the labeling approach within criminology. Scholars have pointed out that the criticisms of labeling theory during the late seventies (Hirschi 1980; Tittle 1980) were overly stringent and not justified given the lack of empirical evidence (Palarma et al. 1986; Paternoster and Iovanni 1989). These critiques were often directed against the methodological position of the labeling theorists, but rarely had substance with respect to the prospects of a labeling theory of deviance(Bernburg 2003b). Also noteworthy in this respect is Braithwaite’s (1989:38) point that the labeling approach avoids what scholars have identified as the main problem associated with theoretical synthesis in criminology (Kornhauser 1978; Liska, Krohn, and Messner 1989), namely, contradictory assumptions about societal consensus.

References

Adams, Mike S. 1996. “Labeling and Differential Association: Towards a General Social Learning Theory of Crime and Deviance.” American Journal of Criminal Justice 20:149-164.

Abstract

Get full access to this article

References

Also from Sage