Introduction Although crime is evident in every society, there has been an increase in the rate of crime in Ireland in the past few years. Along with this there has been an increase in those who are re-offending, this is a problematic issue for Ireland. In this essay I aim going to show how the labeling theory provides a better understanding of the issue of re-offending in Ireland. Labeling theory captures the interaction and the response that society gives those who have committed a crime (Becker, 1966). For those who have been to prison or completed their probation, when entering back into society their name or image of themselves may be altered by how society sees and talks about them. By society labeling these people it can lead to …show more content…
He notes that juveniles who commit minor crimes are no different than those who do not commit; the problem occurs when the juvenile becomes branded for what they have done, their act becomes defined as themselves. The juvenile then begins to believe what is said about them and acts upon it. Newburn (2017, .p 231) states that the juveniles committing the small petty crimes are “good kids doing bad things; they become labeled as bad kids and continue in that vein”. What Newburn suggest is that young citizens are committing harmless crimes and the way society reacts to it is potentially setting the young citizen up for failure, giving them no hope. Newburn (2017) argues that deviance can be separated into primary and secondary. From Edwin Lemet we learn that when putting all deviances together that are acted by many, the actions that receive a response are the ones that are acted and responded to. When the person has received this label of being deviant if they begin to act upon it, their deviance is classed as secondary. According to Schur (1971) secondary deviance is when a person takes on the persona of being deviant as a result of feeling under attack and using this image as a form of protection of themselves. Where as primary deviance is where one commit the deviant act, which many people in society will do thought-out their life time, but may not …show more content…
Cicourel (1968) breaks the occurrence into two stages. Stage one is when the police intervene and stop the person. For the police to consciously or subconsciously decide to stop someone they identify what is strange and wrong. All of the factors such as if the person is ding something wrong and where this occurrence is happening have an influence on the police officers judgment. The primary cause of pulling a person over is whether they look like they are the type of person to commit a crime of be involved in deviant behavior. This is labeling, this is the police officer deciding to pull in based on how the label and see the person. If a person is constantly being pulled in by different/same officers the person may begin to develop ideas that they are doing something wrong, when they many not be. The second stage is when the person is handed over to an officer who deals with delinquents. Alike the police officer, subconsciously this officer can have an idea of a deviant person in their head. What Cicourel (1968) found interesting is that the idea of this ‘deviant person’ didn’t look looked after and their appearance was messy. Most of these people came from lower-economic backgrounds. As for middle class, an officer may pull