Labeling Theory

There are many theories that are very crucial in our court system. Labeling theory is one of the most important ones in order to understand criminal behavior. The labeling theory was developed by sociologists during the 1960s. This theory takes a view that when a person is labeled as a criminal, they start to accept their label and change their identity. The Labeling theory is mainly focus on the the groups or individuals who are deemed to be criminals, because that's what the society labelled them as. This theory relates to a criminal justice policy called stop and frisk. This policy was created in a way of deterring crime by stopping and asking questions to pedestrians or if they look suspicious or are doing something that they should

The police with this policy could stop people on the street and search them for anything illegal as long as there is suspicion on the person. Stop and frisk was originally created to deter crime and keep the society safe in exchange of their privacy. What this policy does is it allows the officers in New York City to stop normal pedestrians and search them for weapons, drugs, and other things that could be dangerous for the community. These pursuits are regularly unsuccessful on getting the criminals, and instead this policy is going against the 4th Amendment. Regarding the Bill of Rights the 4th Amendment is what gives us the citizens the right to be safe and secure in our personal space and also it protects us against any unreasonable searches without any documentation or probable cause. The Fourth Amendment has no power in the City of New York with the stop and frisk program. Many people would tend to say that the stop and frisk policy can

A normal teenager could be living in an urban areas where there is known to be gangs, the teenager would be labeled as a gang member. This theory is connected to the policy stop and frisk. They both go together, whenever there is a person walking in a urban street, the officers would assume that he is up to no good. The officers would just label the person as a criminal and apply the policy stop and frisk. They have no prove that this person is a criminal or is doing something wrong, the officers would just go by how the person looks and their race. There is a higher chance that a black or hispanic person would get stopped instead of a white person. Racial profiling plays a big part, black and latino man are highly disproportionately stopped just because they are labeled as criminals. A person knowing that blacks and hispanics are bad and that's almost our whole prison population could indeed start to believe that their race are meant to be criminals. Officers should not stop a person just by looking at the heritage. They need a cause to stop them and not just label them as criminals just by what their color of their skin is. The officers believe that hispanics and black are mostly involved with gangs and drugs, but not all of them