The Saints And The Roughnecks Summary

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In the reading, “The Saints and the Roughnecks” by William J. Chambliss, the ideas of labels and their consequences are discussed. Chambliss observes two groups of high school boys (the Saints and the Roughnecks) for two years and notices how although they are both engaged in behaviors known as deviant, only the Roughnecks seem to be labeled as deviant by their community. The question Chambliss then raises is “What was the cause of this disparity?”. The answer lies in that the group was labeled as deviant due to numerous factors (i.e. social class, visibility due to lack of funds, behavior toward authority, etc.), and because of this, the community could never see them as otherwise, and the boys became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Although