ORIGINAL

Cause of Recidivism: labeling theory

(insert statistic) of criminals in prison are repeat offenders (CITE). Correctional Facilities exist to punish those who disobey the law. People go to prison in order to “pay” for the acts they have committed. One would assume those who have been punished would never act criminally again, just as children refrain from fighting with their parents to avoid being grounded. This, however, is not the case. The labeling theory causes deviants to commit repeat offenses, even after they have experienced the negative consequences in the past.

Once people are known as killers, thieves, or drug dealers, society will treat them differently. These people may previously have been known as bankers, construction workers, or lawyers, but once they have been caught committing a crime, their earlier performance in all aspects of life is arbitrary. Because of their criminal record, they will face problems with friends, family, and employers for the rest of their lives.

The banker, before committing the crime, may have been the socialite of the year, but after he has been caught, his criminal title will become his new name. The friends who would insist he come to a social function now lock their doors when they see him coming. Searching for a job, the employer who would have previously paid him just for coming to the interview will not call him back. This banker, now known as some form of an ex-convict, will be rejected from society, causing him to lead a significantly different lifestyle than those that have never committed, or been caught participating in, a criminal act.

This different lifestyle shuts the door to the law-abiding way of life and opens the window to the deviant one. Labeling someone with a criminal title will result in many negative consequences, for the ex-convict as well as society. After people become outcasts to society, they will resort to unlawful behavior because the public refuses to give them any other choice.

John Braithewaite explains the labeling theory in depth by introducing the concepts of reintegrative and disintegrative shaming (CITE). Shaming punishes criminals for their actions by denying them admittance to normal society. Reintegrative shaming involves both punishment and acceptance. This concept reduces recidivism, or criminal repetitiveness, by seeing past the crime and welcoming the individual back. Disintegrative shaming, however, punishes the person indefinitely by refusing to give them access to a normal life; it segregates communities by individuals’ criminal history, excluding them from the non-deviant society.


Causes of Original Criminal Act: general strain theory and means-deficiency theory

The labeling theory helps to understand what causes a person to revert back to their deviant ways after being punished for their first criminal act; however, it does not explain why the original criminal act occurred. A sociologist named Robert Agnew developed an idea called the general strain theory. There are three main aspects of this theory: the failure to achieve positively valued goals, the removal of positively valued stimuli, and the presentation of negatively valued stimuli (Jacobs). Overall, the general strain theory addresses why people commit crimes because it shows how their drive to behave in socially acceptable ways can deteriorate. If this happens, that person may no longer have the will to act appropriately, causing them to take the easy way out and resort to criminal acts. For instance, it is usually less work to steal money than it is to earn it in an honest way. These three ideas, incorporated with the means deficiency theory, thoroughly explain the causes of crime.

The failure to achieve positively valued goals is detrimental to avoiding the criminal life. This may occur for two reasons; people may not achieve their goal either because it is impractical or because certain outcomes of their life have not been fair. An impractical goal may be when a new employee (let’s call him Jack) wishes to make at least ten dollars an hour after working for someone only a year. If Jack started at six, it is highly improbable that he will obtain a four-dollar raise during such a short time period. A year passes, and he is now only making seven dollars for every hour they work. If he highly expected the four-dollar raise, Jack may have spent more money during that year than he is able to afford. Since it is impossible for him to earn enough money to pay back his debts, Jack may simply steal from the company who, he believes, already stole from him.

On the other hand, let’s say that Jack set a reasonable goal of earning seven dollars per hour by this time next year. He shows up on time, works diligently, and never misses a day. Surprisingly, he is hassled the most out of all the employees by his boss. By the end of next year, Jack, to his frustration, finds that he has yet to earn a penny more than the six dollars he started with. He finds out that his boss, a rich white man, has had a history of being unfair toward the young, African American men that work for him. Since this is Jack’s ethnicity, he decides to burn his boss’s house down as a form of revenge.

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UPDATED VERSION


So What's the Big Deal?

The rehabilitation system in America is ineffective. Criminals are in prison, feeding off of one another's ideas and enhancing their deviant skills by learning from each other. Many ex-cons, after being excluded from society only to be forced to create a new life, perform illegal acts because, for them, it is easier than obeying the law. This jeopardizes society in many ways; the criminal we have put behind bars as punishment will be released only to act as a more deviant individual. There are many flaws that exist within the current incarceration and probation systems we use today.

Cause of Crime

Cause of Recidivism: labeling theory

50-60% of criminals in prison are repeat offenders (Jablecki). Correctional Facilities exist to punish those who disobey the law. People go to prison in order to “pay” for the acts they have committed. One would assume those who have been punished would never act criminally again, just as children refrain from fighting with their parents to avoid being grounded. This, however, is not the case. The labeling theory causes deviants to commit repeat offenses, even after they have experienced the negative consequences in the past.

Once people are known as killers, thieves, or drug dealers, society will treat them differently. These people may previously have been known as bankers, construction workers, or lawyers, but once they have been caught committing a crime, their earlier performance in all aspects of life is arbitrary. Because of their criminal record, they will face problems with friends, family, and employers for the rest of their lives.

The banker, before committing the crime, may have been the socialite of the year, but after he has been caught, his criminal title will become his new name. The friends who would insist he come to a social function now lock their doors when they see him coming. Searching for a job, the employer who would have previously paid him just for coming to the interview will not call him back. This banker, now known as some form of an ex-convict, will be rejected from society, causing him to lead a significantly different lifestyle than those that have never committed, or been caught participating in, a criminal act.

This different lifestyle shuts the door to the law-abiding way of life and opens the window to the deviant one. Labeling someone with a criminal title will result in many negative consequences, for the ex-convict as well as society. After people become outcasts to society, they will resort to unlawful behavior because the public refuses to give them any other choice.

John Braithewaite explains the labeling theory in depth by introducing the concepts of reintegrative and disintegrative shaming (Jacobs). Shaming punishes criminals for their actions by denying them admittance to normal society. Reintegrative shaming involves both punishment and acceptance. This concept reduces recidivism, or criminal repetitiveness, by seeing past the crime and welcoming the individual back. Disintegrative shaming, however, punishes the person indefinitely by refusing to give them access to a normal life; it segregates communities by individuals’ criminal history, excluding them from the non-deviant society.


Causes of Original Criminal Act: general strain theory and means-deficiency theory

The labeling theory helps to understand what causes a person to revert back to their deviant ways after being punished for their first criminal act; however, it does not explain why the original criminal act occurred. A sociologist named Robert Agnew developed an idea called the general strain theory. There are three main aspects of this theory: the failure to achieve positively valued goals, the removal of positively valued stimuli, and the presentation of negatively valued stimuli (Jacobs). Overall, the general strain theory addresses why people commit crimes because it shows how their drive to behave in socially acceptable ways can deteriorate. If this happens, that person may no longer have the will to act appropriately, causing them to take the easy way out and resort to criminal acts. For instance, it is usually less work to steal money than it is to earn it in an honest way. These three ideas, incorporated with the means deficiency theory, thoroughly explain the causes of crime.

The failure to achieve positively valued goals is detrimental to avoiding the criminal life. This may occur for two reasons; people may not achieve their goal either because it is impractical or because certain outcomes of their life have not been fair. An impractical goal may be when a new employee (let’s call him Jack) wishes to make at least ten dollars an hour after working for someone only a year. If Jack started at six, it is highly improbable that he will obtain a four-dollar raise during such a short time period. A year passes, and he is now only making seven dollars for every hour they work. If he highly expected the four-dollar raise, Jack may have spent more money during that year than he is able to afford. Since it is impossible for him to earn enough money to pay back his debts, Jack may simply steal from the company who, he believes, already stole from him.

On the other hand, let’s say that Jack set a reasonable goal of earning seven dollars per hour by this time next year. He shows up on time, works diligently, and never misses a day. Surprisingly, he is hassled the most out of all the employees by his boss. By the end of next year, Jack, to his frustration, finds that he has yet to earn a penny more than the six dollars he started with. He finds out that his boss, a rich white man, has had a history of being unfair toward the young, African American men that work for him. Since this is Jack’s ethnicity, he decides to burn his boss’s house down as a form of revenge.

Another cause of strain on an individual that may lead to crime is the removal of positively valued stimuli. For the sake of argument, Jack is a married man who only wishes to please is young wife. One day he comes home from a hard day’s work to find her and her belongings gone. After his wife left him, Jack had no real reward to look forward to in his life. An honest day’s work felt like a burden because he didn’t have anyone to care for anymore. Since he no longer had to worry about a loved one being affected by his actions, Jack became a thief.

If Jack were to become a boy who is abused by his father he would be demonstrating a person who is presented with negative stimuli. Despite young Jack's good grades and well-behaved personality, Jack's father still comes home and takes his aggression out on innocent Jack. This may cause the young boy to stop trying in school or behaving like a good person because no matter what he does he is punished for his actions. This will easily lead to a deviant lifestyle because Jack has no good reason to act socially acceptable.

The means-deficiency theory is closely related to the general strain theory and helps to answer the question of "what causes crime?" Unequal employment opportunities between one individual and the next creates a gap between those who can obtain their goals through legitimate means and those who cannot. Crimes are greatly influenced by the social structure of a population. If they weren't, than Williamsport, Pennsylvania and State College, Pennsylvania would have approximately the same amount of crime; however, this is not the case. Growing up in a town with little job offerings and poor educational training will leave you with a different future than it would compared to growing up in Bel Air. These social structures have the terrible ability to "push" people into criminal activities by not providing any other way to live.

Solving the Prison Problem

My middle school's motto was "education is the future." 68% of the current prison population did not receive their high school diploma (Bureau Justice). In this degree-oriented world, imagine how hard it would be to obtain a decent-paying job without a Bachelor's degree, much less a high school diploma. The means-deficiency theory is definitely a major factor in crime rates; therefore, if more people are properly educated, they will not have to resort to crime in order to fund their life's wants and needs. Improving the educational system and keeping more people in high school will reduce crime rates because these people will be able to find better jobs with more pay, causing them to stray from a deviant path and into a morally acceptable one.

Education, however, is not the only way we can fix the problems we have with crime. We must pay just as much attention to the people currently behind bars as we do to the people who will most likely be behind bars in the future.
Prison, probation, jail, and parole populations have been on a steady incline for many years.∞ Some believe that the solution to this problem to the overflow of inmates in jails and prisons can be solved easily: by spending millions of dollars on building new jails and prisons. By doing this, we will be able to stick the non-stopping increase in prisoners to the foggiest places of our minds for a few years. We won't have to burden ourselves with prison populations because new facilities will hold hundreds of thousands of more people. But after a certain point, these new facilities will also become overcrowded. Building new prisons will only delay this problem for a while; it will not solve it. We must venture into the heart of this predicament. If "correctional" facilities live up to their name, why, then, are prisons housing so many repeat-offenders? Clearly the correction procedures we are using today do not really correct.

It is a given that people with the same interests and talents tend to flock together. I find it hard to believe that this is not the case in prisons as well. When rookie burglars get thrown into jail, it's hard to believe that most will not flock to a mentor figure that will help them progress in their criminal activities. This is why prisons should restrict the amount of time criminals can spend with other inmates believed to have a negative affect on their rehabilitation process. This does not mean putting each prisoner into solitary confinement. While limiting access to fellow deviants, correctional facilities should also expand the visitation rights for loved ones. In order for an ex-convict to make a socially acceptable lifestyle for himself after prison, he must be welcomed back into society. It helps when criminals are not almost completely cut off from the outside world while serving their time; by letting family and friends visit more often, these ex-convicts will not be shunned from society as much as they are now because they will not lose the close ties they had developed before entering prison. In this way, ex-convicts will not only be known by their crimes. If they keep ties with the community while serving time, more people will remember them for who they were before they broke the law.

Some people, despite increasing visitor's hours and decreasing inmate-inmate bonding, will still commit crimes after being released from prison. 75% of those currently incarcerated have alcohol or drug-related problems and only 25% have received any form of counseling or treatment (Petersilia). Addiction is not something that can be cured by sitting in a cell. This is not to say that drug dealers and crack addicts should be aloud a "get-out-of-jail-free card." While being punished in prison, addicted inmates must receive the proper amount of counseling and treatment in order to stay clean once they are released. If prisoners are not fully rehabilitated by their last day of prison, we have wasted millions of tax dollars by housing people who will only allow their addictions to drive their actions after being released. We will have done nothing but delay their alcohol and drug-related activities during the time they were incarcerated.

By applying more rehabilitation, education, and correction in our current "correctional" facilities and reducing other inmate's influences, prisons' current population rates will surely decrease due to a lower recidivism rate. If we better educate the entire population we will make the lawful, moral life easier to live than the deviant life for everyone, not just a select few. It may seem like these new concepts gives prisoners and easy way out, but I'm not talking about increasing their television privileges or lessening their time behind bars. By fixing the problems with correctional facilities and giving each person an equal chance of obtaining their goals through legitimate means, crime will drastically decrease, ultimately benefiting the law-abiding citizens of the community.

WORKS CITED

Bureau of Justice Statistics. 2005. 8 December 2005. <http://www.ojp.gov/bjs∞>

"Changing the Lives of Prisoners." The Humanist 6 (2005). ProQuest. 28 Nov. 2005
<http://proquest.umi.com.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/pqdweb?index=0&did=923216651&SrchMode=1&sid=6&Fmt=4&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1133235965&clientId=9874>∞.

Jacobs, Bruce. Investigating Deviance: An Anthology. Roxbury Publishing Company

Petersilia, Joan. "Behind Bars." Los Angeles Times (2005). Proquest. 6 Dec. 2005.
<http://proquest.umi.com.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/pqdweb?did=911941701&sid=6>∞.


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