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Scholars have recently revitalized labeling theory as a developmental theory of structural disadvantage. According to this approach, official intervention increases the probability of involvement in subsequent delinquency and deviance because intervention triggers exclusionary processes that have negative consequences for conventional opportunities. The theory predicts that official intervention in adolescence increases involvement in crime in early adulthood due to the negative effect of intervention on educational attainment and employment. Using panel data on urban males that span early adolescence through early adulthood, we find considerable support for this revised labeling approach. Official intervention in youth has a significant, positive effect on crime in early adulthood, and this effect is partly mediated by life chances such as educational achievement and employment.
KEYWORDS: Labeling, life chances, early adult crime, official intervention.
The labeling perspective of deviant behavior has been the subject of considerable debate among students of crime and deviant behavior. This perspective argues that official intervention can be a stepping stone in the development of a delinquent career. In the late seventies and early eighties, critics argued that the labeling approach as originally presented (Becker, 1963; Lemert, 1967) was vague and ambiguous and failed to provide empirically testable propositions. Moreover, research findings failed to provide evidence consistent with the theory (Hirschi, 1980; Tittle, 1980). However, recent work suggests that a rejection of the labeling approach may have been unjustified. Efforts to modify labeling theory by explicating the social processes that translate deviant labeling into a deviant career or "secondary deviance" and by providing empirically testable propositions regarding the consequences of deviant labeling (see Paternoster and lovanni, 1989, for a review of this issue) have provided theoretical clarity.
These theoretical developments have underscored the developmental nature of labeling theory. Sampson and Laub (1997:138) have characterized labeling theory as "truly developmental in nature, because of its explicit emphasis on processes over time" (see Loeber and LeBlanc, 1990). Deviant labeling, official labeling in particular, is seen as a transitional event that can substantially alter the life course by reducing opportunities for a conventional life (Becker, 1963; Link, 1982; Link et al., 1989). Thus, labeling is seen as being indirectly related to subsequent behavior through its negative impact on conventional opportunities. Sampson and Laub (1997) suggest that labeling is one...