Labeling Theory

Labeling theory is the idea that in their everyday lives children are bombarded with different cues and clues regarding how others perceive them (Mead). Through role-playing (Cooley) and defining situations (Thomas), adolescents become keenly aware of the meanings of symbols and gestures that other children and adults use to project labels onto them.

"Labeling theory assumes that social control creates deviance when adolescents are negatively labeled"

Labeling theory is not so concerned with individual traits or environmental influences that might instigate initial deviant acts. Instead, it focuses on the stigmatizing effects of the juvenile justice system upon those who are labeled delinquent. The focal point of labeling theory is the power of the social response, especially in the form of formal social control, to produce delinquent behavior. Its aim is to understand how publicly or officially labeling someone as a delinquent may cause the person to become the very thing he or she is described as being. 
According to Frank Tannenbaum’s 1938 book Crime and the Community

"the thinking of delinquents and nondelinquents as two fundamentally different types of people is a misleading notion, which he termed the dualistic fallacy"

Dualistic fallacy:-
The mistaken notion that delinquents and nondelinquents are two fundamentally different types of people. 

Theory in a NUTSHELL:-
There is a gradual shift from the definition of the specific act as evil to a definition of the individual as evil. He [the child] has gone slowly from a sense of grievance and injustice to a recognition that the definition of him as a human being is different from that of other boys.The young delinquent becomes bad because he is not believed if he is good. 

Primary & Secondary Deviation's idea of Edwin Lemert:-

Primary Deviation:-
Deviant behavior that everyone engages in occasionally.

Primary deviation is deviance that everyone engages in occasionally; it is “rationalized, or otherwise dealt with as [part of] a socially acceptable role. Under such circumstances, normal and [deviant] behaviors remain strange and somewhat tensional bedfellows in the same person.” This situation can change, however, and the person may step into a deviant or delinquent role. This role and the person’s definition of himself or herself as a delinquent are affected by several factors:

How much delinquency the person commits
How visible such acts are to the community
How serious others’ reactions are
How aware the delinquent is of their reactions

If the delinquency is highly visible and societal reaction is very obvious and negative, the youth will see him or herself differently, and it will be difficult for the person to hold onto past self-images and roles. The youth must choose new roles, which may be more or less deviant than the old ones.

Secondary Deviation:-

Deviant behavior based on the youth’s taking on and accepting the deviant role as part of his or her identity. If the roles are more deviant, the adolescent has reached the stage Lemert calls secondary deviation.

Secondary deviation involves a long process—that is, it entails a dynamic relationship between the person’s deviation and society’s reaction to it. If the adolescent is eventually stigmatized, efforts to control him or her will shift from informal to formal legal ones, and the youth will be redefined as “delinquent.” The sequence of interaction leading to secondary deviation typically involves the following steps:

1. Primary deviation
2. Social penalties
3. Further primary deviation
4. Stronger penalties and rejections
5. Further deviations
6. Crisis reached in the tolerance quotient, which is expressed in formal action by the community stigmatizing of the deviant
7. Strengthening of the deviant conduct as a reaction to the stigmatizing and penalties
8. Acceptance of the deviant social status and the associated role

Lemert says that not all youths labeled “delinquent” accept this role; how receptive they are to such a label depends on their social class. If a youth comes from a family in which the parents are powerless and poor, he or she is more likely to accept the assigned delinquent role, especially if either parent is, for instance, an alcoholic. This tendency occurs because the status and selfconceptions of family members are transferred to children. Also, lower-class parents may be frustrated by their situation and disturbed by inner conflicts. They may be quick to label their children “bad” or “worthless,” overreacting to those qualities in their children that remind them of traits they despise in themselves. As a consequence, such parents may reject their children and, when trouble occurs, turn them over to community agencies such as the juvenile court. Once the child arrives in juvenile court, the individual’s character and deviant behavior are redefined by the court and related agencies.