The declining significance of delinquent labels in disadvantaged urban communities

Labeling theory posits that formal sanctions contribute negative defining information to a youth's reputation and that novice delinquents internalize these negative appraisals. Reflected appraisals and social rejection, in turn, reinforce delinquency. In the context of severely disadvantaged inner-city communities - where arrests have become a normal and expected ritual of male adolescence, and official labelers and labels have less legitimacy - the alleged preconditions for a "labeling" effect of an arrest are generally not met. Retrospective, personal interviews with 20 minority youth (aged 18-20) from high-poverty urban neighborhoods, who experienced at least one juvenile arrest, suggest that juvenile arrests typically carry little stigma and do little discernible harm to self-concept or social relationships. Micro-level labeling theory is an inadequate framework to understand the social impact of mass criminal justice intervention in inner-city communities. Whereas the individual social psychological impact of the official labeling process has weakened, the mass criminalization of inner-city African-American youth has exacted collective costs in terms of social exclusion and diminished social expectations.