Secondary deviance refers to deviant behavior that occurs after the initial act, when a person’s self-concept and behavior begin to change as a result of society’s negative reactions and labeling of them as criminally deviant. It is the process by which deviance is amplified and reinforced by outsiders treating the supposed deviant as an outsider.
Key Takeaways
- Secondary deviance refers to the deviant identity or career that results after the deviant activity is recognized by society, and the perpetrator is formally labeled as deviant.
- This is distinct from primary deviance, deviant behavior that occurs unlabelled.
- The term secondary deviance originates from Edwin Lemert (1912-1996), an American sociologist, who conducted early work on the social basis of deviance.
- He believed that the deviant label created a deviant self-identity, and ultimately association with outsider deviant groups, further ostracizing the deviant person from the rest of society.
- Although labeling theory fell out of favor in the 1970s, it has reemerged in modern criminology.
Definition
Secondary deviance, first introduced by Edwin Lemert, describes a distinction central to labeling theory, that a deviant identity or career develops as a result of being labeled deviant.
Secondary deviance is triggered by the reactions that follow primary deviance, stigmatizing the deviant behavior. Thus, the deviant act is witnessed and a label is attached to the person committing the act.
As a result, the deviant is labeled as a deviant, or a criminal. However, this label contradicts the self-image of the person being labeled.
In order to escape the dissonance between their inner, non deviant identity and their outer, deviant one, the individual adopts the label deviant or criminal themselves and adapts their future behavior accordingly.
This creates, according to Lemert (1951a) a process where increasingly stronger deviance is followed by stronger social reactions, ensuring that the deviance stays and solidifies.
Secondary deviation is deviation that becomes a pivotal, central, and engulfing activity to which a person becomes committed. Lemert calls this internalization of the label deviance amplification (Rosenberg, 2010).
Primary vs Secondary Deviance
Lemert was one of the first to define the concept of primary and secondary deviance (1951). Primary deviance is deviant acts that occur without labels put on the person commiting the act.
For example, a teenager who drinks alcohol socially at a party and is caught, but only gently reprimanded by their parents, has committed primary deviance.
Secondary deviance, meanwhile, is a result of the labels that are put onn someone for committing deviant acts.
A person moves from primary deviance (the thing that gets him/her labeled in the first place) to secondary deviance (a deviant identity or career).
The importance of the distinction between primary and secondary deviance is that everyone commits primary deviance acts from time to time, with few social consequences.
More serious social consequences arise from secondary deviance, where the stigmatizing force of the label is likely to lead to changes in relationships between the labeled person and the people around them, and perhaps as change in the behavior and attitude of those being labeled.
Labeling theorists argue that these labels lead the person being labeled to associate more with other people who have been labeled as deviant, impelling them to commit further deviant acts.
Example of Secondary Deviance
Lemert’s Errant Schoolboy
Lemert (1951b) uses the example of the “errant schoolboy” to illustrate his point about the process of deviance. In this example, a child plays a prank in class and is punished mildly by his teacher. This is primary deviance.
Later, the boy accidentally causes another disturbance and is again reprimanded. However, because the child has repeatedly caused disturbances, the teacher begins to call him a “bad boy” and a “mischief maker” when dealing with the child.
The child then becomes resentful of these labels and may act out in consequence, fulfilling the role that he sees expected of him, especially if he discovers that there is a certain status among a group of peers that play that role.
This group of peers may then form their own subculture within which this otherwise deviant behavior is accepted and encouraged (Rosenberg, 2010).
Implications for Criminal Policy
Edwin M. Lemert”s original discussion of primary and secondary deviance (1951) has had rich and far-reaching implications on various theories of criminal behavior, particularly labeling theory.
He delved into the differentiation between primary and secondary deviance more deeply in his 1967 work, Human Deviance, Social Problems, and Social Control, which painted a fuller picture of how he believed that society”s reactions to the violation of social norms can lead someone to continually violate those norms, and eventually self-identify with the behaviors and groups that are outsiders to society.
Lemert”s concepts of primary and secondary deviance are drawn from symbolic interactionism, in particular, the work of Frank Tannnenbaum (1938) in Crime and the Community.
Mead”s insights focused on how the individual defines themself through the feedback received from the community at large. Through this interaction, an individual learns the rules and norms that the society has developed, and discovers how to act within this context to successfully integrate into wider society.
The individual is then able to communicate those norms to new individuals who seek to join the group (Rosenberg, 2010).
Therefore, labeled deviants are more likely to associate with deviant peers (Wiley, Slocum, and Esbensen, 2013), withdraw from their traditional social pursuits and hobbies (Bernburg, 2009), and ultimately engage in criminal offending at a higher rate than otherwise similar individuals who have not been labeled “deviant.”
References
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Bernburg, John Gunnar. 2009. Labeling theory. In Handbook of Crime and Deviance, eds. Marvin D. Krohn, Alan J. Lizotte, and Gina Penly Hall. New York: Springer.
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Lemert, E. M. (1951b). Social pathology; A systematic approach to the theory of sociopathic behavior.
Lemert, E. M. (1967). Human deviance, social problems, and social control. Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Prentice-Hall.
Martino, L. (2017). Concepts of primary and secondary deviance.
Paternoster, R., & Iovanni, L. (1989). The labeling perspective and delinquency: An elaboration of the theory and an assessment of the evidence. Justice Quarterly, 6 (3), 359-394.
Rosenberg, M. J. (2010). Lemert, Edwin M.: Primary and secondary deviance. Encyclopedia of criminological theory, 551-553.
Schur, E. M. (1971). Labeling deviant behavior: Its sociological implications (pp. 18-18). New York: Harper & Row.
Wiley, S. A., Slocum, L. A., & Esbensen, F. A. (2013). The unintended consequences of being stopped or arrested: An exploration of the labeling mechanisms through which police contact leads to subsequent delinquency. Criminology, 51 (4), 927-966.
Thorsell, B. A., & Klemke, L. W. (1972). The labeling process: reinforcement and deterrent?. Law & Society Review, 6 (3), 393-403.
Tannenbaum, F. (1938). Crime and the Community. In Crime and the Community. Columbia University Press.
