Secondary Deviance

What is Secondary Deviance?

The concept of secondary deviance comes from Edwin Lemert’s work on labeling theory, which explores how people’s identities can change after society labels them as “deviant.”

Once a label sticks, it shapes how a person sees themselves and how others treat them. The change in behavior can last.

Secondary deviance happens when someone begins to accept this label and starts organizing their life around it.

The label can become part of their self-image and even guide their choices, sometimes turning into a lifestyle or “career” in deviance.

Key Characteristics of Secondary Deviance

1. Identity and Lifestyle: In this stage, deviant behavior becomes part of a person’s identity and way of life. The individual may start to see themselves, and be seen by others, as someone who regularly breaks society’s rules.

2. Accepting the Role: When people accept a negative label given to them, they may continue or even increase the behavior that earned them that label. Some may adopt the “deviant” role as a way of rebelling against society’s expectations.

3. Master Status: The deviant label can become a person’s main identity, known as a master status. For example, someone may come to see themselves primarily as a “criminal,” “addict,” or “outsider.”

4. Social Organization: Once a deviant identity takes hold, it can shape social interactions and group membership. A labeled individual might begin to associate mainly with others who share that identity. 

How Secondary Deviance Differs from Primary Deviance

The transition from primary to secondary deviance is driven by the successful application of a negative label.

Sociologist Edwin Lemert suggested that:

• Primary Deviance: Refers to small or occasional acts of rule-breaking that don’t affect a person’s self-image. Most people engage in such acts at some point without being labeled or seeing themselves as criminals.

• Secondary Deviance: Begins when others apply a deviant label, and the person internalizes it. Once this new identity takes hold, it can be hard to escape. 

In essence, while primary deviance is the act, secondary deviance is the role or career that develops after the person is successfully labeled by society.

Feature	Primary Deviance	Secondary Deviance
Nature of the Act	Involves an initial rule-breaking act that may be minor or one-time.	Involves the continuation of deviant behavior after being labeled and accepting that label.
Impact on Self-Concept	Does not change how the person sees themselves; they still feel part of society.	Leads to a change in self-concept, as the person begins to view themselves as deviant.
Examples	Speeding, cheating on a test once, or minor misbehavior that’s quickly forgotten.	A student repeatedly labeled a “troublemaker” who starts acting out more, or someone caught shoplifting who begins to steal regularly.

The Deviant Career: How a Label Becomes a Lifestyle

Sociologists describe secondary deviance as a deviant career. Like a conventional career, it has an entry point: the moment a label is successfully applied (Becker, 1963).

It also has developing skills and social contacts, gained by learning the deviant role and meeting others who already occupy it. Once established, the career gains its own momentum.

The metaphor cuts both ways. Some labeled people find real skill, status, and belonging in a deviant identity. Yet, like any career, the path gets harder to leave the further someone travels along it.

Master status explains why. When a stigmatizing label becomes someone’s master status, their other roles do not disappear, but people stop responding to them first. A convict who is also a father is usually treated as a convict. The other roles fade.

The people who see the whole person, such as family, long-standing friends, or an employer willing to look past a record, become a shrinking minority of that person’s contacts.

Everyone else confirms the negative self-image and closes off routes back to conventional roles.

Deviancy Amplification: How Reactions Escalate Behavior

Leslie Wilkins (1964) named a second mechanism, deviancy amplification. An agency of social control reacts to labeled behavior and unintentionally provokes more of it. The cycle runs as a loop:

1. Reaction: A control agency, such as the police, courts, or a school disciplinary system, labels an act.
2. Internalization: The labeled person takes the label into their identity and mixes more with others who share it.
3. Visibility: The labeled behavior becomes more visible and more frequent.
4. Escalation: The extra visibility provokes a stronger reaction from the same agencies.
5. Entrenchment: The stronger reaction deepens the identity, and the cycle repeats.

This differs from Lemert’s basic distinction. It explains why the social response itself, rather than anything new the person has done, tends to escalate the situation. Interventions built on this insight therefore try to reduce the intensity or visibility of the institutional reaction.

Example of Secondary Deviance

Secondary deviance often develops when a deviant label becomes a person’s master status, the main way they are defined by others and see themselves.

Errant Schoolboy (Lemert, 1951):

1. Labels Shape Identity: Once the boy is called a “bad” or “mischievous” child, the label starts to influence how he sees himself and how others see him.
2. Reactions Reinforce Behavior: The teacher’s repeated punishment and labeling lead the child to act out more, proving the power of social reactions in shaping future behavior.
3. Peer Support Strengthens the Label: When the boy finds acceptance among other “rule-breakers,” their group forms a subculture that rewards deviant behavior instead of discouraging it.
4. A Cycle of Deviance Forms: What began as small acts of mischief (primary deviance) evolves into a deviant identity (secondary deviance) through labeling and social reinforcement.
5. A Lesson in Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Lemert’s example shows how society’s expectations can become reality. When people internalize the labels others give them, they often start to live up to them.

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The Gang Identity

1. Early Labeling: Carolyn Hamilton-Ballard was labeled a “bully-type person” and “crazy” because of her size and demeanor.
2. Acting the Role: She began to behave in ways that matched the label, initially as a performance.
3. Identity Transformation: Over time, the act became genuine. Her deviant behavior turned into her real lifestyle.
4. Reinforced by Group: The gang environment rewarded and normalized her deviant behavior, strengthening her identity.
5. Deviance as Lifestyle: The label evolved into a lasting identity, showing how social expectations can shape and sustain deviant roles.

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The Formerly Incarcerated Job Seeker

1. Persistent Labeling: A criminal record marks someone as a “convict” or “addict,” even after they’ve served their sentence.

2. Social Rejection: Employers’ unwillingness to hire them reinforces feelings of exclusion and stigma.

3. Internalized Stigma: The person begins to see themselves primarily through this negative label.

4. Limited Opportunities: Rejection and marginalization make returning to a conventional life more difficult.

5. Cycle of Recidivism: The individual may return to crime, fulfilling the deviant identity that society continues to impose.

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Consequences of Secondary Deviance

1. Stigma and Identity

When someone is labeled as deviant, it often creates a powerful negative identity that changes how they see themselves and how others treat them.

• Stigma: A stigma is an undesirable label that causes others to deny someone full social acceptance. It can be based on physical traits (like a disability), moral judgments (such as being seen as dishonest), or group membership (for example, belonging to a group that society discriminates against).

• Master Status: The deviant label can become a person’s main defining feature, known as their master status. For instance, someone might come to see themselves primarily as a “convict,” “addict,” or “beggar,” even if they have many other qualities.

• Spoiled Identity: Once stigmatized, people often experience what sociologist Erving Goffman called a spoiled identity (Goffman, 1963). Their reputation and social standing are damaged, and they are seen mainly through the lens of the negative label.

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2. Coping with a Deviant Identity

People often develop ways to manage the emotional and social burden of being labeled.

• Deviance Avowal: Some individuals openly identify as deviant, using the label to gain control over their situation. For example, a recovering alcoholic might call themselves an “alcoholic” to resist social pressure to drink. Ralph Turner (1972), who introduced the term, saw avowal as a stabilizing response to competing social pressures rather than a sign of resignation.

• Tertiary Deviance: Others reject the negative label altogether and work to redefine their behavior as normal or acceptable, such as activists reframing certain stigmatized behaviors as forms of identity or self-expression.

• Passing: Some people try to hide or downplay the stigma so they can blend in, a strategy known as passing.

• In-Group Orientation: Others embrace their identity and seek acceptance among people who share it. They may challenge mainstream views and create communities that celebrate their shared experiences.

Identity substitution means deliberately trading one stigma for a less costly one. Park (2002) interviewed 24 voluntarily childless adults. Some said they “can’t” have children rather than admit they had chosen not to.

The same people combined several strategies, including passing, turning an accusation of selfishness back on the accuser, and arguing that parenthood is not needed to be socially valuable. These are general responses to stigma, not mechanisms unique to criminal labeling.

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3. Social Consequences of Labeling

Being labeled deviant can have serious social effects, often leading to exclusion, discrimination, and weakened community ties.

• Social Rejection: People who break major social rules may be shunned or ridiculed, losing acceptance within their communities.

• Difficult Relationships: A stigma makes it hard to interact normally with others. For example, an ex-convict might struggle to rebuild trust or friendships because the “jailbird” label dominates how others see them.

• Limited Opportunities: In a field experiment, employers who asked about criminal records were 63% more likely to call back applicants with no record (Agan & Starr, 2018). This can trap people in a cycle of disadvantage and continued deviance.

• Weakened Bonds: For young people, being labeled as a “troublemaker” or “delinquent” can weaken their connection to school or family, increasing the risk of ongoing misbehavior.

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4. Legal and Institutional Consequences

When deviance becomes criminalized, labeling leads to formal punishment and legal records that can follow people for life.

• Formal Sanctions: Once behavior is defined as criminal, it carries official penalties like fines, arrests, imprisonment, or expulsion from school.

• Backfiring Punishment: Instead of deterring future crime, harsh treatment can sometimes make things worse. In a study of 2,127 US middle-school students, those stopped or arrested by police later reported more delinquency than comparable peers with no contact (Wiley et al., 2013).

• Resocialization in Institutions: In prisons and similar institutions, people undergo involuntary resocialization. Their old identities are stripped away through humiliating processes (like uniform rules or head shaving) and replaced with new, compliant ones. Goffman (1961) called such settings total institutions.

• Unequal Justice: Labels and punishments aren’t always applied fairly. Factors like race, social class, and appearance often influence who gets labeled as “criminal.” For example, poorer students or people from minority backgrounds are more likely to be arrested or punished harshly for the same behavior as more privileged peers.

• Creating the “Delinquent”: Legal systems don’t just respond to deviance. They help create categories like “delinquent” or “criminal.” These labels justify ongoing surveillance and control, reinforcing inequality and social division.

5. Policy and Practice Applications

Understanding secondary deviance has shaped how some institutions respond to labeled people.

• Record Reform: Record sealing, expungement, and “clean slate” laws aim to remove the employment barrier a criminal record creates (Agan & Starr, 2018).
• Ban the Box Caution: Hiding the record question can redirect discrimination onto race, so policy must also address employers’ biases (Agan & Starr, 2018).
• Youth Diversion: Diversion programs steer first-time young offenders toward warnings or restorative conferencing, reducing formal contact that can amplify delinquency (Wiley et al., 2013).
• School Discipline: Some schools use restorative, relationship-based discipline instead of suspension for minor infractions, avoiding the “troublemaker” master status.
• Recovery Programs: Alcoholics Anonymous treats calling oneself “an alcoholic” as a resource for staying sober, an application of deviance avowal (Turner, 1972).
• Fair-Chance Hiring: Some employers delay record checks and review a disclosed record case by case instead of rejecting it automatically.

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Critical Evaluation

Labeling theory is a micro-level perspective that comes from symbolic interactionism, a branch of sociology that studies how people create meaning through social interaction.

Labeling theory has been extremely influential. It showed that deviance is relative: what counts as deviant depends on context. It also showed that the powerful often define what is “normal.”

Even so, it has important limitations. It struggles to explain where deviance originates and why labeling affects people differently.

1. Failure to Explain Primary Deviance:

A major limitation of labeling theory is that it does not explain why deviance happens in the first place.

It focuses on society’s reaction after an act has been committed but doesn’t explore what led to the initial rule-breaking (known as primary deviance).

For example, labeling theory can explain how someone continues to steal after being labeled a thief, but not why they stole the first time.

2. Mixed Evidence for Secondary Deviance:

The theory claims that being labeled increases the likelihood of continued deviance, leading to secondary deviance.

However, research findings are mixed.

Some studies do show that harsh treatment or stigmatization increases reoffending, while others find no effect or even reduced offending (Thorsell & Klemke, 1972; Paternoster & Iovanni, 1989).

This inconsistency makes it difficult to confirm labeling theory’s main prediction.

Paternoster and Iovanni (1989) reviewed the quantitative evidence and found weak or inconsistent links between reflected appraisals and reoffending, especially among adult offenders. Reflected appraisals are how a person believes others see them.

Wiley, Slocum, and Esbensen (2013) later tested how police contact might amplify offending.

The matched, longitudinal design is stronger than a single survey. It is still observational, because randomly assigning who gets stopped is not ethically possible.

3. Impact on Self-Image Varies:

Labeling theory assumes that being labeled deviant damages a person’s self-image, but not everyone internalizes a deviant label.

Some people reject the label and go on to lead conventional lives.

For example, an ex-offender might strongly resist identifying as a “criminal” and instead focus on rehabilitation.

This variability is a central puzzle, not a minor exception. Desistance research studies how and why people who have offended stop offending, often by building a new, non-criminal identity. Rejecting the label outright is the focus of tertiary deviance.

4. Acceptance vs. Rejection of Labels:

Critics point out that labeling theory doesn’t explain why some people accept deviant labels and others don’t.

Two people might receive the same label (for example, “addict”), but one might internalize it and continue using substances, while another might seek treatment and reject the identity.

Restivo and Lanier (2015) offer one partial answer. In their study, self-concept stopped mediating the effect of arrest once peer association was taken into account. Access to a delinquent peer group after labeling may therefore matter more than any internal difference. This remains speculative.

5. Bias in Labeling Not Always Clear:

Labeling theory argues that labeling depends heavily on non-legal factors such as race, class, and appearance.

Famous examples exist. William Chambliss’s Saints and Roughnecks study showed that middle-class youth avoided punishment for the same acts that got working-class boys arrested (Chambliss, 1973). Other research, however, finds less consistent evidence of bias.

The extent of this inequality varies across contexts and legal systems.

Contemporary Research

Research since 2015 has used stronger designs to ask two questions. Which mechanism carries most of the effect? And how strongly does criminal-record stigma operate in real hiring?

Which Mechanism Matters Most?

Restivo and Lanier (2015) tested three classic mediators together instead of one at a time.

The random sample fixes a weakness Paternoster and Iovanni (1989) identified. Even so, the sample was high-risk. The self-concept scale also measured negative rather than specifically deviant self-concept.

The result shows relative strength, not that identity is irrelevant.

Wiley and colleagues’ (2013) panel, described above, also found delinquent peers and weakened bonds mediated the effect of police contact. That gives the peer finding some replication in a different sample.

Does a Criminal Record Block Employment?

Agan and Starr (2018) tested the formerly incarcerated job seeker pathway directly. “Ban the Box” policies stop employers asking about criminal history on application forms.

The authors read the racial gap as employers relying on exaggerated impressions of racial differences in conviction rates.

As a randomized field experiment, it has strong internal validity.

It covers entry-level online applications in two US labor markets, measures callbacks rather than hiring or wages, and uses one scripted felony scenario.

Its Ban the Box finding is also contested, because some later studies find smaller or more mixed racial effects.

The finding that a disclosed record depresses callbacks is much less contested.

Weighing the Evidence

Agan and Starr’s randomized experiment sits near the top of the evidence hierarchy for causal claims about employer behavior. Restivo and Lanier’s simultaneous test is stronger than earlier single-mediator studies but remains correlational. Wiley and colleagues’ matched panel falls between the two.

None of this research randomly assigns who is arrested or carries a record, because that would be unethical. Every non-experimental study therefore faces the counterfactual problem: nobody can know what a labeled person’s life would have looked like without the label.

Matching and statistical controls approximate that missing comparison. Neither removes every confound.

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Comparison with Rival Theories

Other theories explain continued offending without an internalized deviant identity.

Rational Choice Theory

Rational choice theory treats continued offending as a cost-benefit calculation. A formerly incarcerated person who cannot find legitimate work may return to crime because legitimate options have narrowed, not because of a “convict” self-concept.

This reading sits closer to the blocked-opportunity evidence (Restivo & Lanier, 2015; Agan & Starr, 2018) than to Lemert’s self-concept account. The criminological version develops this argument.

Strain Theory

Merton’s strain theory offers a structural explanation: people denied legitimate means to valued goals may turn to deviance. Agan and Starr’s (2018) hiring findings document exactly this blocked-opportunity pattern.

The two theories complement each other. Secondary deviance explains why a labeled person’s identity and social world reorganize around the deviant role. Strain theory explains why staying in that role becomes the more available option once conventional opportunities narrow.

Desistance and Life-Course Criminology

Desistance research poses the sharpest challenge to a deterministic reading.

Most people who offend, including many labeled repeatedly, eventually stop. That would be hard to explain if identity reorganization were a one-way street.

Life-course research shows that strong adult bonds, such as a stable job or a supportive partnership, predict desistance even among persistent offenders. Narrative studies document labeled people building a new, “redeemed” identity, which overlaps with tertiary deviance.

This work does not refute secondary deviance. It bounds it: internalization is real, but neither universal nor permanent.

Other Interactionist Explanations (Micro-Level)

These theories, like labeling theory, focus on how deviance emerges from social interaction and meaning-making in everyday life.

1. Differential Association Theory (Edwin Sutherland)

• Core Idea: People learn deviant behavior the same way they learn normal behavior, through socialization. If someone is surrounded by peers who support or engage in deviant acts, they’re more likely to imitate them.

• Criticism: It can’t fully explain spontaneous or unlearned deviance, such as crimes of passion or mental illness-related deviance.

• Modern Evidence: Wiley et al. (2013) and Restivo and Lanier (2015) both found delinquent peers among the strongest mediators of labeling’s effect, a mechanism this theory recognizes.

2. Techniques of Neutralization (Sykes & Matza)

• Core Idea: Young people who break rules often justify or “neutralize” their actions to protect their self-image. They use rationalizations like “no one was hurt” or “everyone does it.” These excuses allow them to commit deviance without seeing themselves as bad people.

• Criticism: Some researchers argue that these justifications often come after the deviant act rather than before it.

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