The Declining Significance of Delinquent Labels in Disadvantaged Urban Communities1

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.