Question

A convicted sexual offender is released on parole and arrested two weeks later for repeated sexual crimes. How would labeling theory explain this?
The offender has been labeled deviant by society and has accepted a new master status.
The offender has returned to his old neighborhood and so reestablished his former habits.
The offender has lost the social bonds he made in prison and feels disconnected from society.
The offender is poor and responding to the different cultural values that exist in his community.

Answer 1

The correct answer is A. The offender has been labeled deviant by society and has accepted a new master status.

Explanation:

The labeling theory is a perspective that aims at understanding individual's behavior based on the labels or attributes assigned to them, in this theory it is determined the terms and words that are used to refer and classify a person influence his or her behavior. Indeed, in this theory deviance or the violation of norms is caused by the labeling of certain individuals or minorities. Considering this, in the case of a sexual offender that commits the same crime over and over this behavior would be explained by the labeling theory as directly caused by the label "sexual offender" that is related to deviant behaviors and that makes the individual assumes himself as deviant and sexual offender and therefore act like one. Thus, the statement that explains the way labeling theory explains this case is the offender has been labeled deviant by society and has accepted a new master status.