The Persistence of Labelling Effects

Farrington (1977a) tested a hypothesis derived from labelling theory, namely that individuals who are publicly labelled as delinquent will increase their delinquent behaviour as a result. He showed that previously uncon victed youths who were first found guilty in court between interviews at ages 14 and 18 significantly increased their self-reported delinquency scores during this period. This research was part of the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development, a longitudinal survey of 411 working-class London youths from age eight to age 24 (West, 1969; West and Farrington, 1973, 1977). Farrington's analysis was based on 383 youths who were all inter viewed and given self-reported delinquency questionnaires at ages 14, 16 and 18 (all ages are approximate). An attempt has since been made to re-interview at age 21 all those who had been convicted by then, together with a control group of non-delinquents. Of the chosen sample of 124 delinquents and 117 non-delinquents, more than 90 per cent, were actually interviewed. The vast majority of the non delinquent controls (99) were chosen at random from all non-delinquents, but the remaining 18 were chosen because they had produced relatively high self-reported delinquency scores at age 18 (see Knight, Osborn and West, 1977). Since the interviews at age 21 again included a self-reported delinquency measure, it is now possible to examine the effects of labelling up to age 21. Specifically, this paper will investigate (a) whether, in agree ment with the labelling theory prediction and in confirmation of earlier results, previously unconvicted youths who were first found guilty in court between ages 18 and 21 significantly increased their self-reported delinquency scores during this period; and (b) whether youths already convicted by 14 maintained their high self-reported delinquency scores up to age 21, and whether this was affected by later convictions. Two American researches also indicate that previously non-labelled youths increase their self-reported delinquency after being apprehended by the police. Gold (1970) showed that this was true in a sample of teenagers from Flint, Michigan, and Gold and Williams (1969) found this in a nation wide representative sample of teenagers. However, little is known about the persistence of labelling effects, or about the effects of further convictions on the deviant behaviour of convicted persons. Perhaps the most relevant research is that of Klein (1974) who found that juvenile first offenders were less likely to be re-arrested in police departments with a " high diversion " policy of avoiding taking juvenile offenders to court than in " low