Criminology

Theories and Theorists

Theorists in the field of criminal justice:

Howard Becker and Robert Agnew

The field of sociology has been extremely influential in shaping our concept of criminal justice in the 20th century. Rather than focusing on biological or moral theories of why people commit crimes, criminology has begun to place more emphasis on how social pressures may shape the decision of an individual to engage in criminal behavior or to eschew it. Two of the most popular theories exemplifying this phenomenon are that of social labeling theory and strain theory.

Howard Becker's social labeling theory first rose to prominence during the 1960s. Becker suggested that criminals were not essentially different from other persons in the sense that they were more 'wicked' or pathological. Rather, society labels certain persons (because of race, sexuality, poverty, or other behaviors) as different. Rather arbitrarily, certain persons are deemed members of potentially...
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