Deviant Career
Definition
Becker's concept describing how an individual moves sequentially through stages of deviance, from initial rule-breaking through labelling and eventually into immersion in a deviant subculture. The career metaphor highlights that deviance has a trajectory shaped by social reaction, not just individual disposition.
- Origin
- Howard Becker, labelling theory
- Stages
- Initial rule-breaking, labelling, immersion in a deviant subculture
- Emphasis
- Social reaction shapes the trajectory, not just individual disposition
- Field
- Criminology, labelling theory
Common questions
How does being labelled a deviant push someone further into a deviant career, according to this theory?+
Once others formally or informally label a person as deviant, that label can close off conventional opportunities and social relationships, pushing the person toward others who share the label, and that association with a deviant subculture reinforces the identity and provides further opportunity and normalisation for continued rule-breaking.
Is a deviant career the same as recidivism in criminal justice terms?+
They overlap but are not identical: recidivism narrowly measures repeat offending recorded by the justice system, while the deviant career concept describes a broader social process, including how a person comes to see themselves and be seen by others, that can explain why repeat offending happens rather than just documenting that it does.
Related terms
- Moral Entrepreneur
- Becker's term for an individual or group that campaigns to create or enforce moral rules, defining what will count as deviant and...
- Primary Deviance
- Rule-breaking behaviour that precedes or occurs without official labelling. Lemert argued that primary deviance is common and does not in itself alter...
- Secondary Deviance
- Deviant behaviour that arises as an adaptation to the social reaction to primary deviance. Once labelled, a person restructures their identity and...
- Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
- A situation in which a definition, though originally inaccurate or arbitrary, provokes behaviour that makes it accurate. In labelling theory, treating someone...
- Stigma
- Goffman's term for a deeply discrediting attribute that reduces the bearer to a spoiled identity in others' eyes. A criminal conviction functions...