“The Saints and the Roughnecks” Revisited: Does Labeling Kids Create Criminals?

William Chambliss was one of the early scholars to focus on the process of criminalization and, in particular, on the effects of stigmatizing labeling. His classic 1973 essay in Society entitled “The Saints and the Roughnecks” showed how differential labeling exacted costs that reified inequality (Quisenberry, 2010). He illuminated how disadvantaged youths were more likely to be singled out as wayward and how this societal reaction increased their risk for social failure and criminal involvement. Informed by this tradition, this chapter shows how Chambliss’s thesis about the iatrogenic effects of labels on youths remains true today.