Secondary deviance is the process by which a person who has been caught and labeled for breaking a rule begins to reorganize their self-concept around that label, eventually embracing the deviant identity and committing further or deeper rule-breaking as a result. The idea, introduced by sociologist Edwin Lemert in the mid-twentieth century, draws a sharp line between an initial rule violation and what happens after society reacts to it. The reaction, not just the act itself, drives the person deeper into deviance. It is one of the more counterintuitive ideas in criminology: that the systems designed to correct bad behavior can, under certain conditions, make it worse.
How Primary and Secondary Deviance Differ
Lemert distinguished between two stages. Primary deviance is a rule violation that does not fundamentally change who the person thinks they are. Someone shoplifts once, gets drunk and causes a scene, or skips school. If nobody reacts strongly, or if the reaction is mild and non-stigmatizing, the person moves on. The act stays an event rather than becoming a defining feature of their life. Lemert argued that primary deviance “causes no long-term consequences for the offender,” either because it goes unnoticed or because the social reaction is not harsh enough to stick.1SAGE Publications / Encyclopedia of Criminological Theory. Lemert, Edwin M.: Primary and Secondary Deviance
Secondary deviance kicks in when the reaction is strong enough to reshape the person’s identity. The violation gets noticed, punished, and publicized. The person is now “a thief,” “an addict,” “a delinquent.” According to Lemert, secondary deviance involves a realignment of an individual’s self-concept, either with the deviance itself or with a group considered deviant by mainstream society.2SAGE Publications / Encyclopedia of Criminological Theory. Lemert, Edwin M.: Primary and Secondary Deviance The critical ingredient is not the severity of the original act. It is the severity and permanence of the social response.
The Role of the “Master Status”
Howard Becker extended Lemert’s framework by describing how a deviant label can become a person’s master status, the single attribute that overwhelms all others in how other people see them. A person might be a good parent, a reliable coworker, a talented musician, but once labeled a criminal or an addict, those other qualities fade in the eyes of others. Becker argued that the negative images attached to a deviant label override other attributes a person may have, and that people begin to assume the labeled individual is fundamentally unwilling or unable to follow moral rules.3SpringerLink / Handbook on Crime and Deviance. Labeling Theory
This has a feedback quality. Once a person has been typed as deviant, any future misbehavior tends to be interpreted as confirmation of their essential nature rather than an isolated lapse. Even past behavior gets re-read through the new lens. A fight in middle school that went unremarked at the time becomes, in retrospect, an early warning sign. The label rewrites not just the present but the person’s biography. This rewriting is part of what pushes people from primary into secondary deviance: the social world around them narrows their options and reflects a deviant identity back at them until they accept it.4SpringerLink / Handbook on Crime and Deviance. Labeling Theory
How It Plays Out in Schools
One of the clearest settings where secondary deviance has been studied is the school system, particularly through suspension and expulsion. When a student is suspended, the punishment is supposed to deter future misbehavior. But research tells a different story. A study using longitudinal data found that students who experienced a suspension showed a significant increase in offending over time, and the effect was cumulative: students suspended repeatedly reported progressively higher levels of delinquent behavior.5PubMed Central. The Effect of School Discipline on Offending across Time That pattern held even after accounting for prior delinquency, which is the key test. If kids who were already more delinquent simply got suspended more, you would expect the prior behavior to explain the later behavior. It did not fully account for it. The suspension itself appeared to contribute.
Suspensions also change how students feel about school. Research has found that being suspended negatively changes students’ academic identities and their perceptions of adults in the school.6Sociology of Education. Suspended Attitudes: Exclusion and Emotional Disengagement from School A student who once saw school as their place, where they were a student first and a troublemaker occasionally, can come to see it as hostile territory where they are defined by their worst moment. That emotional disengagement is a textbook step in the secondary deviance process: the institutional reaction erodes the conventional identity and loosens the person’s attachment to conventional institutions.
The Juvenile Justice Pipeline
If school discipline can accelerate deviance, formal contact with the justice system does so even more visibly. Juvenile diversion programs exist specifically to interrupt this process. The logic is straightforward: keep young first-time offenders out of the formal court system, avoid attaching a criminal label, and deal with the behavior through counseling, community service, or restorative processes instead. A meta-analysis of diversion programs found that diversion reduces recidivism more effectively than conventional judicial processing.7Criminal Justice and Behavior. The Effect of Youth Diversion Programs on Recidivism The fact that doing less with young offenders often produces better outcomes than doing more is strong circumstantial evidence that the formal system itself carries labeling costs.
One study examining a specific diversion program for youth with behavioral health concerns found that those who successfully completed the program had substantially lower odds of being charged with an adult offense by age 18 or 19, compared to those who were not enrolled. Youth who were not enrolled in the program had roughly twice the odds of an adult charge compared to those who completed it.8Children and Youth Services Review. Examining the impact of a juvenile justice diversion program for youth with behavioral health concerns on early adulthood recidivism These findings are consistent with what labeling theory predicts: formal processing attaches a stigmatizing label, which in turn feeds the cycle of secondary deviance.
Not every study confirms diversion’s superiority, though. A three-year randomized experiment with first-time juvenile status offenders found no significant differences in recidivism among youth assigned to different diversion treatments or a control group.9Criminal Justice Policy Review. Juvenile Diversion: Results of a 3-Year Experimental Study This suggests that the relationship between labeling and outcomes is not automatic. For mild, first-time offenses, the label may not be severe enough to trigger identity change, or the youth may have enough social support to absorb it without internalizing it.
Identity Shifts Behind Bars
In the adult system, the secondary deviance process is amplified by incarceration itself. A study of novice and experienced inmates found that criminal thinking and criminal identity rose in new inmates over time, consistent with what criminologists call “prisonization.” Novice inmates arrived with lower levels of criminal self-concept and saw those levels climb during their initial period of incarceration.10Criminal Justice and Behavior. Changes in Criminal Thinking and Identity in Novice and Experienced Inmates The prison environment, which surrounds a person with criminal peers and reinforces a criminal identity through daily routine, appears to deepen exactly the self-concept shift that Lemert described.
The effects radiate outward, too. Research on high-incarceration communities has found that mass incarceration concentrates its collateral consequences geographically, directing aggressive policing into those neighborhoods and reinforcing the perception of community members as criminal. In some neighborhoods, prison-originated gang identities have migrated from the institution to the street, extending the prison’s power to define and construct criminality well beyond its walls.11Sociology Compass. The Collateral Consequences of Prisonization: Racial Sorting, Carceral Identity, and Community Criminalization This is secondary deviance operating at the community level rather than the individual level: the label is not applied just to a person, but to a neighborhood, and everyone in it inherits some of the stigma.
When the Label Gets Under the Skin
Secondary deviance is often discussed in terms of behavior, but the underlying mechanism is psychological. The label changes how you think about yourself, and the changed self-concept then drives the changed behavior. This process has been studied extensively in mental health settings. According to modified labeling theory, the stigma attached to a mental health diagnosis can be internalized, dominating a person’s self-concept and reducing self-esteem in a process that functions as a self-fulfilling prophecy.12ResearchGate. The Consequences of Labeling Mental Illnesses on the Self-concept: A Review of the Literature and Future Directions
Research has confirmed that cultural conceptions of mental illness do affect the self-meanings of people diagnosed with a mental disorder. A study testing modified labeling theory found that stigma sentiments predicted corresponding dimensions of self-identity among psychiatric patients, though the relationship was sometimes more complex than a simple one-to-one link between a specific stigma belief and a specific aspect of self-meaning.13Social Psychology Quarterly. Stigma Sentiments and Self-Meanings: Exploring the Modified Labeling Theory of Mental Illness In plainer terms, if the culture says mentally ill people are dangerous or incompetent, the diagnosed person begins to see themselves that way.
The same dynamic appears in substance use. One study found that higher levels of perceived alcohol stigma were associated with an increased likelihood of continued alcohol use disorder and internalizing disorders, and that this relationship was mediated by the psychological pathway of stigma itself.14PubMed Central. Alcohol stigma and persistence of alcohol and other psychiatric disorders: A modified labeling theory approach A review of the broader literature on substance use found that stigma experiences are common among people with these disorders and can negatively affect feelings and beliefs about treatment, though the quantitative evidence for a direct effect on outcomes is mixed and may operate indirectly through emotions and self-efficacy.15PubMed Central. The association between perceived stigma and substance use disorder treatment outcomes: a review That indirect pathway is still consistent with the secondary deviance framework: the label produces shame, the shame erodes the person’s confidence in recovery, and the eroded confidence makes relapse more likely.
The Defiance Pathway
Not everyone who is labeled responds with passive acceptance. Some people get angry. Criminologist Lawrence Sherman proposed a theory of “defiance” to explain the conditions under which punishment actually increases crime. His framework argues that when a person perceives punishment as unfair, they are more likely to respond with unacknowledged shame that converts into defiant pride and more offending.16Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency. Defiance, Deterrence, and Irrelevance: A Theory of the Criminal Sanction Defiance theory identifies four conditions that need to be present: the person perceives the sanction as unfair, is poorly bonded to the sanctioning community, perceives the sanction as stigmatizing, and denies the shame the sanction produces.17Crime & Delinquency. Defiance Theory and Life Course Explanations of Persistent Offending
This matters because it illuminates why the same label does not produce the same result in every person. A teenager who feels the school suspension was fair, who has a strong bond with teachers, and who is able to acknowledge embarrassment may absorb the label without it reshaping their identity. A teenager who feels the punishment was racially motivated, who already feels alienated from school, and who converts shame into rage is a much more likely candidate for the secondary deviance spiral. The process is conditional, not inevitable.
Gang Membership as Secondary Deviance in Action
One vivid illustration of secondary deviance comes from research on gang entry. A study of young men in northwest England found that marginalization and institutional constraint left many young people feeling powerless and lacking in identity. Joining a gang became a way to seize control through criminal risk-taking behavior and to gain an identity, a recognized social role, even if that role was defined by being “bad.”18Emerald Insight. Joining gangs: living on the edge? This captures the secondary deviance mechanism with particular clarity: the person is already marginalized by mainstream institutions, the deviant identity fills a vacuum, and the new identity then organizes their behavior around further deviance. It is not that joining a gang is a rational career choice. It is that when conventional identities have been foreclosed, the deviant identity is what remains available.
Digital Labels and the Permanent Record
The internet has changed the dynamics of labeling in a way Lemert could not have anticipated. In earlier decades, a criminal label could fade as a person moved to a new town or waited long enough for memories to dim. Online, that fading is far harder. Research has found that the internet has become a space where the power to apply criminal labels is in the hands of many people, not just the justice system, and that digital stigma in the form of a permanent online footprint is more difficult to escape than ever. Interviews with labeled individuals revealed that this digital persistence can discourage them from engaging with the processes of reintegration.19Punishment & Society. Digital degradation: Stigma management in the internet age
Think about what this means in practical terms. A person convicted of a crime in 2010 who has served their sentence, completed probation, and stayed clean for a decade may still find that their mugshot appears on the first page of search results. Any employer who searches their name encounters the label before encountering the person. Sex offender registries are perhaps the starkest example, but the principle applies broadly. The digital record creates a form of perpetual labeling that blocks the identity transition back to a conventional self-concept. If secondary deviance is driven by a label that won’t let go, the internet has made that grip tighter.
Breaking the Cycle Through Employment and Credentials
If labeling creates secondary deviance, the logical question is whether unlabeling, or at least diluting the label, can reverse it. Employment is one of the most studied pathways. Having a criminal record creates massive barriers to getting hired, but research suggests that positive credentials can push back against criminal record stigma. A study of people who contested initial employment denials by submitting evidence of rehabilitation found that employer recommendations and program completion were positively correlated with being cleared to work. Interestingly, the act of persisting through the contestation process may itself signal rehabilitation and lower risk.20Crime & Delinquency. Criminal Records, Positive Credentials and Recidivism: Incorporating Evidence of Rehabilitation Into Criminal Background Check Employment Decisions
Research examining the mechanisms behind these employment outcomes found that trustworthiness was the most influential factor in how positive credentials affected employer perceptions, while general recidivism risk was consistently the least influential.21Criminology. [It’s] what you do after the mistake that counts: Positive employment credentials, criminal record stigma, and potential pathways of mediation In other words, what matters most to employers is whether they believe the person can be trusted, not an abstract risk calculation. Reference letters that vouch for a person’s character carry more weight than program certificates. This makes sense in a secondary deviance framework: the label says “this person is untrustworthy,” and only personal testimony from someone who knows them can effectively counter that message.
Resisting the Label
People are not passive recipients of labels. Research with individuals convicted of sexual offenses, who face among the most stigmatizing labels in the criminal justice system, found that they actively employed a variety of strategies to resist self-stigmatization and manage what the sociologist Erving Goffman called a “spoiled identity.”22PubMed Central. “That Doesn’t Define Who I Am”: Strategies of Resistance to Stigmatization Among a Sample of U. S. Individuals Convicted of a Sexual Offense These strategies ranged from compartmentalizing the label as something separate from their core self to actively building alternative identities through work, relationships, or community involvement. The fact that people fight against internalizing a label is a reminder that secondary deviance is a tendency, not a certainty. The label creates pressure toward a deviant identity, but individuals push back, and some succeed.
The Body Keeps the Score
Stigma does not only reshape identity and behavior. It gets into the body. Research on stigmatized groups has found that experiences of discrimination are positively associated with allostatic load, a composite measure of physiological wear-and-tear on the body’s stress systems, even after controlling for age. Both major discriminatory events and cumulative daily experiences of stigma independently contribute to this physiological disruption.23PubMed. Intersectional stigma, health behaviors, and allostatic load among sexual and gender diverse people A separate study found that gay men showed elevated cortisol responses to repeated stress and that this elevation was predicted by minority stressors, suggesting that the body’s stress-regulation system can be pushed into a chronically activated state by ongoing stigma.24PubMed. Dysregulated by stigma: Cortisol responses to repeated psychosocial stress in gay and heterosexual men
These findings come from research on stigmatized identities broadly rather than criminal labeling specifically, but the implications are direct. If being labeled and stigmatized produces chronic physiological stress, and chronic stress impairs judgment, emotional regulation, and health, then the label is not just creating a psychological push toward deviance. It is degrading the biological machinery a person needs to make good decisions and maintain stable relationships. The secondary deviance process may have a physiological dimension that Lemert never considered.
Cross-Cultural Limits
Labeling theory was developed in a Western, predominantly American context, and it does not travel perfectly across cultures. A study testing labeling theory and reintegrative shaming theory in China found that the evidence tended to support reintegrative shaming theory more than labeling theory.25PubMed Central. Social control in China: applications of the labeling theory and the reintegrative shaming theory Reintegrative shaming, a concept developed by John Braithwaite, distinguishes between shaming that is stigmatizing and exclusionary (which labeling theory predicts will increase deviance) and shaming that is followed by rituals of reacceptance into the community (which should reduce it). In cultures with strong communal bonds and formal or informal rituals for reintegrating the shamed person, the secondary deviance spiral may be less likely to take hold because the label does not become permanent. The person is allowed to return to a conventional identity.
This cultural variation is a useful corrective to treating secondary deviance as a universal law. The process depends on specific social conditions: how permanent the label is, whether the community offers a path back, whether the person’s other social bonds are strong enough to compete with the deviant identity. In a tight-knit community that practices reintegration, the same act that would produce secondary deviance in an atomized, punishment-oriented society might produce genuine reform instead.