labeling theory, an anecdote and reaction

In a couple classes we talked about labeling and how people might conform to expectations or roles.  This is relevant in issues of crime and deviance, and also in the process of illness and mental illness. Here is a student’s reflection on her own family’s experience with labeling, and my comments follow the anecdote in this purple font.

For the second reaction paper, I’m going to write about the labeling theory.  When we talked about this in class, I was very interested and wanted to know more.  I have always thought that my brother was a product of labeling.  He was always labeled as a problem child.  

Growing up, my brother was always overweight.  My father constantly made references to his weight problem.  My parents would chastise him for eating too much at dinner and would compare him to me.  I tended to be very small and I know it bothered him that he wasn’t thinner.  Not only did he have a weight problem, but he also had problems in school.  This led to yet another comparison between him and I because I always excelled in academics.

In school, my brother was always labeled as the slacker who ran with the wrong crowd.  He never received good grades and felt that his teachers labeled him as someone who was never going to amount to anything.  He claimed that his teachers knew about him before he was even their student.  Because he felt this way, my parents took him out of Mt. Zion schools and paid out of area tuition to send him to Macon schools.

While attending Macon, my brother once again felt that his teachers singled him out and didn’t like him.  He never felt that his grades were the ones that he deserved but rather, punishments for his teachers’ dislike.  He was frequently absent and our parents stated that he was just not trying hard enough.  They got into many fights over his lack of achievement which later led to him transferring to yet another school.  He attended this school, but was kicked out for lack of attendance.  Eventually, he received his GED on his first try without classes.

My brother got into drugs heavily and we later found out that it started when he was 13.  My parents struggled to help him overcome his addiction and often wondered where they went wrong with their parenting.  In fact, they bickered so much about him and his well-being that they eventually divorced.

I firmly believe that my brother became his label.  Growing up, my parents made constant references to his weight.  This did not encourage him to lose weight, but actually discouraged him.  To this day, he remains overweight.  He was also labeled a problem child early on.  These labels became a stigma to him.  He never felt like he was smart enough, thin enough, or good enough.

My brother and I are very different people.  I would argue that I am also a product of labeling.  I am several years younger than my brother.  I saw the problems that labeling caused my brother, so I became everything opposite.  I never had a weight problem, always excelled at school, and chose not to do drugs.  I didn’t want my parents to be disappointed in me the way they were with my brother.

As a social worker, I believe that it is our duty to help end this cycle.  We need to teach our youth self-confidence. It should also be taught that it is okay to make mistakes.  We need not dwell on them, but find a way to make sure that we learn from them.  High expectations from parents are a fact of life.  However, there is a point when they are not expectations, but stigmas placed on them.

Your personal story brings to mind a few critical ideas I want to comment upon.

First, if we see something bad going on, it’s imported to describe it as a specific situation in a specific context, and help people see how the situation or context was involved with the problem behavior or failure. For example, a parent might say, “You ate a tremendous amount of food today, you must have been feeling really hungry today. I’ll try to serve you less food tomorrow so you won’t overeat, do you think that would help you?” This would be better than saying, “You always overeat, and you’re getting fat. A fat person like you shouldn’t eat so much.”  In the first example, the parent is commenting on the overeating as a specific one-time event, and is also suggesting a solution, and is offering to be part of the solution (by serving less food).  The parent is also asking the child to be engaged in the change in behavior by asking, “do you think that would help you?”  It might be even better to just ask an open-ended question to let the child say something about their eating behavior on that specific day and what might help change behaviors at future meals.

Second, your story reminds me of the importance of holding high expectations of everyone while at the same time having a realistic understanding that people won’t reach your expectations. If teachers have low expectations and assume the worst of their students, the students will be “allowed” by the teacher’s expectations to perform at the level the teacher had signaled them to perform to. If a teacher holds all students to high expectations, students will attempt to achieve those higher expectations. Yet, when holding high expectations, I think it’s important to allow failure, and let students know that high expectations must be coupled with patience, support, and a high tolerance for people not achieving the highest marks. When we have high expectations and show too much disappointment or displeasure when people can’t achieve what we asked of them, then we will tend to encourage frustration and discouragement. The correct way to apply high expectations is to keep up an optimistic and accepting attitude.  “Oh well, you didn’t quite reach the mark this time, but you came pretty far toward it and you tried hard. Let’s see what you can do next time, and what I can do to help you get closer to the mark we’re striving to reach. I’m confident you’ll eventually get it.” 

When we’re disappointed with ourselves, or with our spouse or a child, we can communicate our disappointment, but we need to make the feeling related to a specific instance of behavior, and not raise issues of a person “always” doing something we don’t like, or “being” the wrong type of person. In the present instant of time we can’t do something about a problem that is “always” going on, can we?  We can only modify what we are doing in the present instant.  And, it’s hardly fair to blame us for being wrong. We can only control what we do, not what we are.

Student wants fewer Americans incarcerated.

This is a student-written editorial, and I'm sharing it on the blog without my comments.

I am writing about our prison system and the need for reform.   

Senator Jim Webb from Virginia is on a crusade to do just that.  He cites that the United States, with only 5% of the world's population, is housing 25% of the world's reported criminals.  The numbers of people incarcerated for drug related crimes have soared 1200% since 1980 when Ronald Reagan declared a war on drugs.  However, a significant number of people incarcerated for drug offenses have no history of violence or high-level drug activity.  He also goes on to state that there are four times as many mentally ill people are in prisons than in mental health hospitals.  Our prisons are overcrowded, but not with the people that should be in our penal system.  

The United States spends about 68 billion dollars a year on corrections. It would be prudent for us to consider whether that money could be better spent on treatment for substance abuse and mental illness.   Certainly the correctional facilities are not equipped to address the needs of those addicted to drugs and/or alcohol or those suffering with mental illness.  We need to move these people out of the prisons and provide them with services that would allow them the opportunity to become productive members of society.  

There was a time when we addressed substance abuse as a health issue. Now we decided these people are criminals and that they should be punished for "breaking the rules".  Then what? They are released after serving their sentence and return to society with the same issues that landed them in the penal system in the first place.    How is it that a person suffering with mental illness can find rehabilitation in the confines of a prison?  While none of us approve of those that break the rules of society, our energy and resources would be better directed at reducing the number of people incarcerated for minor substance abuse violations and non-violent crimes in order to make room for the people that we built prisons for, those that we need protection from.

War on Drugs and Marijuana Legalization

The following comment about the legalization of Marijuana was posted on the discussion board at the change.gov website:

“It is high time that marijuana be either legalized or at the very least decriminalized. This prohibition is only empowering drug dealers to push real drugs like cocaine and heroin on our children. Marijuana has never in recorded history killed anyone. It is less addictive than caffeine, and can be grown for responsible personal use for next to nothing. All the while alcohol, and tobacco (the real gateways drugs) which kill millions a year and ruin families lives are legal? Its also ironic that the "Partnership for a drug free America", which runs all those anti marijuana commercials is actually a conglomerate of multibillion dollar pharmaceutical companies and used to include all the major alcohol/tobacco companies. Obama himself admittedly smoked Marijuana growing up and he's our next president. He probably wouldn't be though had he been caught and had a drug charge along with all his federal financial aid for college revoked. The people of the united states are ready for a change with regards to marijuana prohibition and they showed that by making it the #1 question on your community poll. In Massachusetts on Nov 4th, more people voted for marijuana decriminalization (which passed) than voted for Obama to become president. If given the opportunity i think you will see this is not a fluke.”

I agree with many of the comments made in this statement. The only one that I think may be questionable is when he states “Marijuana has never in recorded history killed anyone.” I am not sure that this statement is legitimate. I think this comment is relevant since Springfield has recently decriminalized marijuana. Although I do not smoke, I do not see anything wrong with marijuana. I have been told that I cannot really have an opinion about it until I have experienced it, but I disagree. To me, it does not seem any worse than drinking alcohol, and seems a lot safer than other drugs, such as cocaine and heroin, which are also mentioned above. I am all for marijuana being legalized, with certain limitations such as: age limit, amounts in possession, and operating machinery, driving, and working under the influence.

I’d really like to know what the tax benefits we could get by legalizing it would be. We could release many people from jail and probation, and police could devote more time to cocaine and crystal methamphetamine dealers. If marijuana were legalized I’d like to tax the heck out of it. Aren’t there any studies that make creditable estimations of the economics involved with marijuana legalization? I remember I had an economics professor at Washington University (Dr. Fred Raines) who was quite active in the marijuana legalization movement, and I bet he had some models and forecasts.

I agree with your logic, that you can judge the merits of a substance without trying it. I haven’t fought in any wars, but I have read war memoirs and studied books about war, and I have reached the conclusion that war is awful, and should be avoided. I haven’t smoked, used drugs, or developed a habit of getting intoxicated with alcohol, yet I can look around me and see that in general, tobacco, alcohol, and illegal drugs do net harm in society, and are generally bad (alcohol and marijuana have benefits, but if I could wave a wand and make them vanish from the Earth, I’d do so without hesitation).

With drug policy we have a clash between an idea of doing noble policies that are good for public health and the actual implementation of such policies. As it turns out, when we try to execute a law that forbids the use of a popular and only mildly harmful substance (mildly harmful to many people, benign to many others, but extremely harmful to a handful of people who become hard-core addicts), we run into the trouble of enforcing something that is a bother to most people.

If we had a way of instantly issuing electronic tickets of $40 to anyone who ever drove their car more than 5 miles-per-hour over a speed limit we’d have a similar problem of people being angry and outraged at the inconvenience. There would be a decline in traffic fatalities, and that would be worth it, but the costs of inserting little computer sensors that recorded a driver’s speed and sent a radio signal to indicate when a fine was to be charged would be a burden on all the car purchasers, and there would be a thriving black market in ways of evading the system.

I think with the inclusion of marijuana in the war on drugs we’re getting a similar backlash from the users and the friends of the users. My questions is: when will the federal policy change? There has been grassroots activism for changes in marijuana laws, but this activism hasn’t generated the legal reform yet, at least not at a federal level. Is this finally about to change?