Conflict Theory - Assignment Example

As far as our roles are concerned, our society, community or group expects certain roles from us (Woznaik, 2009). An individual cannot be identified alone as he has no individuality or character on his own in isolation, but when he is part of a certain system. Whatever a person performs or does, it is according to some social or societal conditions or norms such as rules and regulations, conditions for playing and so on (Callahan, 2010). The idea of self is related to one’s positioning in a society.

If a person regards himself delinquent, he has developed a self-concept of delinquency. If the self-concept is positive, the person shows avoidance of delinquent behaviour and if the self-concept is negative, he is more prone to be delinquent. Labelling of a person as delinquent or good also builds a self-concept that is either good or bad (Brownfield & Thompson, 2008). The societies who have lower crime rates promote shamefulness in a positive manner and those having higher crime rates promote shamefulness in a negative manner.

There are two concepts, stigmatization and reintegrative shaming. Stigmatization leaves the wrong doer as a disrespectful person who should not be forgiven while reintegrative shaming allows wrong doers to be forgiven and gain respect again. The wrong doer is regarded as a person who has done a wrong deed, but is not overtly bad (Braithwaite, 2000). If labelling of a person is done using reintegrative shaming, the crime will be minimized while the labelling of a person by stigmatizing will make his situation worse and he will appear more delinquent.

Overall, a person requires social support for keeping himself away from crime (Braithwaite, 2000). A person becomes a bully or victim when he is stigmatized in his childhood at some time by his parents or some other person in authority (Leyva & Bickel, 2010). Parents who are hostile,