Imputations of Deviance: A Retrospective Essay on the Labeling Perspective

Abstract

Edwin Lemert's and John Kitsuse's rather different uses of the term “imputation” are used to locate a central theoretical tension of the labeling perspective, one that has been most systematically expressed in labeling theorists' gingerly handling of the issue of actual deviance. In the process of attempting to reconcile this tension, the emergent labeling literature has curtailed the full advantages of Lemert's treatment of deviance and social control as separate, real-life events, on the one hand, and of Kitsuse's ethnomethodologically grounded stance, on the other.