Great Throughts Treasury

"We take nothing for granted; we accept nothing as perfect; we define nothing as the final end."

"No more self-defeating device could be discovered than the one society has developed in dealing with the criminal. It proclaims his career in such loud and dramatic forms that both he and the community accept the judgment as a fixed description. He becomes conscious of himself as a criminal, and the community expects him to live up to his reputation, and will not credit him if he does not live up to it."

"From age to age the conduct of society toward the criminal has differed in accordance with the underlying assumption of the prevailing theory."

"As a maladjustment that arises out of conflict between a group and the community at large. The issue involved is not whether an individual is maladjusted to society, but the fact that his adjustment to a special group makes him maladjusted to the large society because the group he fits into is at war with society."

"It would probably be too much to expect that we can do a great deal to the criminal groups without doing a considerable amount to the other elements in our society."

"Gangs are not merely spatial relationships but they are social relationships…the range of conflict within the individual finds an outlet, recognition, and companionship within the gang."

"Deviant behavior is behavior that people so label."