hooligan" or thief rather than a father, mother or friend. Each label carries with it something. For some people once a deviant label has been applied, in terms of a deviant self-concept, they accept themselves as a deviant, however, this can only make room for further deviant acts to be made. This happens when people start acting in the way they have been labelled. For example, a man caught in an isolated act of stealing may be convicted, sent to prison, labelled as a criminal, and later as an "ex-con". Friends will most likely not want to associate with him and employers will not employ him due to his criminal record. In other words, the man is stigmatized as a general deviant and as a consequence, he is excluded from all conventional associations and contacts. As well, this type of situation makes it very difficult for the man to maintain the identity of a non-deviant person. As a result, the man may begin to see himself primarily as a criminal, especially as he now knows many other so-called ex-cons from his time in prison. Since everyone treats him as a criminal anyway and he can't get a job, he may then turn to crime as a way of life, perhaps with the aid of the deviant subculture in which he probably made connections with. Furthermore, if this happens, although he may not have had any other choice, nevertheless, he has now embarked on a deviant career.DEVIANT CAREERThe concept of a deviant career refers to a "sequence of stages through which the rule-breaker may evolve into a full-fledged deviant or outsider" (Becker, 1963). According to Becker, after the individual has been labelled as deviant, they progress down the path of a deviant career and it becomes hard to shake off the deviant label as others see it as a master status of the individual. He points out that when studying "deviant people" one should not take their deviance for granted, as one "cannot assume that these people have actually committed a deviant act...
