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Labeling Theory: The Parkland Florida School Massacre

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At this point you have probably already heard of the Parkland Florida school shooting. It was considered the third deadliest school massacre in the United States. On February 14, 2018 Nikolas Cruz, a former student expelled from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High school, shot and killed 17 people and injured 16 more. After examining all the theories, I have decided upon the “labeling theory”. This theory discusses “how people can be labeled deviant after committing a deviant act, which can then lead them to carry out further acts that reflect that label”
For the article selection, I chose CNN “School shooter showed violence and mental instability at home, police reports reveal”. I was drawn to this article because it talked about the past delinquent …show more content…

Well the focal point in differential association theory is the process of learning deviant behaviors from people we interact with. Now this would not go with Nikolas’s situation because the only brother he has is younger than him, so he can’t learn any odd behaviors from him. Rational choice approaches to deviance would not go with it either because the theory says that “they calculate the costs and benefits to themselves”. Nikolas had absolutely nothing to gain from killing all those people. Sure, he probably knew what he was doing when he purchased the gun, but after the shooting it seems as though he didn’t have a plan of what to do or where to go next. Social control theory is not compatible with the situation either because this theory explains that “most people conform most of the time and do not commit deviant acts”. People obey norms because they’re making rational decisions and don’t want to be considered crazy. Strain theory is actually pretty close but still doesn’t hit every mark. This theory says that basically people have a goal they want to achieve but the way they want to do it, would not be considered socially acceptable. So, a loophole people might think of is, Nikolas had some sort of grudge over the people he killed. So, that would mean his goal was to hurt them in some kind of way, but obviously shooting up a school is not socially acceptable. This theory is ruled out because Nickolas used a smoke bomb and pulled the fire alarm to lure people out of classrooms, but with the smoke everywhere it was hard to see who was who, which means he wouldn’t know who he was shooting

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