"Saints and Roughnecks"

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses "Saints and Roughnecks", William Chambliss' 1973 study in which he found that class and not crime often determines a person's reputation in the society and his fate with the police. The paper describes how Chambliss selected two different groups of teenagers for his study, one coming from an affluent part of the metropolitan area (saints), while the other group came from a lower-income section of the society (roughnecks). The paper examines the study that sought to find out just why the lower-income group was more often clashing with the police and ending up in jail for petty crimes, while the other group usually escaped police even though they were just about as delinquent as roughnecks.

From the Paper:

"Chambliss doesn't mention labeling theory but it is clear that labels are what determine a person's reputation. It was seen that since Saints came were from "good white upper-middle class families. They attended Hanniabal High: a moderate size high school in a suburb near a large metropolitan area. The Saints were active in school affairs, were enrolled in the pre-college program and received good grades", they mostly managed to escape punishment even though they were "some of the most delinquent boys at Hannibal High." (Chambliss p. 106) Police, teachers and society saw their troublemaking as a case of "sowing their wild oats". On the other hand, Roughnecks were often seen as 'troublemakers' who would end up in jail not because they were any more trouble than Saints but because they appeared rough and were "not-so-well-dressed, not-so-well-mannered, not-so-rich boys" and thus "were heading for trouble". People had a totally different perception of these boys and their oat-sowing wasn't seen in the same light as their Saint counterparts."

More papers on "Saints and Roughnecks":

• Article Review # 112245 : "The Saints and The Roughnecks"
• Film Review # 64698 : "The Boondock Saints" and Social Psychology"
• Film Review # 70910 : "Household Saints"

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