ABSTRACT
Contemporary criminology offers compelling evidence that the distinction between “criminal” and “non-criminal” is largely a matter of time. Yet crime discourse and policy remain rooted in the notion of criminality as an immutable individual characteristic. This chapter contrasts the fluidity in criminal behavior with the growing stickiness of public labels, drawing from an experimental study of lowlevel criminal records, a demographic analysis of the population bearing such records, and their spillover effects on health care and other institutions. After summarizing key U.S. policy interventions on stigmatization and crime, we conclude by introducing a new study of restorative alternatives in a radically different legal and social context.
