Abstract What impact does formal punishment have on antisocial conduct—does it deter or promote it? The findings from a long line of research on the labeling tradition indicate formal punishments have the opposite‐of‐intended consequence of promoting future misbehavior. In another body of work, the results show support for deterrence‐based hypotheses that punishment deters future misbehavior. So, which is it? We draw on a nationally representative sample of British adolescent twins from the Environmental Risk (E‐Risk) Longitudinal Twin Study to perform a robust test of the deterrence versus labeling question. We leverage a powerful research design in which twins can serve as the counterfactual for their co‐twin, thereby ruling out many sources of confounding that have likely impacted prior studies. The pattern of findings provides support for labeling theory, showing that contact with the justice system—through spending a night in jail/prison, being issued an anti‐social behaviour order (ASBO), or having an official record—promotes delinquency. We conclude by discussing the impact these findings may have on criminologists’ and practitioners’ perspective on the role of the juvenile justice system in society.

中文翻译：

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与司法系统的接触是否会阻止或促进未来的犯罪？英国青少年双胞胎纵向研究的结果

摘要 正式惩罚对反社会行为有什么影响——它是威慑还是促进？对标签传统的长期研究结果表明，正式惩罚具有促进未来不当行为的与预期相反的后果。在另一项工作中，结果显示支持基于威慑的假设，即惩罚会阻止未来的不当行为。那么，它是哪个？我们利用环境风险 (E-Risk) 纵向双胞胎研究中具有全国代表性的英国青少年双胞胎样本，对威慑与标签问题进行了强有力的测试。我们利用强大的研究设计，其中双胞胎可以作为他们双胞胎的反事实，从而排除可能影响先前研究的许多混杂来源。研究结果的模式为标签理论提供了支持，表明与司法系统的接触——通过在监狱/监狱中度过一夜、被发布反社会行为令 (ASBO) 或拥有官方记录——促进了犯罪。最后，我们讨论了这些发现可能对犯罪学家和从业人员对少年司法系统在社会中的作用的看法产生的影响。