Social process theory states that a criminal behavior can’t be inherited or born; it must be learned through interactions and observations. In the movie “Set it off” the fours main protagonist each have behaviors and actions that can be applied to the social process theory. I believe the theory that suits Frankie the best is the labeling theory. This theory states that once someone is labeled a criminal they might begin to internalize that label and start to act in a way that a criminal would. This suits Frankie because at the start of the movie she is associated with the criminals that robbed her bank even though she simply knew his name and face. After her boss fired her and police suspected her of being involved she had a label of criminal and began to act like one.

T.T fits the social control theory, this theory suggests that societal bonds like family, friends and social status keep people from committing crimes. This applies to T.T because her primary reason for resisting committing the bank robberies were due to her child, but when that bond is threatened by CPS she is forced to commit crimes. Cleo and Stoney both can be categorized by the social learning theory, this theory possesses the idea that individuals learn crime through observations and imitating others and that when those imitations are rewarded or punished it shapes who a person is. This applies to Stoney because she resists the idea of robbing a bank up until her brother is killed, she tried to make the money for her brother as legitimately as she could through the car salesman and soon after her brother died. After the fact she is only around people who want to commit crime and slowly adopts their way of thinking and is quickly rewarded with money after the first heist. Cleo can be assumed to fall under this theory as well, throughout the movie she is shown to already know how to commit many different crimes, from securing guns to stealing a car. It can be assumed that she had learned or observed this somewhere at some point in her life but isn’t talked about in the movie directly.