There is ample reason for an investigation of the value of early sanctions for juvenile offenders. The assumption that youthful behavior is malleable suggests the likely efficacy of early sanctions. More importantly, however, the current cycle of delinquency programming and legislation is decreasing the available official sanctions. This requires an examination of the relationship between sanctions and general deterrence levels. An exploration of psychological principles indicates that conforming behavior is most likely to emerge under patterns of responsible permissiveness or responsible discipline. For the juvenile justice system, this means knowing how to provide the sanctioner with the information on the level and direction of 'responsible' control in use in the arrested offender's family. Criminological literature has tended to focus on the labeling effect of early sanctions. Early sanctioning is viewed as exacerbating rather than discouraging delinquent self-images and behavior. The alternative to early sanctions is what may be called normalization; this requires treating the sanctionable act as if it were normal or acceptable. The danger of this approach is that the legitimacy of the delinquent act may be reinforced by a failure to provide negative associations. At the very least, it is clear that the balance between labeling and deterrence requires more investigation. Each available sanction should be analyzed for its implicit labeling and deterring impact in the contexts of type of juvenile, parenting patterns, locus of sanction, etc. A total of 26 references are provided.