Evidence of the SFP can come from Rosenthal and Jacobson, even though it is about education and not specifically to do with crime – they told teachers that certain pupils were about to blood on the basis of a test but they picked the students at random. Those labelled as positive improved more in terms of IQ which is evidence of a SFP due to teachers giving the brighter pupils more support and increasing their self-confidence.
The theory recognises the role of society in criminal behaviour as well as the role of nature and environment – it says that the behaviour can be changed.
A weakness is that there is not a lot of evidence that links directly to crime, rather much of the evidence is to do with education and success.
Crime is the result of political, economic, education, cultural and subcultural factors which is more than SFP takes into account. The other factors also have a stronger influence.