differential association theory

• an explanation for offending which proposes through interaction with others individuals can learn values attitudes techniques and motives for offending behaviour
• scientific basis:

  sutherland developed scientific principles that could explain all types of offending. e.g conditions which are said to be the cause of the crime should be be present when the crime has been committed. theory is designed to discriminate between individuals no matter social class and ethnicity
• socialisation in prison:

  sutherland theory accounts for why convicts may reoffend. in prison inmates can learn different techniques from others and may put into practise when released
• learning attitudes:

  person socialised into group need to be exposed towards values and attitudes of pro-crime or anti-crime. if pro outweights anti then they will go on to offend
• learning techniques:

  possible offenders have to be exposed to the techniques in order to commit a crime]
• +theory can account for offending in all sectors of society. whilst sutherland recognised some types of offending e.g burglarly more likely to occur in inner city and 3rd class communities. it is also the case that some of the offences are clustered in affluent group. sutherland interested in white collar crimes and how it may be a feature in 2nd class who share deviant. shows that it isnt just lower class which commit crimes
• -unable to test predicitions. sutherland aimed to provide scientific framework which can be used to predict the future of offending, so that it can be tested. but not all of it is testable as many of the concepts are not operationalised so hard to see how many pro crime attitudes need to be present needs to be exposed to, to offend. also theory assumes pro crime outweighs anti crime without being able to know the urge to offend. means it lack scientific credibility as many of the concepts are unfalsifiable
• +slt able to provide an explanation. as when child exposed to pro crime attitudes through mediational processes individuals can learn values and techniques through attention, retention, motivation, and reproduction. leading to the individual reproducing these actions. means slt helps to validate dat
• but slt also disproves dat. as in slt once punished for negative behaviour they are less likely to repeat the behaviour in this case reoffending due to the punishment. whereas in dat when convicted they are more likely to learn more pro-crime techniques, leading to the individual being more likely to offend. means that slt may not be an adequate explanation for socialisation in prison