Evaluation

• Shift of focus


  • Changed focus of offending explanations
  • Moved emphasis away from early biological explanations, such as from Lombroso
  • Deviant social circumstances may be more to blame than deviant people
  • Offers a more realistic solution than those offered by other explanations, such as eugenics
• Counterpoint to shift of focus


  • Runs the risk of stereotyping individuals from criminal, poor backgrounds
  • Exposure to pro-criminal values is sufficient to produce offending
  • Ignores that people may not offend, as not all exposed offend
• Wide reach


  • Can account for offending within all sectors of society
  • Some offences are more clustered among inner-city, working-class communities, as well as affluent groups
  • Sutherland was particularly interested in white collar crime and how it may be a feature of deviant middle-class social groups
  • Therefore, DAT offers explanations for all offences
• Difficulty testing


  • It is difficult to test the predictions of differential association
  • Many of Sutherland's principles are not scientifically testable as they are not operationalised - it is hard to measure the quantity of pro and anti-criminal attitudes that one has been exposed to
  • We cannot know at what point the urge to offend is realised and the offending career triggered
  • Therefore, DAT does not have scientific credibility