evaluation

• one strength is that it is well supported by reserach.
• research support - explain

  a great deal of research suggests that criminality is concentrated in a small number of families.
• research support - example

  Osborn and West (1982) found that where the father had a criminal conviction, 40% of sons also acquired one by the age of 18, compared with only 13% of the sons of non-criminal fathers.
• research support - link

  this is a strength as this empirical evidence strengthens the credibility of this explanation - however, it could be argued that these findings could be attributed to genetics too.
• one weakness with DA is that it is very hard to test.
• hard to test - example

  Sutherland aimed to be able to come up with a mathematical model where an individual's likelihood of becoming a criminal could be calculated from the variables measured, e.g. time spent with criminal role models.
• hard to test - explain and link

  this is a weakness as since these variables are hard to quantify, this theory has yet to display any meaningful predicative validity.

  it is only in hindsight, when criminal behaviour has already taken place that we can identify the factors in an individual's socialisation that may have contributed to their behaviour.
• if DA is correct, that criminal behaviour is learned through socialisation with criminals, interventions can be put in place to prevent the transmission of criminal behaviour.
• applications - example

  a program known as multisystemic therapy, developed by the Medical University of South Carolina professor Scott Henggeler, focuses on helping young delinquents by treating their whole family.
• applications - explain

  he realised he needed to treat the children in the full context of their lives, to see them with their families in their homes.

  his central insight was to take therapy to the adolescents, instead of taking the adolescents to the therapy.