Differential association theory

• Edwin Sutherland suggested offending behaviour can be explained entirely in terms of social learning - people are socialised into a life of crime
• Sutherland believed it might be possible to develop a mathematical formula which would predict whether or not someone would turn to crime based on the frequency, duration and intensity of their social contacts
• Sutherland - a child learns attitudes towards crime, whether it is desireable or undesirable, therefore a criminal is someone who has learned pro criminal attitudes from those around them
• Children will learn which types of crime are acceptable within their community or maybe specific methods for committing crimes
• Children may learn crime from intimate personal groups such as family or peer groups. The degree to which a local community supports or opposes crime determines the difference in crime rates from one area to another.
• Crime can be learnt from social associations through direct or indirect operant conditioning. Could be reinforced for deviant behaviours through praise.
• Sutherland ( 1939 ) Criminality arises from two factors:

  Pro criminal attitudes

  Learning criminal acts
• Pro criminal attitudes - if an individual is socialised into a group where there are more pro criminal attitudes than there are anti criminal attitudes they will go on to offend. The frequency, intensity and duration of exposure determines criminality or conformity to the law
• Learning criminal acts - the potential criminal learns the practicalities of how to carry out criminal acts, such as picking a lock or disabling a car alarm. This also explains re offending - prison inmates discuss techniques and could put it into practice once they’re released
• AO3. Offending behaviour runs in families, so this could prove Sutherland's theory that we learn attitudes and behaviours from them. However, It can be argued that this is biological. Raine ( 1993 ) found that monozygotic twins had a 52 % concordance rate for offending behaviour, whereas dizygotic twins had a 21 % concordance rate. This suggests a genetic basis. However, it could be a combination. Mednick studied adoptees and found that 20 % of adoptees had a record if their bio parents did, and 25 % if both bio and adoptive did
• AO3. Differential association theory shows environmental determinism. Not everyone who is exposed to criminal activity commits crime. This ignores the free will and choice people have over criminality, even if this is all they're exposed to. It could also be a stereotype that those from poor backgrounds and families as criminals and does not take into account individual differences.
• AO3. Unlike other theories, differential association theory can account for many kinds of crime. Burglary, drugs and weapons are usually clustered within inner city, working class communities. This could be learned behaviour from inner city peers. White collar crime could be because middle class social groups share the same norms and values and could go on to commit this crime as they have been around this type of criminal attitude.
• AO3. Many of the assumptions from differential association theory are difficult to test. It is hard to observe and measure how many pro criminal attitudes someone has been exposed to. It is also difficult to measure the intensity, duration and frequency of criminal and non criminal attitudes they were exposed to. It is difficult to know when the criminal career can be triggered. This undermines the scientific credibility of observation.