Differential association theory

• This theory proposes that individuals learn the values attitudes and motives for offending behaviour through association and interaction with different people
• if individuals experience repeated attitudes that are positively associated with crime, rather than negatively, then they are more likely to engage in criminal behaviour, the way in which a person becomes an offender is through learned attitudes and imitation of criminal acts
• differential association suggests it should be possible to predict how likely it is that an individual will commit offence

  we need to know the frequency and intensity of exposure to deviant and non-deviant norms and values
• when a person is socialised into a group they will be exposed to values and attitudes towards the law

  if the number of pro-criminal attitudes outweighs the number of anti-criminal attitudes, they will go on to offend
• a strength is the research support

  banduars bobo doll study supports sutherlands theory that people learn behaviours from others so the same can be applied to criminal behaviours

  however, this study was done on children when they are learning right from wrong and most influential so it may not be applicable to adolescence
• a strength is it can account for offending in all sectors of society

  whilst he recognised that some types of offences may be clustered within inner city, working class communities, other offences are clustered among more affluent groups in society

  this shows its not just the lower classes who commit offences and the principles of differential association can be used to explain all offences
• a limitation is its difficult to test the predictions

  he aimed to prove a scientific framework which could allow future offending behaviour to be predicted, this means the predictions have to be testable

  however, many of the concepts aren't operationalised

  it is hard to see the number of pro-criminal attitudes a person has been exposed to

  this means the theory doesn’t have scientific credibility