Differentiational Association Theory

• Differential association theory

  •Differential association theory is a social learning theory of crime proposed by Sutherland (1939).•It suggests that individuals learn the values, attitudes, techniques and motives for criminal behaviour through association and interaction with others who have more or less favourable attitudes towards crimes. These attitudes then influence their own criminal attitudes and behaviour.
• Differential association theory

  •I.e. offending behaviour is acquired in the same way as any other behaviour – through the processes of learning.•Therefore, offending depends on the criminal norms/values of the offender’s social group – offending is more likely to occur where social groups value criminal behaviour.
• Learning Crime

  According to differential association theory, criminality arises from two factors:

  ●1.Learning attitudes towards crime2.The learning of specific criminal acts
• Differential association theory

  Can account for crime within all sectors of society
• Types of crime

  • Burglary might be clustered within certain inner-city, working-class communities
  • Other crimes are more prevalent amongst more affluent groups in society
• Sutherland's interest

  White-collar or corporate crime and how this may be a feature of middle-class social groups who share deviant norms and values
• This supports the external validity of the differential association theory as it accounts for differences in crime within different sections of society and why crime may differ across cultures
• Eval- Real World Application

  •Differential association theory draws attention to the fact that dysfunctional social circumstances and environments may be more to blame for criminality than dysfunctional people, as was advocated by atavistic form. The theory marked an important shift from ‘blaming’ individual factors to pointing to social factors.••This approach is more desirable because it offers a more realistic solution to the problem of crime (because learning environments can be changed) instead of eugenics.
• Eval- Environmental Determinism

  •There is a danger within differential association theory of stereotyping individuals who come from impoverished, crime-ridden backgrounds as ‘unavoidably criminal.’ The theory tends to suggest that exposure to pro-criminal values is sufficient to produce offending in those who are exposed.••This is an example of environmental determinism as it ignores the fact that people may choose not to offend despite such influences. Therefore, crime must be considered on an individual, case-by-case basis to avoid such stereotyping.