differential association

• AO3:

  STRENGTH:

  • at the time it was published it changed the focus of offending explanations
  • Sutherland was successful in moving the emphasis away from early biological accounts of offending such as Lombrosso atavistic theory
  • Differential association draws attention to the fact that deviant social circumstances and environments may be more to blame rather than the deviant people
  • This is more of a desirable because it offers a more realistic solution to the problem instead of eugenics or punishment (the morality solution)
• AO3:

  LIMITATION:

  • Having said that, differential association runs the risk of stereotyping individuals who comes from impoverished backgrounds as 'unavoidably offenders' - even though Sutherland took treat care to point out that offending should be conceded on an individual case-by-case basis
  • However, the theory tends to suggest that exposure to pro-crime attitudes is sufficient to produce offending in those who are exposed to it
  • This ignores such fact that people may choose not to offend despite such influences as not everyone exposed to pro-crime attitudes goes on to offend
• AO3:

  • Difficult to test the predictions
  • Sutherland aimed to produce scientific framework within which future offending behaviour could be predicted and this means that the predicts must be testable
  • Problem is the many of the concepts aren't testable as they can't be operationalised
  • IE hard to see how the number of pro-crime attitudes can be measured
  • Based on assumption that offending occurs if pro-crime > anti-crime attitudes without being able to measure it we can't know at what point the urgent to offend is realised + when the career is triggered
  • doesn't have scientific credibility