Differential associations

• Differential association theory – an explanation for offending which proposes that through interaction and association with different people, individuals learn the values, attitudes, techniques and motives for offending behaviour i.e. one person might associate with people who have very negative attitudes towards crime while another person may be exposed to more positive attitudes (hence differential association)
• Offending behaviour may be acquired in the same way as any other behaviour – through the process of learning.

  Learning occurs through interactions with significant others who the child values most and associates with such as family members and peer group.
• Differential association – suggests it should be mathematically possible to predict how likely it is that an individual will commit offences. To do this we need to know the frequency, intensity and duration of exposure to deviant and non-deviant norms and values.

  Offending/criminality arises from two factors:

  •Learning attitudes towards offending Learning of specific offending acts/techniques
• Learning attitudes

  Crime occurs if exposure to pro-crime values outweighs anti-crime values

  When a person is socialized into a group they will be exposed to certain values and attitudes towards the law. Some of these will be anticrime and some pro crime.

  Sutherland argues that if the number of pro-criminal attitude comes to acquire outweighs the number of anti-criminal attitudes, they will go on to offend.

  The learning process is the same whether a person is learning offending or conformity to the law.
• Learning techniques

  Aswell as exposure to pro-crime attitudes, the would be offender may also learn particular techniques for committing offences. E.g. how to break into someone’s house through a locked window or how to disable a car stereo before stealing it.
• Socialisation in prison

  Reoffending may be due to socialisation in prison.

  Sutherland’s theory can account for why so many convicts released from prison go on to reoffend.

  It is reasonable to assume that whilst inside prison inmates will learn specific techniques of offending from other more experiences offenders that they may out into practice upon their release.

  This learning may occur through observational learning and imitation or direct tuition from offending peers.
• Scientific basis

  Sutherland 1924 attempted to develop a set of scientific principles that could explain all types of offending – ‘the conditions which are said to cause crime should be present when crime is present + they should be absent when crime is absent’.
• Sutherland - He believed there were clear cause + effect links between the backgrounds of people who become criminals + those who do not. Social experiences should clearly predict criminal behaviour.

  His theory was + is designed to discriminate between individuals who become offenders and those who do not, whatever their social class or ethnic background
• Differential Association (DA) theory

  • Explanatory power - can account for crime in all sectors of society
  • Recognises some crimes (e.g. burglary) are clustered in working-class communities, but others are prevalent in affluent sections of society
  • Interested in 'white-collar' corporate crime and how this may be a feature of middle class social groups who share deviant norms and values
  • Can help our understanding of different crimes
  • Shows it is not just the 'lower' classes who commit offences and that the principles of DA can be used to explain all offences
• One limitation is the difficulty of testing the theory.

  Despite Sutherland’s promise to provide a scientific and mathematical framework for predicting offending behaviour it has proved difficult to test. The problem is that many of the concepts are not testable because they cannot be operationalised. It is unclear how we can measure the numbers of pro-crime or anti-criminal attitudes a person is exposed to so therefore it is hard to know at which point criminality is triggered. The theory does not provide a satisfactory solution to these issues, undermining its scientific credibility
• Sutherland's contribution to criminology


  • Moved away from early biological accounts of offending e.g. Lombroso's atavistic theory
  • Moved away from theories that explained offending as being the product of individual weakness or immorality
• Differential association theory


  Draws attention to the fact that deviant social circumstances and environments may be more to blame for criminality than deviant people
• This approach is more desirable because it offers a more realistic solution to the problem of offending instead of eugenics (the biological solution) or punishment (the morality solution)
• Having said that, differential association runs the risk of stereotyping individuals who come from impoverished, crime ridden backgrounds as ‘unavoidably offenders’ – even though Sutherland took great care to point out that offending should be considered on an individual case-by-case basis. However, the theory tends to suggest that exposure to pro-crime values is sufficient to produce offending in those who are exposed to it. This ignores the fact that people may choose not to offend despite such influences, as not everyone who is exposed to pro-crime attitudes goes on to offend.
• A further limitation is that there are alternative explanations.

  Sutherland suggested family attitudes are crucial in determining whether an individual turns to crime, this is supported by studies showing that criminal behaviour runs in families. However, evidence that criminality runs in families could also be explained by a genetic influence rather than by environmental influences or nurture influences. This makes it hard to draw any conclusions from data about crime running in families.
• Another limitation is this may be an overly determinist explanation.

  Not everyone exposed to criminal influences commits crime. Differential association theory may stereotype people from impoverished backgrounds as ‘unavoidable criminal’. The theory suggests exposure to pro-criminal values is enough to produce offending in those who are exposed and ignores the fact that people may choose not to offend despite such influences. Ultimately this indicates that differential association theory may be environmentally determinist.