Differential association theory

Edwin Sutherland - 

• suggested that offending behaviour can be explained in terms of social learning e.g. observation and imitation 
• Suggests that people are socialised into a life of crime 
• differential association - people vary the frequency they associate with others of more favourable or unfavourable attitudes and behaviours towards crime 
• He believed that if you surrounded yourself with people who had a more positive attitude towards crime, you too would have a postive attitutde. 

A child will learn an attitude towards crime, whether it is postive or negative. To become a criminal, the individual would have to have pro criminal attitudes. 

The child will learn what types of crime are acceptable, for example, may believe that non violence crime is okay, such as burglary, but that violent and aggressive crime is not. 

They may also learn about specific methods for committing a crime without getting caught 

Behaviour is learnt from the immediate surroundings, so family and close friend groups. 

Can also be influenced by the neighbourhood. If they are raised in a particularly bad neighbourhood, they may be encouraged to participate in criminal behaivour. 

The groups do not have to be criminals themselves, but may have rebelious or deviant attitutes towards rules and laws. 

Sutherland - 

suggested that it was the amount of time spent in these social groups that will determine their influence on the individual 

Indirect operant conditioning - from role models providing vicarious reinforcement if they are not caught breaking the law 

Direct operant conditioning - directly reinforced for deviant behaviour through praise or  punished for such behaviour by family and friends. 

Social groups are important as they establish social norms. 

Sutherland - 

1. Criminal behaviour is learned rather than inherited 

2. learned through association with others 

3. association is with intimate peer groups

4. techniques, motives, drives, rationalisations and attitudes are learned 

5. learning is directional 

6. if number of favourable attitudes outweigh unfavourable then the person becomes an offender 

7. learning experiences vary in frequency and intensity depending on the individual 

8. learned through the same process as any other behaviour 

9. general need, for example money, is not enough to explain crime, because not everyone with those needs turns to crime. 

Strengths:

• changed peoples views about origins of criminal behaviour 
• shift from blaming the individual factors and looked at social factors
• can also be used to explain white collar crimes 
• supporting evidence, West - 40% of sons who had committed crimes by 18 had a father with criminal conviction, compared to 13% in control group
• can also use twin studies as twins would be raised in same environemnt, even explains stronger link between identical twins as they are more likely to be treated similar, wearing similar clothes and mistaken for one another

• data collected is correlational, cannot show what is cause and what is affect. Could be that criminals seek out other criminals for peer groups as they share behavioural patterns 
• issues as to how to measure the effect of number and strength of associations 
• Cannot account for all crimes - can explain the more smaller crimes as oppossed to violent and impulsive crimes - however can be seen as an advantage as these smaller crimes make up a larger percentage of crimes committed than bigger crimes
• Can't explain why majority of crimes are committed by younger people which Eysencks theory can do. 
• Ignores genetics and individual differences 
• reductionsit in its theory 
• puts blame on others from criminal behaviour of individual