ao3x2 sutherlands and gender ocialisation

intro

One social psychological explanation for criminal behaviour comes from Sutherland’s Differential Association Theory.  I will explore the strengths and limitation of this theory. 

aupporting

• osborn and west - criminality appears to run in the family

• father with criminal conviction 40% of their sons had commited a crime

• father with no criminal conviction 13% had commited a crime

• supports the idea of frequency of association with intimate groups can lwead to criminalirty

  • allows us to put interventin in place

  • osborn and west could be explained by in herited criminality which outlines the role of biological facvtora

  • difficult to distinguish between nature and nuture

refuting

matsueda

• there needs to be more research conducted to improve the ability to predict reoffending

• the main problem of theory is that the concepts are vagyue

• it is not developed enough for policty development

• more clarity it can be effective

methodological

• Research is mostly correlational, not causal.

• Criminals may choose criminal peers rather than peers causing crime.

• Unclear if attitudes to crime come before or after association.

• Theory may describe patterns, but not explain the cause of crime.

intro

introduce gender socialisation

support

• Chivalry hypothesis: women may commit more crime than official stats show.

• Male police/judges may act chivalrously towards women → less likely to charge/convict.

• Challenges gender socialisation theory → women do commit crime, but are not held as accountable.

• Suggests stats may underestimate female offending, not that women are less socialised into crime.

other possible explanations

• Biological explanation: gender differences in crime may be due to hormones, not socialisation.

• Testosterone (higher in males) linked to aggression and provoked responses.

• Biological differences may have greater influence than gender socialisation.

• Weakens gender socialisation theory → cannot fully explain male criminality.

labeling

• Policing bias: young males more closely monitored by police.

• Leads to higher arrest & conviction rates, reinforcing stats.

• Female crime may be overlooked rather than absent.

• Weakens gender socialisation theory → differences may reflect policing practices, not upbringing.

reductionist

• Reductionist & deterministic: both theories oversimplify causes.

• DAT → focuses only on social interactions.

• Gender socialisation → focuses only on upbringing differences.

• Ignore other key factors → poverty, biology, cognition.

• Therefore, neither offers a holistic explanation of crime.

deterministic

• Deterministic explanations: both theories overstate inevitability of crime.

• DAT → assumes frequent association with pro-crime peers always leads to offending (not true for everyone).

• Gender socialisation → assumes males are socialised into crime, females out of it (not true for all).

• Ignores individual differences → not all young men have criminal role models.