Differential Association Theory

Differential Association Theory

Sutherland

Individuals learn the values, attitutes and techniques for offending by interacting with other people

→ Learning occurs through interactions with significant others who the child values and spends time with

Learning attitudes

When a person is socialised into a group they will be exposed to values and attitudes towards crime, both pro- and anti- crime

If pro-crime attitudes outweight anti-crime attitudes, the person will go on to offend

Learning techniques

A person will learn techniques for commiting offences e.g. breaking into houses

Prisoners will associate with each other and learn techniques through either observation and imitation or direct tuition

AO3

(+) Caused shift in focus

(+) Can explain wide range of offences

(-) Difficulty testing variables

(+) Caused shift in focus

Sutherland successful in moving emphasis from early bio accounts (Lombroso), as well as theories its caused by individual weakness or morality

Moved towards environmental influences (sim to SLT developed later), emphasising learnt behaviour being cause → more desirable than atavistic w/ low validity and racist

Theory not linked to social class or ethnicity

CP: Could still lead to stereoyping (lower classes w/ higher crime rate associate with more offenders)

Environmentaly deterministic

(+) Explain a wide range of offences

Burgluray is a ‘blue-collar’ crime however affluent members of society also commit crime → ‘white collar’ crime e.g. fraud, tax evasion

First to suggest crime didn’t only occur in lower classes (in 1920s, a discrimitory,classist time period)

Theory of learning offending behaviour applies to many types of offences, more explanatory power than past theories

(-) Difficulty testing some variables

Aimed to provide scientific, mathematical framework so future offending behaviour could be predictable → should be testable

But measuring attitudes is subjective (what constitutes as pro/anti could vary between people)

Some attitudes may carry more weight than others (e.g. pro-murder being more serious than pro-stealing, attitudes from those closer to you meaning more)

Makes it hard to measure and unclear when pro- outweighs anit- and offending behaviour is triggered

Less practical use in the real world