Differential Association and Micro/Macro Level Theories

Macro-level: Focus on large systems (nations, legal systems, societies); factors outside the individual. Examples: Classical Strain, Deterrence, Social Disorganization.
Meso-level: Focus on group-level patterns, interactions within organizations, professions, communities. Examples: Crime between gangs, comparing communities.
Micro-level: Focus on individual or small group likelihood of committing crime; emphasizes individual engagement. Examples: Social Control, General Theory of Crime, Social Learning.

A learning theory model of crime.
A micro-level theory focusing on the individual.
Developed by Edwin Sutherland (final version 1947), inspired by the Chicago School.
Aims to be a general theory, explaining necessary and sufficient conditions for crime.

Criminal behavior is learned, not inherited.
Learned in interaction with others through communication (verbal/gestures).
Mainly learned within intimate personal groups; impersonal agencies play a minor role.
Learning includes techniques of committing crime and specific direction of motives, drives, rationalizations, and attitudes.
Direction of motives/drives learned from definitions of legal codes as favorable or unfavorable.
A person becomes delinquent due to an excess of definitions favorable to law violation over those unfavorable. This is the principle of differential association.
Differential associations vary in frequency, duration, priority, and intensity.
Learning criminal behavior involves all mechanisms of any other learning.
Criminal behavior, while expressing general needs/values, is not explained by them alone, as non-criminal behavior also expresses these same needs/values (e.g., desire for money).

Necessary and sufficient conditions:
- Learning an excess of weighted definitions favorable to crime.
- Learning necessary skills and techniques.
- Opportunity to commit the crime is present.

Though micro-level, the theory argues that differential social organization (e.g., areas favoring criminal behavior) plays a role in determining a person's associates and thus crime rates.

Vague description of definitions: Sutherland doesn't clearly describe what constitutes definitions favorable/unfavorable to crime.
- Some argue people don't unconditionally approve of crime but are amoral or hold values conducive to crime (e.g., thrill-seeking).
- More commonly, people approve, justify, or excuse crime in specific situations (e.g., Sykes and Matza's techniques of neutralization).
Incomplete description of learning process: Only states crime is a result of an excess of favorable definitions, not the full process (addressed by Akers' Social Learning Theory).

Generally strong support for differential association.
Definitions and association with peers are strong predictors of crime.
Often supported over control theory in direct tests regarding peer association effects.