DAT AO3

Question 1

SUPPORT
- shifts away focus from biological explanations

Answer 1

• moving away from lombroso’s atavistic form + explanation of crime being a result of individual weakness and immorality
• DAT draws attention to the fat that dysfunctional social circumstances and environments may be more to blame
• this approach is more desirable because it offers a realistic solution to the problem of crime instead of eugenics or punishment

Question 2

LIMITATION
- difficulty testing

Answer 2

• it is hard to see how the number of pro-criminal attitudes a person has or has not been exposed to can be measured
• theory is based upon the assumption that offending behaviour will occur when pro-criminal values out number the anticriminal ones but without measuring these it is difficult to know at what point the urge to offend is realised and a criminal career is triggered

Question 3

STRENGTH
- explanatory power

Answer 3

• it accounts for crimes from all sectors of society
• Sutherland recognised that some types of crimes such as burglary may be more prominent in inner city working class communities - but some crimes are more prominent in more affluent groups in society such as white collar crimes/ corporate crimes which are a feature of middle class social groups who share social norms

Question 4

LIMITATION
- individual differences

Answer 4

• not everyone who is exposed to crime goes on to committing one
• there is a danger that DAT is stereotyping inndividuals who come from impoverished, crime-ridden backgrounds as unavoidably criminals
• the theory tends to suggest that exposure to pro-criminal values is enough to produce offending in those who are exposed and ignores the fact that the people may choose to not offend despite such influences