Differential Association Theory

Question 1

What is Differential Association Theory?

Answer 1

• Theory that offending is learnt like any other behaviour
• Sutherland: Through interactions with others, individuals learn the values, attitudes, techniques and motives for criminal behaviours

Question 2

How is criminal learning learnt in prison intimate personal groups?

Answer 2

• Learning attitudes towards crime; person acquires a set of pro and anti-crime attitudes
• If their pro-crime attitudes outweigh anti-crime attitudes they will commit crime
• Learning techniques for committing crime, such as picking locks, disable car alarms or shoplift without being detected

Question 3

What are the strengths of differential association as an explanation for offending?

Answer 3

• Explanatory power: offenders learn from fellow inmates in prisons, explains re-offending
• Supporting evidence: compared sons of convicted criminal and non-criminal fathers, 40% of sons of criminals had committed a crime by age 18 compared to 13% of sons of non-criminals (however, may be genetics)
• Supporting evidence: studied 411 boys from South London from age 8 to 50, 41% of participants were convicted of at least one crime and one of the biggest risk factors was family criminality (however, could be genetics or maltreatment)
• Supporting evidence: investigated underage drinking and marijuana use in teenagers, differential peer association was the single most important variable

Question 4

What are the limitations of differential association as an explanation for offending?

Answer 4

• Theory doesn’t account for all types of crime; more violent and impulsive crimes such as rape and murder may be less well explained by the theory. These crimes are extreme, committed alone and in secret so others are much less likely to have an influence
• Theory takes no account of biological factors; we inherit our genes from our parents and also learn from them, this can’t be separated and to ignore biology means the explanation lacks validity