Differetial Association Theory Flashcards
What is the differential association theory?
Individuals learn the values, attitudes, motives and techniques through association and interaction with other people
What is the scientific basis?
Sutherland developed a set of scientific principles that could explain offending - conditions that should be present when committing an offence but absent when not
His theory discriminated between individuals who become criminals and those who do not
How may offending be acquired by learning?
Occurs through interaction with significant others that children associate with such as family and peer groups. Criminality arises from learned attitudes towards crime and learning specific criminal acts
What happens when you are socialised into a group?
You are exposed to attitudes and values towards the law - some will be pro-criminal and some will be anti-crime. Sutherland argued that if the number of pro-criminal attitudes a person comes to outweighs the number of anti-crime ones then they will go onto offend
The learning process is the same whether a person is learning criminality or conforming to the law
What does differential association theory suggest it should be possible to do?
Mathematically predict how likely it will be that an individual will commit a crime if we have knowledge of the frequency, intensity and duration of which they have been exposed to deviant and non-deviant norms and values
Who came up with this theory?
Sutherland
What does the theory believe about learning criminal acts?
Techniques may include how to break into someone’s house through a locked door or how to steal a car stereo
When considering how crime may breed among specific social groups and in communities what else can Sutherland’s theory account for?
Why so many convicts released from prison go on to reoffend - while in prison inmates will learn specific techniques for committing crime from eachother that they want to put into practice - this can occur through observational learning and imitation or direct tuition from criminal peers
What was Farrington et al’s study?
The Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development - a longitudinal survey of the development of offending and anti-social behaviour in 411 males. It began as children aged 8 in 1961 and living in WC deprived inner city London. Looked at criminal careers from convictions and self-report studies up to the age of 50
What were Farrington’s findings?
Of all males 41% were convicted of at least one offence between the ages of 10 and 50
The average conviction career lasted from 19-28 and included 5 convictions
The most important risk factors between the ages of 8-10 was family criminality, risk taking, low school attainment, poverty and poor parenting
7% were defined as chronic offenders because they accounted for about half of all officially recorded offences in this study
In what way is this theory an explanatory power?
Can account for all crime within all sectors of society. Sutherland recognises that crimes such as burglary may be clustered with inner-city working class communities - it is also the case that affluent groups are more prone to certain crimes White collar and corporate crimes are shared among the middle class social groups who share deviant norms and values
How did the theory help to shift focus?
The theory helped move the theory of criminality away from biological as well as those that explained offending as an individual weakness or immorality
The theory draws attention to the idea of dysfunctional social circumstances and environments may be more to blame for dysfunctional people.
This approach more desirable - offers a more realistic solution to the problem crime instead of Eugenics or punishment
What us a weakness of the theory?
Suffers from being difficult to test. Pro-criminal attitudes are hard to measure and the theory is built on the assumption that offending behaviour will occur when pro-criminal values outnumber anti-criminal ones - being unable to test = difficult to know at what time the urge to offend develops and the criminal is triggered - theory does not provide a satisfactory solution undermining its scientific credibility
What is an alternative explanation?
Sutherland suggested that the response of the family is crucial to determining if the individual will reoffend making it legitimate and reasonable that this becomes an influence on their value system. This is supported by the evidence that offending runs in families, intergenerational crime is a key feature of Farrington’s findings - also the case in the Mednick study
What is the problem with individual differences?
Even though Sutherland pointed out that crime should be considered on an individual basis, there is a danger within differential theory of stereotyping those who come from poor backgrounds and are deemed to be ‘unavoidably criminal’. The theory suggests that expose to pro-criminal values is sufficient to produce offending in those who are exposed and ignores the idea that people may choose to not offend - deterministic
