FORENSIC, a01 differential association theory

Question 1

what is it

Answer 1

defined as individuals learn their values, attitudes, techniques and motives for criminal behaviour through association/ interactions with other people, especially criminals

Question 2

what is Sutherland’s scientific basis of behaviour

Answer 2

• ‘the conditions which are said to cause crime should be present when crime is present, and they should be absent when crime is absent’
• aims to discriminate between individuals who become criminals and those who don’t regardless of race, ethnicity etc (so we don’t focus on demographics)
• crime is a LEARNT behaviour

Question 3

learning process to explaining offending behaviour

Answer 3

• offending behaviour is learnt in the same way we learn all other behaviours
• takes place during childhood, when a child spends time with people they value and respect (so family, role models- SLT)
• from this, we should be able to predict who will commit a crime because we are looking at their associations
• to predict a who will commit a crime we are looking at frequency, interactions and deviation to deviant and non deviant norms and values

Question 4

offending arises from 2 factors

Answer 4

learned attitudes

learned techniques

Question 5

learned attitudes

Answer 5

when people hang out in a group, they are exposed to pro-crime and anti-crime attitudes

• sutherland said the no. of pro-crime attitudes outweighs the no. of anti-crime attitudes, if this happens offending occurs
• once this is done, you learn the techniques

Question 6

learned techniques

Answer 6

we learn in prison due to socialisation

-occurs through observation and imitations of peer groups in prison