PSYCH EXPLANATION - DIFFERENTIAL ASSOCIATION THEORY Flashcards
What does differential association theory propose?
Individuals learn the values, attitudes, techniques and motives for offending behaviour through association and interaction with different people e.g. one person might associate with people who have very negative attitudes towards crime while another person may be exposed to more positive attitudes,
Who proposed this theory?
Sutherland
What did Sutherland do?
Set himself the task of developing a set of scientific principles that could explain all types of offending.
Scientific basis
Sutherland - ‘the conditions which are said to cause crime should be present when crime is present, and they should be absent when crime is absent’. This aims to discriminate between individuals who become offedners and those who do not, regardless of class or ethnicity.
How is offending behaviour acquired?
The process of learning. This learning occurs most often through interactions with significant others who the child values most and spends most time with, such as the family and peer group.
Which two factors does offending arise from?
- learned attitudes towards offending
- learning of specific criminal acts
Pro-criminal attitudes
Sutherland argues that the number of pro-criminal attitudes outweighs the number of anti-criminal attitudes offending will occur. Therefore, it should be mathematically possible to predict criminality based on the frequency, intensity and duration a criminal has been exposed to deviant and non-deviant norms.
Learning criminal acts
Criminals needs to be exposed to pro-criminal attitudes and the techniques for how to commit crime e.g. how to break into someone’s house. Explains how crime can breed amongst specific social groups/communities. Can explain recidivism as whilst in prison new learning may occur through observational learning and imitation or direct tuition from criminal peers of inmates.
Socialisation in prison
Sutherland’s theory can also explain why so many convicts released from prison go on to reoffend. Inside prison the inmates will learn specific techniques of offending from eachother and put this into practice when released. This learning can be through observational learning, imitation or direct tuition from offending peers.
