Psychological - Differential Association Theory Flashcards
Sutherland differential association theory
• individuals learn values, attitudes, techniques & motives for offending behaviour through interaction with others
Describe behaviour aqusition according to DAT
• behaviours acquired through learning
• interactions with significant others who the child values most + spends most time with family/ peer group
Offending arises from
- learning attitudes towards offending
- learning of specific offending acts
Describe learning attitudes
• when exposed to a group the person is also exposed to values & attitudes
• Sutherland argues that if the number of pro-crime attitudes the person acquires outweighs the anti-crime, the person is likely to offend
Describe learning techniques
• the soon offender may also learn particular techniques in addition to being exposed to pro-crime
Reoffending my be caused by socialisation in prison
Sutherland can explain why so many people reoffend as they are exposed to other offenders learning their techniques & attitudes
Strength of DAT
- shift of focus
•Sutherland moved emphasis away from early biological explanations
• dat draws attention to deviant social circumstances & environments as being move to blame for offending than deviant people
Strength of DAT
- theory had wide reach
• some crimes are clustered in inner-city communities, others are clustered in more affluent groups
• Sutherland was interested in “white collar” or corporate offences & how it may be a feature of m/c groups who share deviant norms
• show that not just lower class commit crimes
Limitation of DAT
- difficulty testing the theory’s practice
• Sutherland promised a scientific & mathmateral framework for predicting offending behaviour but concepts can’t be operationalised
• it’s unclear how to measure n.o of anti/pro crime attitudes a person is exposed to
