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Criminology Edwin Sutherland Behavior: Sutherland's Theory of Differential Association

1) Differential association theory proposes that through interactions with others, individuals learn criminal behavior, including techniques, motives, and attitudes. 2) The theory focuses on how criminal behavior is learned through intimate personal groups, rather than innate causes. It says a person is more likely to engage in crime if they have learned more definitions favorable to law-breaking than unfavorable definitions. 3) Key aspects of learning criminal behavior include the frequency, duration, and intensity of interactions with others who engage in criminal behavior.

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339 views3 pages

Criminology Edwin Sutherland Behavior: Sutherland's Theory of Differential Association

1) Differential association theory proposes that through interactions with others, individuals learn criminal behavior, including techniques, motives, and attitudes. 2) The theory focuses on how criminal behavior is learned through intimate personal groups, rather than innate causes. It says a person is more likely to engage in crime if they have learned more definitions favorable to law-breaking than unfavorable definitions. 3) Key aspects of learning criminal behavior include the frequency, duration, and intensity of interactions with others who engage in criminal behavior.

Uploaded by

keshavllm
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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In criminology, differential association is a theory developed by Edwin

Sutherland proposing that through interaction with others, individuals learn the
values, attitudes, techniques, and motives for criminal behavior.
The differential association theory is the most talked about of the learning theories
of deviance. This theory focuses on how individuals learn to become criminals, but
does not concern itself with why they become criminals. Learning Theory is
closely related to the Interactionist perspective; however, it is not considered so
because Interactionism focuses on the construction of boundaries in society and
persons' perceptions of them. Learning Theory is considered a positivist approach
because it focuses on specific acts, opposed to the more subjective position of
social impressions on one's identity, and how those may compel to act. They learn
how to commit criminal acts; they learn motives, drives, rationalizations,
and attitudes. It grows socially easier for the individuals to commit a crime. Their
inspiration is the processes of cultural transmission and construction. Sutherland
had developed the idea of the "self" as a social construct, as when a person's self-
image is continuously being reconstructed especially when interacting with other
people.
Phenomenology and ethnomethodology also encouraged people to debate the
certainty of knowledge and to make sense of their everyday experiences
using indexicality methods. People define their lives by reference to their
experiences, and then generalise those definitions to provide a framework of
reference for deciding on future action. From a researcher's perspective, a subject
will view the world very differently if employed as opposed to unemployed, if in a
supportive family or abused by parents or those close to the individual. However,
individuals might respond to the same situation differently depending on how their
experience predisposes them to define their current surroundings.
Differential association predicts that an individual will choose the criminal path
when the balance of definitions for law-breaking exceeds those for law-abiding.
This tendency will be reinforced if social association provides active people in the
person's life. Earlier in life the individual comes under the influence of those of
high status within that group, the more likely the individual to follow in their
footsteps. This does not deny that there may be practical motives for crime. If a
person is hungry but has no money, there is a temptation to steal. But, the use of
"needs" and "values" is equivocal. To a greater or lesser extent, both non-criminal
and criminal individuals are motivated by the need for money and social gain.

Sutherland's theory of differential association[edit]


The principles of Sutherland's Theory of Differential Association key points: [1]
1. Criminal behavior is learned.
2. Criminal behavior is learned in interaction with other persons in a process of
communication.
3. The principal part of the learning of criminal behavior occurs within intimate
personal groups.
4. When criminal behavior is learned, the learning includes (a) techniques of
committing the crime, which are sometimes very complicated, sometimes simple;
(b) the specific direction of motives, drives, rationalizations, and attitudes.
5. The specific direction of motives and drives is learned from definitions of the
legal codes as favorable or unfavorable.
6. A person becomes delinquent because of an excess of definitions favorable to
violation of law over definitions unfavorable to violation of the law.
7. Differential associations may vary in frequency, duration, priority, and intensity.
8. The process of learning criminal behavior by association with criminal and anti-
criminal patterns involves all of the mechanisms that are involved in any other
learning.
9. While criminal behavior is an expression of general needs and values, it is not
explained by those needs and values, since non-criminal behavior is an expression
of the same needs and values.
Explanation[edit]
Furthermore, some new and additional theoretical specifications about the social
influence of others on the individual, all in accordance with the original ideas of
Sutherland are proposed and empirically tested. The differential association theory
according to the version of K.-D. Opp is fairly well corroborated by the data. Only
three of the postulated relationships are rejected. The theory explains 51% of the
variance of criminal behavior, even considering that no criminal population is used
for the test and only minor offenses are measured. The test also shows that the
impact of the frequency of contacts with deviant behaviour patterns on the
development of positive definitions and on the frequency of communication about
relevant techniques is substantial and cannot be ignored by criminologists.
Furthermore, special analysis show that several propositions favour the theory. It is
the deviancy of others that has the most substantial impact: the more youngsters
have contact with their friends, the stronger the impact of the deviancy of their
friends on the development of positive definitions or on the frequency of
communication about techniques. The tests also show that the more youngsters
identify themselves with others, the stronger the impact of the deviancy of the
others on their norms. These results support the modification of the DA theory
according to Opp and falsify some propositions of social control theory.
An important quality of differential association theory concerns the frequency and
intensity of interaction. The amount of time that a person is exposed to a particular
definition and at what point the interaction began are both crucial for explaining
criminal activity. The process of learning criminal behaviour is really not any
different from the process involved in learning any other type of behaviour.
Sutherland maintains that there is no unique learning process associated with
acquiring non-normative ways of behaving.[2]
One unique aspect of this theory is that the theory purports to explain more than
just juvenile delinquency and crime committed by lower class individuals. Since
crime is understood to be learned behaviour, the theory is also applicable to white-
collar, corporate, and organized crime.[3]

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