Differential Association Theory

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Sutherland's General Principles

The differential association theory believes criminal behaviour is learned by interacting with criminals. It was first proposed by Sutherland (1939).

Sutherland

Sutherland examined how people learn criminal behaviour by associating with criminals.
He believed that people could not only learn methods of specific crimes but also the attitudes and motivations behind the crimes.
He came up with several general principles.

General principles 1:

Criminal behaviour, like all behaviour, is learned behaviour.
Criminal behaviour comes from social interaction and communication with other people.
Criminal behaviour is more likely to be learnt when in a small group of individuals rather than a large group.
- The reason for this is that small groups are when people have a larger influence.

General principles 2:

Motivation and intent are learned alongside the actual techniques and methods of the crime itself.
Criminals decide whether an action or behaviour is favourable or unfavourable to them. Whereas the law tells the criminal what is legal or illegal.
- For example, theft, while illegal, can be favourable if it can result in material gains.

General principles 3:

The more a person is exposed to criminal behaviour, the more likely they are to commit criminal behaviour.
- This is particularly true when the crime has a favourable outcome (like theft or drug dealing which both can result in monetary gain).

General principles 4:

The intensity, frequency, priority and duration of these interactions between criminals and the learner affects how likely the learner will develop criminal behaviour.
- Priority refers not to how important the interaction is but how early in their life the interaction happens.
  - For example, a child exposed at a young age to criminal behaviour is more likely to become a criminal than those exposed later.

General principles 5:

People learn behaviour by association (operant and classical conditioning). This is also true of criminal behaviour.
Anyone has the potential to become a criminal, regardless of sex, wealth, age, background, ethnicity, etc.

Evaluation of Differential Association Theory

This theory has several strengths and weaknesses.

Recidivism

This theory can explain recidivism.
- This is how likely a person is to commit another crime.
People who commit minor offences (vandalism, petty theft, etc.) are more likely to commit another crime because they spend time with other criminals.
They are more likely to learn about new, more serious crimes, in the time spent in prison.

Generalisability

This theory can explain why anyone, from any background can commit criminal behaviour.
All types of people commit crime and therefore, this theory is more valid because it accounts for this.
Comparatively, other theories of crime only examine juveniles (youth) and people from low socioeconomic backgrounds.

Research support

Another strength is the theory has support from a study done by Short (1955) on 176 school aged children.
Short found a positive correlation between delinquent behaviour and association with delinquent individuals.
In other words, children were more likely to engage in delinquent behaviour (like theft) when they associated more with criminals.

Individual differences

Individual differences are not taken into account.
- For example, the theory does not explain why some siblings may do criminal acts and some not even if they are all raised in the same ‘criminal learning’ environment.

Testing

The theory is challenging to test as there are differences in the attitudes towards crime and law.
Crime is difficult in general to define, therefore makes this theory hard to examine.