Psychological explanations: Differential Association theory
The theory that proposes that individuals learn the values, attitudes, techniques and motives for
criminal behaviour through association and interaction with different people.
Scientific basis
Sutherland set himself the task to develop scientific principles that could explain all types offending.
-‘the conditions said to cause crime should be present when crime is present and they should be
absent when crime is absent’
Designed to discriminate between individuals whatever their race, class or ethnic background
Crime as a learned behaviour
-behaviour may be acquired in the same way as others through learning
-occurs most often through significant others that child associates with such as adults and peers
Criminality arises from:
Learned attitudes towards Learning of specific criminal
crime acts
Pro-criminal attitudes
person socialised = exposed to groups attitudes towards the law
-some will be pro-crime and some anti-crime
Sutherland argues that pro-criminal attitudes outweigh the anti-criminal
-this learning process is the same whether a person is learning to obey or commit crime
Differential association suggests that is should be possible to mathematically predict how likely an
individual will commit crime if we had knowledge of:
-frequency, intensity and duration, whether they have been exposed to deviant or non-deviant
attitude
Learning criminal acts
-the would-be offender may also be exposed to particular techniques for committing crime
Eg: how to break into someone’s house through a locked windows or how to disable a car stereo
The theory accounts for why there are so many reoffenders
-people in prison learn from other prisoners and are eager to put those techniques into
action
The theory that proposes that individuals learn the values, attitudes, techniques and motives for
criminal behaviour through association and interaction with different people.
Scientific basis
Sutherland set himself the task to develop scientific principles that could explain all types offending.
-‘the conditions said to cause crime should be present when crime is present and they should be
absent when crime is absent’
Designed to discriminate between individuals whatever their race, class or ethnic background
Crime as a learned behaviour
-behaviour may be acquired in the same way as others through learning
-occurs most often through significant others that child associates with such as adults and peers
Criminality arises from:
Learned attitudes towards Learning of specific criminal
crime acts
Pro-criminal attitudes
person socialised = exposed to groups attitudes towards the law
-some will be pro-crime and some anti-crime
Sutherland argues that pro-criminal attitudes outweigh the anti-criminal
-this learning process is the same whether a person is learning to obey or commit crime
Differential association suggests that is should be possible to mathematically predict how likely an
individual will commit crime if we had knowledge of:
-frequency, intensity and duration, whether they have been exposed to deviant or non-deviant
attitude
Learning criminal acts
-the would-be offender may also be exposed to particular techniques for committing crime
Eg: how to break into someone’s house through a locked windows or how to disable a car stereo
The theory accounts for why there are so many reoffenders
-people in prison learn from other prisoners and are eager to put those techniques into
action
