BY: Dr. Peter A. Barone, Esq.
Criminal behavior is learnable and learned in interaction along with other deviant individuals. Through association people learn techniques of certain crimes, motives, and rationale for committing criminal acts. Here ones can see the critical aspect of Differential Association Theory which are the frequency and duration of the associations. This particular theory explains why an individual migrates towards deviant behavior. His theory is very useful when used to explain peer influences among deviant offenders, and when attempting to explain the how of becoming a criminal. In this theory Sutherland attributes the cause of crime to the social context of individuals. The principle of Differential Association asserts a person becomes delinquent due to an excess of definitions favorable to violation of law over definitions unfavorable to law. This theory explains why individuals migrate towards criminal behavior (Sutherland, 1974).
Sutherland’s theory has nine postulates. Criminal behavior is learned, and it is learned in interaction and association with other persons in a process of communication. The principal part of learning criminal behavior occurs within intimate personal groups. This learning involves various techniques of committing the crime, which at times are simple and at other times complex. This learning also involves specific directions, rationalizations, attitudes, and drives. The learning of specific direction of motives and drives is learned from definitions from the legal codes as being either unfavorable or favorable based upon the categorization by society via the legislators. When a person is exposed to a large amount or excess of definitions favorable to violation of the law over definitions against the violation of law they will become delinquent or commit deviant acts. This is an important concept because when people become criminals they become criminals because they do so due to their contacts with criminal patterns and also because of the isolation from the anti-criminal patterns, and the exposure to neutral associations really have either little or no effect on criminal behavior (Moon, Hwang, & McCluskey, 2011; Sutherland, 1974).
When examining Differential Association there are four issues which have a definite bearing on its taking effect on a person or a child, they are intensity, frequency, priority, and duration. Priority is important through selective intensity and influences. There is also the aspect of the prestige of the actual source of the criminal pattern being learned from, and the emotional reactions related to this particular association. A common aspect of this theory is that the process of learning anything is by association involves all of the normal mechanisms involved in any other learning. Both criminal and non-criminal behavior are both explained by general needs and values, both do what they do to obtain money, one is done with the mechanisms which are within the law and the other does them outside of the law (Moon, Hwang, & McCluskey, 2011; Sutherland, 1974).
It appears that deviance occurs when people define a certain human situation as an appropriate occasion for violating social norms or the criminal laws. The definitions of the situations are acquired through an individual’s history of past experience and particularly in terms of past associations with others (Pfohl, 1994). When Sutherland presented his theory he did not mean mere association with criminals would lead to criminal behavior. However, Sutherland viewed crime and criminal behavior as a consequence of conflicting to values. What Sutherland meant was an excess of criminal definitions will be more susceptible to new criminal definitions, and when this occurs the individuals will be less receptive to anti-criminal definitions.
When further examining Sutherland's theory of differential association it becomes evident that it can be categorized as a learning theory. The basic premise of this theory is that criminal behavior is acquired through the learning process, just as is lawful behavior. The theory demonstrates that the socialization process is essentially the same, regardless of whether the messages being transmitted are conventional or deviant. It is through the interaction with others that people learn attitudes which are both favorable and unfavorable as relates to the violation of laws. Sutherland claims that a person turns to criminal behavior when there is an excess of attitudes and values favoring law violation as opposed to adherence to the law (Sutherland, 1974). The activities which comprise the basic tenets of theory are directly applicable to the learning of bullying and violent behavior by children in a school environment.
In theory, and as a learning theory, differential association is one of the most logical explanations of criminal behavior. When using differential association to explain criminal behavior the researcher must look at criminal behavior after it has taken place with the goal of reconstructing the reality of the criminal's world prior to and at the time the actions were committed (Lilly, Cullen & Ball, 1995). The actions demonstrated by children in school are directly in line with Sutherland’s belief that criminal behavior develops from associating with those individuals who commit crimes or in this case bullying, and that commission of crimes was more likely to result from learned behaviors which have been positively reinforced. Motivations and technical knowledge, according to Sutherland (1974), were likely to be learned from those who commit crimes.
The principle of differential association asserts that a person becomes delinquent because they are constantly exposed to a excess of meanings favorable to violation(s) of law over definitions unfavorable to the violation(s) of law. In other words, criminal behavior emerges when a person is exposed to more social messages from those around them favoring conduct that is anti-social rather than pro-social (Sutherland, 1974). According to Tittle (1986, p. 429), "despite some important anomalies, our findings support the major theme of Sutherland's thinking. Association with criminal definitely does seem to be a generator of crime, and it appears to exercise its influence indirectly through its effects on a learned symbolic construct-motivation to engage in criminal behavior."
The learning process posited in differential association involves the same mechanisms whether a person is learning criminal behavior or learning conformity to social norms and laws. The data collected from both law enforcement agencies demonstrate that the majority of the home-invasion robberies were committed by more than two perpetrators. These groups can provide the social messages from those around them favoring conduct that is anti-social rather than pro-social as discussed by Sutherland (1974) in his explanation of the foundational tenet in Differential Association.
Perpetrators of school violence knowingly and voluntarily commit these actions and there exists a very good possibility that they are aware that these are considered to be very serious offenses with very serious consequences attached to them if they are caught, prosecuted and convicted. However, the value they place on committing these acts with their peers, and with the positive reinforcement from their peers, appears to outweigh the rational thought process or decision making process that someone about to engage in any activity, who assesses the gain and loss ratio, would see as being very high on the cost and low on the return scale, and reconsider engaging in once the situation was rationally evaluated. The more often these activities are performed and the more times a benefit is gained in the form of participant peer reinforcement is accomplished, along with acceptance by the other peers and the group, the more reinforced the learned behavior is solidified as being acceptable notwithstanding the critically devastating consequences. This was supported in as far back as 1968 in a study by Matthew.
In 1968, Victor Matthews conducted a study among a group of high school students (boys) in the mid-west. He utilized two instruments, a personal data sheet and a delinquency scale similar to the one used by Short. The emphasis in the study was on the degree of delinquent involvement by an individual as compared to that of his peers. In his study. Matthews found that uniformity in behavior was greatest between best friends; individuals who shred ideas, thoughts, activities, and time together in similar environments. He concluded that the greater the degree of identification between individuals, the greater will be the degree of uniformity of their self-reported behaviors. Again, the theory of Differential Association was supported by the results of his study (Mathews, 1968).
References
Lilly, J., Cullen, F., & .Ball, R (1995). Criminological theory. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Moon, B., Hwang, H. W., and McCluskey, J. D. (2011). “Causes of school bullying: empirical test of a general theory of crime, differential association theory, and general strain theory,” Crime and Delinquency, 57(6), pp. 849–877.
Pfohl, S. (1994). Images of Deviance and Social Control. McGraw-Hill, Inc.
Sutherland, E.H. (1974). Criminology. J.B. Lippincott Company.Matthews, V. (1968). Differential identification: An empirical note, Social Problems, 1, 383.
