Social Learning and Differential Association
What is Differential Association?
It is a theory based on the social environment and its surrounding individuals and the values those individuals gain from
significant others in their social environment.
People
Edwin Sutherland
Focus
Social interaction and social learning between significant others
What is crime?
Crime is a consequence of conflicting values (anti-criminal values and criminal values).
Causes of Crime
Criminal behavior is learned based on the interactions we have with others and the values we receive during that
interaction. These values either support or oppose criminal behavior. Deviance occurs when people define a certain
human situation as an appropriate occasion for violating social norms or criminal laws and definitions of the situation are
acquired through an individual’s history of past experience, particularly in terms of past associations with others. .
Nine Postulates:
1. Criminal behavior is learned.
2. Criminal behavior is learned in interaction with others 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 techniques of committing the crime, which are
sometimes very complicated, sometimes simple and 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 general
needs and values, since non criminal behavior is an expression of the same needs and values.
Social Labeling
What is Social Labeling?
It is a theory that explores how and why certain acts are defined as criminal or deviant and why other acts are not.
People
Howard Becker
Focus
It focuses on the reaction of other people and the subsequent effects of those reactions which create deviance.
What is crime?
Labeling theorists are critical of conceptions that crime is behavior that violates criminal law. To be sure, they
agree that certain acts, like murder, are inherently reprehensible. However, they argue it's not the harm that
makes an act "criminal", but whether the label is conferred on the act, and this varies from situation to situation.
The audience, not the actor, determines when certain behavior becomes defined as crime.
Causes of Crime
Labeling theory focuses on the reaction of other people and the subsequent effects of those reactions which
create deviance. When it becomes known that a person has engaged in deviant acts, she or he is then segregated
from society and thus labeled, “thief," "abuser," "junkie," and the like. Becker noted that this process of
segregation creates "outsiders", who are outcast from society, and then begin to associate with other individuals
who have also been cast out. When more and more people begin to think of these individuals as deviants, they
respond to them as such; thus the deviant reacts to such a response by continuing to engage in the behavior
society now expects from them. This is also known as the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy.
Social Control
What is Social Control?
Social Control theorists start with the premise that human behavior is by nature antisocial and delinquent. It’s a theory
that assumes all people are capable of committing crime and would do so if left to their own devices.
People
E.A. Ross
Focus
It is on the techniques and strategies used to regulate behavior and ensure conformity
What is crime?
Crime is the result of a loss of social control normally imposed through social institutions such as the family, faith,
education, and the community or one’s neighborhood.
Causes of Crime
Social Control Theory (later also called Social Bonding Theory) proposes that people's relationships, commitments,
values, norms, and beliefs encourage them not to break the law. This is different than Self-Control Theory because the
focus is on the community’s role as oppose to the individual.
Four Central Elements to Bonding
Four Central Elements to Bonding:
1. Attachment
 Strength of ties to others: Parents, School, Peers
 Sensitivity
 Interest in others' welfare
2. Commitment
 Investment in Conventional Lines of Action
 Time
 Energy
 Develops Stakes of Conformity - "The more one
has, the more one has to lose."
3. Involvement
 Proportion of Time Spent Involved in
Conventional Activities
 Schools
 Recreation
 Family
4. Beliefs
 Attribution of Moral Validity to Conventional
Norms
 Similar to Differential Association
 Respect for Law and Authority
Social Learning Example
The professional thief is one who steals professionally. He makes a regular business of stealing and every act is carefully
planned. He has different technical skills and methods that are different from those of other professional criminals. He is
generally migratory. The attitude of one thief toward another is very friendly. Not only does one thief warn another thief
of danger but also he avoids doing things that will put other thieves in danger. Thieves also give much assistance to other
thieves who are in trouble. .
Codes of ethics are much more binding among thieves than among legitimate commercial firms. They seldom betray
other thieves. Prisoners squawk (inform) for one purpose only-to relieve themselves of punishment. The worst penalty is
to keep him broke by spreading the news that he has squawked, which makes it impossible for him to get into any mob. If
one mob comes into a place and finds another mob already at work, it will leave at once. It is partly from professional
courtesy and partly for safety.
The professional thief lives in the underworld and has sympathetic and congenial relationships there. Because the
underworld is an exclusive society, it is necessary that the stranger be identified before he is admitted. The language of
the underworld is both an evidence of this isolation of the underworld and also a means of identification. (Ex.
nailed=arrested, shed=railroad station) What he knows about these mutual acquaintances will show whether he is
trustworthy.
A person can become a professional thief only if he is trained by those who are already professionals.
Social Labeling Theory Example
Adrian is a professional thief. He was not always a professional thief though. As a child Adrian was a very
typical boy. He would often play outside with his friends, get above average grades in school, and spend time
with his family whenever he could. As he grew older though, the dynamics of his group of friends began to
change. His friends began to get into deviant acts such as curfew violations, experimenting with drugs and
alcohol, and stealing candy and beer from the local 7-11. At first, Adrian felt uncomfortable doing these things.
However as peer pressure started getting stronger, and he committed these crimes more often, he began to settle
into this deviant teenage lifestyle. Every now and again Adrian or one of his friends would get caught stealing
and would be escorted home by a police officer. He never got into any SERIOUS trouble, however his parents
became more and more frustrated with him and it seemed they would care less and less every time he came
home in the back of a squad car. When Adrian was 18 years old, and after his friends had graduated from high
school and moved on to college, Adrian was stuck at home: broke, jobless, and hooked on meth. It seems his
experimentation from his youth had turned into a full on habit. He was often called a “meth head” anytime he
tried to ask someone for money. One day Adrian and another fellow drug addict decided to rob that 7-11 he
would steal beer from as a youth so they could get enough money to buy more drugs. Adrian had never done
this before, so he had to learn from the more experienced friend. The both of them robbed the 7-11 store, and
made out with $2,000. Although they were never caught, many members of the community felt that because of
Adrian’s track record and the type of company he kept, he may have had something to do with the armed
robbery. Most of the people in this community officially shunned Adrian from their lives and Adrian found it
increasingly difficult to find a place to sleep or food to eat. Because of this, Adrian began breaking into
abandoned buildings to sleep at night, and robbing convenience stores and people for food and money. Adrian
was a thief.
Social Control Theory Example
Simply, think about your environment. Think about the people you go to school with every day. Who are
involved in “conventional activities” and who are involved in “deviant activities?” Now consider then four
elements to bonding. How do they apply? YOU give ME and example.