NOTE: Free essay sample provided on this page should be used for references or sample purposes only. The sample essay is available to anyone, so any direct quoting without mentioning the source will be considered plagiarism by schools, colleges and universities that use plagiarism detection software. To get a completely brand-new, plagiarism-free essay, please use our essay writing service.
One click instant price quote
In 1939 Criminologist Edwin H. Sutherland proposed his theory of Differential Association in his Principles of Criminology textbook. Differential Association theory states that criminal behavior is learned behavior. Sutherland along with Richard Coward, and Lloyd Online attempted to explain this phenomenon by emphasizing the role of learning. To become a criminal, a person must not only be inclined toward illegal activity, he or she must also learn how to commit criminal acts. Sutherland's differential association theory contends that people whose environment provides the opportunity to associate with criminals will learn these skills and will become criminals in response to strain.
If the necessary learning structures are absent, they will not. Sutherland relied heavily upon the work of Shaw and McKay, Chicago school theorists, in high rates of juvenile delinquency. Sutherland's theory of differential association still remains very popular among criminologists due to its less complex and more coherent approach to crime causation. It is also supported by much evidence. Sutherland did not mean that mere association with criminals would lead to criminal behavior. What he meant was that the contents of patterns in association would differ from individual to individual.
He viewed crime as a consequence of conflicting values. Differential association 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. According to Differential Association, criminal behavior is learned based on the interactions we have with others and the values that we receive during that interaction. We learn values from family, friends, coworkers, etc. ; those values either support or oppose criminal behavior. Sutherland also noted that individuals with an excess of criminal definitions will be more open to new criminal definitions and that individual will be less receptive to anti-criminal definitions. The theory does not emphasize who one's associates are but rather upon the definitions provided by those associations.
Once techniques are learned, values (or definitions) supporting that criminal behavior may be learned from just about anyone. Differential Association is based on nine postulates: 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, (b) the specific direction of motives, drives and rationalizations and attitudes. 5) The specific direction of motives and drives is learned from the definition of legal codes are favorable and unfavorable 6) A person becomes delinquent because of an excess of definitions favorable to violation of law over definitions unfavorable to violation of 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 patters involves all of the mechanisms that are involved in any other learning. 9) Through 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. The weak points of the theory of Edwin Sutherland are (1) doesn't specifically answer why everyone in contact with an excess of criminal behavior patterns doesn't become criminal and (2) differential Association also fails to tell us how the first criminal became a criminal. A group of labeling theorists began exploring how and why certain acts were defined as criminal or deviant and why other such acts were not. They questioned how and why certain people thus became defined as criminal or deviant. Such theorists viewed criminals not as evil persons who engaged in wrong acts but as individuals who had a criminal status placed upon them by both the criminal justice system and the community at large.
From this point of view, criminal acts thus themselves are not significant; it is the social reaction to them that are. Deviance and its control then involve a process of social definition which involves the response from others to an individual's behavior which is key to how an individual views himself. Labeling is a form of symbolic communication. We all unintentionally label each other.
However, we have strong identities and it is hard to make a label stick. So there is a Negotiation Process; this is what happens when someone tries to stick a label on you. "Older sociology tended to rest heavily upon the idea that deviance leads to social control. I have come to believe that the reverse idea, i. e. , social control leads to deviance, is equally tenable and the potentially richer premise for studying deviance in modern society. " (Lemert) 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, "easy, " liar, "pusher, "addict, " and the like. Howard 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. The ten major arguments of labeling theory are: 1) No act is intrinsically criminal 2) Criminal definitions are enforced in the interest of the powerful 3) Only by official labeling does one become criminal 4) People should not be dichotomized into criminal and non criminal categories 5) The act of "getting caught" begins the labeling process 6) Whether one gets caught depends primarily on irrelevant personal characteristics 7) Age, SES, and race are the major factors that lead to an increased chance of being caught 8) Our system falsely assumes free-will so that all deviants are morally condemned 9) Labeling is a process which leads to a deviant self concept 10) The harder a society works to reform evil, the greater it grows under our hands A possible weakness of this theory is that label gives off a very wide net of social control that captures too many people, therefore making them think they are criminals also. Another one may be that labeling only entrenches the delinquent activities of an offender further and this causes him to commit more crimes in a more heinous manner. In Death Row, Sonny who was never really a criminal but rather a teenager who like all teenagers was very vulnerable to peer pressure. Sonny, wanting to get himself out of his slum and wished for a better life listened to his friend who promised him an easy way out of his hell hole by getting the cash he badly needed. He eventually joined up with this gang and learned how his friend was earning his easy money through armed robbery.
From there, Sonny learned the tricks of the trade from his friends and went out with his new gang on a robbery attempt which went to hell the moment their ring leader shot the victim and alerted the neighbors who in turn called the police (who arrived amazingly in time to capture the criminals, which in real life is almost impossible to happen). Sutherland stressed the criminal behavior is learned and learned through communication. The slum where Sonny and his friends lived in provided the perfect area to cultivate criminal behavior. The slum was crowded; everyone knew everyone and they have enough time to interact with one another in an intimate setting. As for the labeling theory, Sonny who was a squatter saw himself as such. He rationalized to himself that he was poor and there was no other way to achieve his goals through legal means.
Probably at first he controlled his urge to do illegitimate actions but all his friends were involving him so it was only a matter of time before he caved in to their pressure. Howard Becker and Edwin Lemert noted that criminal definitions are enforced by the powerful and the act of getting caught begins the labeling process. So the moment the handcuffs were slapped on Sonny's wrist, he was already seen by society (in the movie, the uzi-zeros and the neighbors) as a criminal even if he was innocent. Plus, the family of the victim who was rich did not want to hear the side of Sonny and pushed that he be punished severely.
Free research essays on topics related to: differential association theory, social control, criminal acts, labeling theory, criminal behavior
Research essay sample on Differential Association Theory Criminal Behavior
