Theory of Differential Association

[Last Island]

Differential Association is a theory developed by Edwin Sutherland proposing that through interaction with others, individuals learn the values, attitudes, techniques, and motives for criminal behavior. It says that:

"The conditions which are said to cause crime should be present when crime is present, and they should be absent when crime is absent."

Sutherland recognized that while some types of crime are more prevalent in minority communities, many individuals in those communities are law-abiding.

Similarly, among the powerful and privileged, some are lawbreakers; some are not. Individuals might respond differently to the same situation depending on how their experience predisposes them to define their current surroundings. Differential association predicts that an individual will choose the criminal path when the balance of definitions for law-breaking exceeds those for law-abiding. This tendency will be reinforced if social association provides active people in the person’s life. Earlier in life the individual comes under the influence of those of high status within that group, the more likely the individual to follow in their footsteps. This does not deny that there may be practical motives for crime. If a person is hungry but has no money, there is a temptation to steal. But, the use of "needs" and "values" is equivocal. To a greater or lesser extent, both non-criminal and criminal individuals are motivated by the need for money and social gain.

His theory is intended to discriminate at the individual level between those who become lawbreakers and those who do not, whatever their race, class, or ethnic background.

His theory gives priority to the power of social influences and learning experiences and can be expressed in terms of a series of propositions, condensed as follows:

1. Criminal behavior is learned in interaction with other persons in a process of communication.
2. That learning takes place primarily in intimate personal groups and includes the techniques of committing crime and the motives, rationalizations, and attitudes which accompany crime.
3. Differential associations may vary in frequency, duration, priority, and intensity, and a person becomes delinquent because of an excess of definitions favorable to violation of law over definitions unfavorable to violation of law.
4. The learning process involves the same mechanisms whether a person is learning criminality or conformity.
5. While criminal behavior is an expression of general needs and values, it is not explained by those needs and values, since non-criminal behavior is an expression of the same needs and values.

Thus it isn't a lack of social organization that characterizes communities and neighborhoods high in crime, but a differential social organization--a set of practices and cultural definitions that are at odds with the law. As Sutherland puts it:

"In an area where the delinquency rate is high, a boy who is sociable, gregarious, active, and athletic is very likely to come in contact with
other boys in the neighborhood, learn delinquent behavior from them, and become a gangster; the psychopathic boy who is isolated,
introverted and inert may remain at home, not become acquainted with other boys in the neighborhood, and not become delinquent."

Sutherland is also concerned that his theory applies to those from more privileged class backgrounds. He says:

"Most communities are organized for both criminal and anti-criminal behavior."

Sutherland's theory directs us toward the network of key social relations that differentiates the deviant and the conformist.

Sutherland's original hope is that we could put variables like the "frequency, intensity, and duration" of exposure to deviant and non-deviant definitions on a quasi-mathematical basis. Even if this isn't possible, and so far it has proved highly resistant to such specification, the real challenge of applying Sutherland's theory is to develop concrete criteria for these variables that are not after-the-fact.