Download Correctional Theory: Past to Present

Learning to Be a Criminal:
Differential Association,
Subcultural, and Social
Learning Theories
Learning to Be Criminal
• This group of theories argues people learn to engage
in criminal behavior
• Learn in the same way that you learn noncriminal behavior
• Stand in contrast to theories that argue that social class,
broken homes, race, age, etc., lead to crime
• Both micro- and macro-level learning theories
• Micro: individual level
• Macro: aggregate or group level
Micro-Level Learning Theories
• Sutherland’s theory of differential association
• First and most prominent formal statement of a micro-level learning
theory
• First complete statement presented in 1939
• Final version 1947
• Has had a tremendous influence on crime research and remains a
dominant theory of crime today
Sutherland and Cressey: “A Theory of
Differential Association”
•
Nine propositions
1.
Criminal behavior is learned
• Not inherited
2.
Criminal behavior is learned in interaction with other
persons in the process of communication
• Communication can be verbal or in terms of gestures
3.
The principal part of the learning of criminal behavior
occurs within intimate personal groups
• Impersonal agencies (e.g., movies,
newspapers, etc.) play a relatively
unimportant role
Sutherland and Cressey: “A Theory of
Differential Association”
•
Nine propositions
4.
When criminal behavior is learned, the learning includes
(a) the techniques of committing the crime, which are
sometimes very simple, and (b) the specific direction of
motives, drives, rationalizations, and attitudes
5.
The specific direction of motives and drives is learned
from definitions of the legal code as favorable or
unfavorable
•
Individuals are surrounded by both those who define the
legal code as rules to be observed and those who have
definitions favorable to the violation of the legal codes
Sutherland and Cressey: “A Theory of
Differential Association”
•
Nine propositions
A person becomes delinquent because of an excess of
definitions favorable to the violation of the law over
definitions unfavorable to the violation of the law
6.
•
This is the principle of differential association
•
Refers to both criminal and anti-criminal associations and
counteracting forces
•
People become criminal because of
contacts with criminal patterns and
isolation from anti-criminal patterns
Sutherland and Cressey: “A Theory of
Differential Association”
•
Nine propositions
Differential associations may vary in frequency, duration,
priority, and intensity
7.
•
Frequency: how often
•
Duration: how long
•
Priority: how early in life
•
•
Assumed that lawful behavior developed early in childhood may
persist throughout life
Intensity: how respected or prestigious the source and the
emotional reactions related to the associations
Sutherland and Cressey: “A Theory of
Differential Association”
•
Nine propositions
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
8.
•
Learning not restricted to imitation
Sutherland and Cressey: “A Theory of
Differential Association”
•
Nine propositions
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 those same
needs and values
9.
•
For example, money is a common value that is desired, but that
desire does not
always lead to crime
•
Some gain employment, while
others steal
Sutherland and Cressey: “A Theory of
Differential Association”
• A person’s associations are determined in a general
context of social organization
• The theory can explain both criminal and noncriminal
behavior
• Although a micro-level theory, argues differential social
organization plays a role
• Areas with social organization that favors criminal behavior will
have high crime rates
Criticisms of Differential Association
Theory
• Sutherland does not present a good description of definitions
favorable or unfavorable to crime
• Some argue that individuals hold values that unconditionally approve
of crime
• Studies have found few people unconditionally approve of crime
• Rather, some are amoral—neither approve nor condemn crime
• Others argue that people hold values that do not directly approve of
crime but are conducive to crime (e.g., thrill seeking, toughness)
• Supported by the data
• More commonly, it is argued people hold
beliefs that approve of, justify, or excuse crime
certain situations
• Sykes and Matza’s techniques of neutralization
• Supported by the data
in
Criticisms of Differential Association
Theory
• Fails to fully describe the process by which crime is
learned
• Only says crime is the result of having more definitions favorable to
the violation of the law than definitions unfavorable to the violation
of the law
• This is addressed by Akers’s social learning theory
Akers: “A Social Learning Theory of
Crime”
• A reformulation and extension of Sutherland’s differential
association theory
• Argues definitions favorable to crime are important
• Crime may be learned through imitation and differential
reinforcement
• Specifies the learning mechanisms of behavior—how criminal
behavior is learned
• Draws from theories of learning, particularly
behavioral and social learning theory in
psychology, to describe how crime is learned
• Currently one of the leading theories of crime
Akers: “A Social Learning Theory of
Crime”
• Development of social learning theory
• Sutherland did not explain the mechanisms of learning
• Burgess and Akers (1966) specified these mechanisms in
their “differential association-reinforcement theory”
• Restated Sutherland’s principles in terms of operant and
respondent (classical) conditioning
• Still maintains strong elements of symbolic interactionism
• Thus, the theory is considered “soft behaviorism”
Akers: “A Social Learning Theory of
Crime”
• Learning refers to the acquisition, maintenance, and
modification of human behavior
• The same learning process produces both conforming
and deviant behavior; the difference lies in the direction of
the balance of influences on behavior
Akers: “A Social Learning Theory of
Crime”
•
Four major concepts of social learning theory
1.
Differential association
2.
Definitions
3.
Differential reinforcement
4.
Imitation
Akers: “A Social Learning Theory of
Crime”
Differential association
1.
•
Process by which a person is exposed to normative
definitions favorable or unfavorable to illegal behavior
•
Has behavioral interactional and normative dimensions
•
Behavioral interactional: direct association and interaction
with others who engage in a behavior and identification
with reference groups
•
Normative: exposure to different patterns of norms and
values through associations
Akers: “A Social Learning Theory of
Crime”
Differential association, continued.…
1.
•
Groups that people associate with, which exposes one to definitions,
models to imitate, and differential reinforcements
•
Most important groups are primary groups:
•
Family
•
Friends
•
•
Groups can also be secondary or reference groups:
•
Church
•
School
•
Mass media
Like Sutherland, the greater frequency, duration, priority, and intensity
of the association, the greater the effect on the behavior
Akers: “A Social Learning Theory of
Crime”
Definitions
2.
•
One’s own attitudes or meanings that are attached to a given behavior
•
Orientations, rationalizations, definitions, and other evaluative/moral
attitudes that define acts as good/bad
•
Can be general (religious, moral, conventional values) or specific (oriented
toward particular acts)
•
If hold attitudes that disapprove an act, less likely to engage in that
behavior
•
If hold attitudes that approve an act, more likely to engage in that behavior
•
Approving attitudes toward crime can be:
•
•
Positive: makes the behavior desirable or permissible
•
Neutralizing: justifies or excuses the behavior
Definitions developed through imitation and differential reinforcement
Akers: “A Social Learning Theory of
Crime”
Differential reinforcement
3.
•
The balance of anticipated or actual rewards or punishments
that follow or are consequences of behavior
•
Whether individuals will continue (maintain) or desist a behavior
depends on past, present, and anticipated rewards and
punishments
•
If rewarded, probability of the act being committed or repeated
is increased; if punished, the probability is decreased
Akers: “A Social Learning Theory of
Crime”
Differential reinforcement, continued.…
3.
•
Reinforcement can be:
•
Positive: presenting a positive stimuli
•
Negative: removing an aversive stimuli
•
Punishment can be:
•
Direct: presenting an aversive stimuli
•
Indirect: removing a positive stimuli
•
Reinforcers and punishers also can be:
•
Nonsocial: the direct physical effects of drugs and alcohol
•
Social: praise, gaining status, etc.
•
Most learning is the result of social exchanges rather than nonsocial exchanges
Akers: “A Social Learning Theory of
Crime”
Imitation
4.
•
The engagement of behavior after the observation of similar
behavior in others
•
Plays a role in the initial acquisition of the behavior
•
Whether or not the behavior is imitated is affected by
characteristics of the model
•
Both prosocial and deviant behavior can be imitated
Akers: “A Social Learning Theory of
Crime”
• The social learning process: Sequence and feedback
effects
• Involves the balance of learned definitions, imitation of
criminal/deviant models, and reinforcement that
produces the initial act
• The facilitative effects of these variables continue in the
repetition of acts, with imitation becoming less important
• Nonsocial and social reinforcers
and punishers determine if
act is repeated and how often
the
Akers: “A Social Learning Theory of
Crime”
• The social learning process: Sequence and feedback
effects
• Definitions favorable to the violation of the law do not only precede
the initiation of the criminal act
• Acts can occur in the absence of
any
thought given about the
rightness/wrongness of the act
• Definitions that neutralize the
be applied retrospectively
act can
Akers: “A Social Learning Theory of
Crime”
• The social learning process: Sequence and feedback
effects
• Differential association with others typically precedes the act
• After associations have been established and the
reinforcing/punishing consequences of the act are experienced, the
continuation and seeking of new associations are affected
Akers: “A Social Learning Theory of
Crime”
• Social Structure and Social Learning (SSSL)
• Social structure factors (distal macro-level and meso-level
causes of crime) are hypothesized to have an indirect effect
on the individual’s behavior by affecting the differential
associations, definitions, differential reinforcements, and
imitations (primary proximate causes of crime) of the
individual
• These primary proximate factors then have a direct effect on
the individual’s behavior
Social Structure
Factors
(Distal)
Social Learning
Factors
(Proximate)
Behavior
Akers: “A Social Learning Theory of
Crime”
•
Four dimensions of social structure
Differential social organization
1.
•
Age composition, population density, and other attributes that lean
communities to high or low rates of crime
Differential location in the social structure
2.
•
Sociodemographic characteristics of individuals that indicate their position
within the larger social structure
Theoretically defined structural variables
3.
•
Anomie, class, oppression, social disorganization, etc.
Differential social location
4.
•
Individual’s memberships in primary, secondary, and reference groups
Akers: “A Social Learning Theory of
Crime”
• Differential social organization and differential location of
a person provide the general learning contexts for
individuals that increase/ decrease the likelihood of
committing crime
• Affects exposure to criminal associations, models, definitions, and
reinforcements for crime
Akers: “A Social Learning Theory of
Crime”
• Critiques of social learning theory
• The reinforcement principle may be tautological
• Some question the temporal sequence of differential peer associations and
delinquency
• Some argue youths become delinquent first then seek out other delinquent
friends
• “Birds of a feather flock together”
• Delinquent friends have no effect on the onset
or continuation of delinquent behavior
• Others (and social learning theory) argue youths have
delinquent friends first
• “If you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas”
• Social learning theory recognizes both direct
effects of peers and reciprocal effects
• But most often the research shows the associations come
before the deviant behavior—consistent with social learning theory
Akers: “A Social Learning Theory of
Crime”
• Critiques of social learning theory
• The strong relationship between self-reported delinquency and
peer associations is because delinquency is often measured by the
individual’s report of the delinquency of his/her peers
• Measuring the same thing twice
• Research shows the individual’s own delinquency and their friends’
delinquency are not the same
Akers: “A Social Learning Theory of
Crime”
• Empirical support of social learning theory
• Most of the research has found strong support for the social
learning variables and criminal, delinquent, and deviant behavior
• When tested against other theories, social learning theory is
usually found to have greater support
• Patterson (1975) showed that social learning mechanisms in
parent–child interactions are strong predictors of
conforming/deviant behavior
• Children conform when parents consistently reward good behavior and
punish bad behavior
• Children become deviant when parents directly train the child to be
deviant through imitation, supplying favorable/neutralizing definitions to
the violation of the law, and reward deviant behavior
Akers: “A Social Learning Theory of
Crime”
• Empirical support for social learning theory
• Other than one’s own delinquent behavior, the best single predictor
of the onset, continuance, or desistance of crime is differential
association with conforming or law-violating peers
• If associate with conforming peers, less likely to engage in deviant
behavior
• If associate with deviant peers, more likely to engage in deviant
behavior
• Delinquent gangs
• Promote a high level of delinquent involvement
• Exposed to group processes and norms favorable to violence as well as
models and reinforcements for deviant behavior
Akers: “A Social Learning Theory of
Crime”
• Akers’s research on social learning theory
• Has conducted six influential studies
• Found all four social learning variables alone and in
combination are strongly related to various forms of deviant
behavior
• Smoking, alcohol use, drug use, rape, sexual coercion, etc.
• Found the social learning variables explained more variance
than the social bond or anomie/strain variables
• Found the social learning variables mediated the social
structural variables
• Shows support for the SSSL theory
Macro-Level Learning Theories
• Argue there are certain groups with values that are
conducive to crime or that approve or justify crime in
certain circumstances
• These values result in high crime rates in these areas
• Miller (1958) argued members of the lower class
have a culture that values trouble, toughness,
smartness, and excitement and that explains the
higher rates of crime found in the lower class
Macro-Level Learning Theories
• The “subculture of violence” thesis
• Wolfgang and Ferracuti (1982)
• Attempts to explain the high rates of homicide among African
American males in the inner city
• Violence seen as an appropriate, even an expected response to a wide
range of insults and provocations
Anderson: The Code of the Street
• Anderson (1999) presents a contemporary subculture
of violence thesis (Code of the Street)
• Draws on field research conducted in inner city communities
• This code pressures African American youth in the
inner city to respond to shows of disrespect with
violence
• All do not accept the underlying values; however, all young
African American men feel the pressure of the code
Anderson: The Code of the Street
•
Many poor inner city areas have a violence problem
•
•
Possible causes: lack of jobs that pay a living wage, fallout from
rampant drug use, drug trafficking,
easy access to guns
In these areas, residents are often exposed to two conflicting
orientations:
Street: norms that are often consciously opposed to mainstream
society, valuing toughness, manliness, and violence
1.
•
2.
Traced to the sense of alienation from mainstream society
Decent: middle-class, mainstream values counteracting the
negative influences of the area
Anderson: The Code of the Street
• The street culture has developed into the “code of the
street”
• Informal rules governing interpersonal public behavior,
including violence
• Governs proper comportment and proper ways to respond if
challenged
• Regulates the use of violence
• Everyone must know the code to negotiate
in the inner-city environment
• Adaptation to the lack of faith in the police
and judicial system
• Must take care of “yourself”
Anderson: The Code of the Street
• The heart of the code is respect
• Being treated “right”
• Respect is hard-won but easily lost, so must be constantly guarded
• The code provides a framework to getting respect
• Respect can help someone avoid being bothered and/or “dissed”
• Do not have to engage in violence in response
Anderson: The Code of the Street
• Decent and street families
• Represent two poles of value orientation
• Often coexist in the same family
• Decent families judge themselves as decent; street individuals
often present themselves as decent and judge others
• Often have circumstantial behaviors
• May exhibit both street and decent orientations depending on the
situation
Anderson: The Code of the Street
• Decent families
• Accept mainstream values more fully and instill them in their
children
• Value hard work and self-reliance
• Value the church and school
• Often “working poor”
• Better off financially than the street families
• Strict in child-rearing practices
• Teach children to respect authority, have morals, be
polite/considerate, and maintain a positive mental attitude and
a spirit of cooperation
Anderson: The Code of the Street
• Street families
• Show a lack of consideration for other people
• Superficial sense of family/community
• Many unable to cope with the physical and emotional demands of
parenthood
• May aggressively socialize their children into the code
• Often very disorganized
• Limited financial resources
• Drug addiction
• Deep-seated bitterness and anger
• Often aggressive with their children
• Yell, strike, do not explain the punishment
Anderson: The Code of the Street
• Street families
• Many “street-oriented” women are sporadic mothers
• Children forage for food and money
• Often become employed in the drug trade
• Children often left alone while mom is drinking/getting high
• Children learn to fight at an early age, hit those who cross
them, that physical strength is a must, and that they must
protect themselves
• Home life fraught with anger, verbal disputes, and physical
aggression
Anderson: The Code of the Street
• Children of street families often gravitate to the streets at an early
age and socialize with their peers
• Often unsupervised
• Out late on school nights (not doing homework)
• Learn to fight through these groups
• Test one another
• Witness disputes of older children and adults and imitate them
• Street-oriented adults they are in contact with help verbalize the
message to protect themselves at all costs and punish the child if
they lose a fight
• In contrast, children from decent families are more supervised
Anderson: The Code of the Street
• By adolescence, most youths have either (1) internalized
the code or (2) learned the need to behave in accordance
with its rules
• Must portray that you are capable of violence if the
situation requires it
• Facial and verbal expressions, gait
• Have the clothes, jewelry, grooming
that portrays you are respected
Anderson: The Code of the Street
• No guarantee against challenges because there are
always people who want to increase their share of
respect or “juice”
• To maintain respect, if a person is assaulted, he/she
must avenge himself/herself and fight
• Dressing and having fancy things (gold jewelry,
expensive clothes) show status but require defending
• People will attack to get those valuables since
taking the possessions of others is one way to
gain status
Anderson: The Code of the Street
• Can also steal a person’s sense of honor, be seen as the
toughest/strongest, steal someone’s girlfriend/boyfriend,
etc.
• But stealing these things can provoke others to challenge the
stealer and thus is a vicious cycle
• Whoever has the “thing” or trophy
is seen as the current winner
Anderson: The Code of the Street
• Often takes very little to be seen as a sign of disrespect
• People will go to great extremes (even risk their lives) to
maintain respect
• Cannot run from a physical attack or lose all respect
• Must fight back
• Seek revenge if lost the fight
Anderson: The Code of the Street
• Must be seen as a man
• “Manhood” means taking the prerogatives of men with respect to
strangers, other men, and women—
being distinguished as a man
• Physicality and ruthlessness
• A “real man” knows the code of the street
• Must adopt the code whenever they are outside
• Discourage strangers from testing their manhood
• Need to manifest “nerve”
• Forceful expression of disrespect toward another person
• Lack a fear of dying (may prefer death to being “dissed”)
Anderson: The Code of the Street
• Girls and the code
• Teen girls are mimicking the boys and trying to have their own
version of “manhood”
• Gain respect by posturing, abusive language, use of violence
• Majority of disputes rooted in assessments of beauty, competition
over boyfriends, attempts to regulate people’s knowledge of and
opinion of her behavior
• Major cause of conflict: “he says, she says”
• Gossip
• Must defend self against the slander, often
with arguments and fights
Anderson: The Code of the Street
• Sometimes girls get the men/boys in their lives to fight for
them
• But increasing numbers of girls are fighting themselves
• However, unlike boys, girls rarely use guns
Anderson: The Code of the Street
• Many people on the street believe in fate
• Uncertain how long they will live
• Believe they could die violently at any time
• Fearlessness
• More worried about the threat of “justice” at the hands of peers than
at the hands of the police
• Going to prison can actually enhance one’s reputation on the street
Anderson: The Code of the Street
• Decent families/individuals maintain true nerve consisting
of backing down, walking away from a fight, minding one’s
own business
• Fight only in self-defense
• Life is precious
• Accept nonviolent resolutions to problems
• Many hope to be seen as violent prone and tough, but hope they
are never tested
Anderson: The Code of the Street
• Most people in the inner city are not totally invested in the
code of the street
• However, a significant minority of youth is totally invested
Origins of Deviant Subcultures
• The origins of the deviant subcultures discussed by
Miller (1958), Wolfgang and Ferracuti (1982), and
Anderson (1999) have been explained in many ways
• Based on strain theory, some argue individuals are unable to
achieve valued goals using legitimate means and thus
achieve them through illegitimate means (e.g., crime)
• Also, if people cannot obtain conventional goals, they may
replace those goals with alternative goals they are able to
achieve (e.g., respect, toughness, etc.)
Empirical Support for Macro-Level
Learning Theories
• Little research done with limited support found
• Research suggests all groups condemn crime
• Differences are in the degree to which crime is condemned
by the group and the extent to which the group holds values
conducive to crime
• Research tentatively suggests that young people, males,
Southerners, and possibly lower-class and urban people are
more likely to hold values favorable to crime
• Most evidence shows blacks are not more likely to hold
favorable views of crime than whites
• Rather, those who live in more disadvantaged areas (not
racial groups) are more likely to hold values favorable to
crime
Summary
• The learning and subcultural theories argue
individuals have to be exposed to/associate with
people who can be deviant models, provide
definitions favorable to the violation of the law, and
give reinforcements for deviant behavior in order for
crime to occur
• Subcultures conducive to criminal/deviant behavior
often arise as an adaptation to the alienation from
mainstream culture
• Form their own means to obtain conventional goals, or
• Replace conventional goals with alternative goals they can
obtain more easily, which are often conducive to crime