Sutherland's Theory Research Articles

Social Environment and Crime in Dickens' Oliver Twist and Great Expectations

This study reads Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist and Great Expectations as crime novels by applying Sutherland's theory of "differential association" which postulates that criminal behavior is learned rather than inherited, and it is learned through interaction with other people within intimate personal groups in which one learns techniques and acquires motives for committing crimes. In Oliver Twist, Oliver is portrayed as a victim of the corrupted social environment as well as Monks' conspiracy with Fagin to drag him down to the underworld.; he is raised as an orphan in a workhouse and subjected to mistreatment. Thus, he unknowingly indulges in Fagin's gang and learns the crime of pickpocketing, as all the members of the gang come from a poor background and are taught how to commit crimes within the gang, their intimate social group. Nancy's poverty also compels her to join the gang, which ultimately leads to her death, as criminality is not innate in her personality. Criminality in Oliver's character is not innate either, so he ends up leading a decent life in a healthier environment. Like Fagin, Compeyson in Great Expectations favors the violation of law and has others indulge in the criminal world, thereby exploiting Magwitch and Orlick who turn into criminals. By presenting criminal characters with various motives and from harsh backgrounds, Dickens' fiction suggests that crime behavior has nothing to do with heredity. Rather, criminal characters are implicated in crimes as a result of the corrupted social environment forced on them, along with gangs and corrupt people they have to encounter.

A CRIMINALIDADE ECONÔMICA NA PERSPECTIVA DECOLONIALISTA: REFLEXÕES SOBRE O SIMBOLISMO REPRESSIVO E A ABORDAGEM PREVENTIVA DAS POLÍTICAS DE COMPLIANCE

Based on the work “La nueva criminologia crítica criminológica: criminologia en tiempos de totalitarismo financieiro” by Eugenio Raúl Zaffaroni and Ilisson Dias, this article aims to address the criminalization of financial crimes and the necessary reflection on the decolonialist perspective. therefore, the objective was, from the re-reading of works by latin american authors, with a qualitative approach, using the hypothetical-deductive method of Karl Popper, to answer the following question: given the criticisms formulated by Zaffaroni and Dias about the excess of criminal types in legal systems, mechanisms for not applying criminal sanctions in practice and all criminal symbolism, compliance policies could represent an important mechanism in the prevention of white-collar crimes and corruption, or if it would, once again , importing european and american institutes, maintaining the myth of eurocentrism and power structures, corroborating economic and social inequalities? The aim is, therefore, to analyze Sutherland's theory of white-collar crime and its contributions on criminology, in a second moment, to question the real intention in economic crimes, from then on, to present the integrity and comment on the particular latin american reality, especially the brazilian one.

Teorias sociológicas sobre a criminalidade: análise comparativa de três teorias complementares

O artigo faz uma análise comparativa de três teorias sociológicas sobre a criminalidade: a Teoria da Associação Diferencial (ou Aprendizagem Social) de Edwin H. Sutherland, a Teoria do Autocontrole de Michael R. Gottfredson e Travis Rirch e a Teoria da Anomia (strain) de Robert K. Merton. A nossa análise acaba por demonstrar que estas três teorias podem ser compreendidas como convergentes e complementares. Concluímos apontando que, entre tantas teorias sociológicas do crime, estas três podem ser utilizadas para a análise sociológica, de maneira que uma venha preencher adequadamente as lacunas da outra. A sociologia do crime está bem servida de teorias que tentam explicar – cada uma com pretensões de exaustividade – o fenômeno do crime. Assim, postulamos (neste texto) que podemos (e devemos) fazer um uso combinado de teorias (sobre o crime) que se complementem e venha a explicar os fenômenos do crime em suas constitutivas transversalidade.

Delinquency, Social Skills and the Structure of Peer Relations: Assessing Criminological Theories by Social Network Theory

This article explores the plausibility of the conflicting theoretical assumptions underlying the main criminological perspectives on juvenile delinquents, their peer relations and social skills: the social ability model, represented by Sutherland's theory of differential associations, and the social disability model, represented by Hirschi's control theory. It does so by applying the principles associated with Granovetter's theory of strong and weak ties, drawing out its theoretical implications for the criminological theories and deriving a number of hypotheses. The article uses strategic research materials in the form of a data set strongly biased towards the social disability model and containing information on co-offending relations among a population (N = 580) of juveniles in a Swedish town during a three-year period. Results from cross-sectional empirical analyses using, among other things, the Quadratic Assignment Procedure, clearly support the social ability model. The robustness of the initial analyses is checked through longitudinal analyses applying actor-oriented statistical models for network evolution. The article's implications for criminological, as well as multidisciplinary, research are discussed.

Explaining the Gender Gap in Delinquency: Peer Influence and Moral Evaluations of Behavior

Gender is one of the strongest correlates of delinquent behavior, but gender differences in delinquency have proven difficult to explain. Some analysts have called for gender-specific theories of delinquency, whereas others argue that males and females are differentially exposed to or differentially affected by the same criminogenic conditions. Building on the latter approach, this article draws on Sutherland's theory of differential association and Gilligan's theory of moral development to argue that males and females are differentially affected by exposure to delinquent peers. Analysis of data from the National Youth Survey supports the hypothesis that moral evaluations act as a barrier to reduce or counteract the influence of delinquent peers among females, thereby producing large observed sex differences in delinquent behavior.

`Cultural Deviance Theory':

Costello (1997) has attempted to defend Kornhauser's (1978) interpretation of Sutherland's differential association theory as a `cultural deviance theory.' In so doing, she claims that Matsueda (1988), Akers (1996) and Bernard and Snipes (1996) have misinterpreted Sutherland's theory to the point of altering the original theory to respond to Kornhauser's criticisms. In this article, I point out that Costello has merely continued Kornhauser's misinterpretation of differential association theory and that the logical flaws she finds apply to the caricature of what Sutherland called `cultural deviance theory,' but have little to do with Sutherland's differential association theory. Finally, I argue that the important distinction between control theories and differential association theory is whether motivation to crime is constant across persons (Hirschi, 1969), whether criminal organization and subcultures are irrelevant to criminality (Kornhauser, 1978) and whether crime can never be learned or transmitted across individuals. Control theories distinguish themselves from other theories of crime by answering `yes' to each of these questions. Differential association theory answers `no' to these questions, which opens important puzzles for criminological research and theory.

YOUTH EMPLOYMENT AND DELINQUENCY: RECONSIDERING A PROBLEMATIC RELATIONSHIP*

Employment is often thought to discourage participation in crime, but self‐report data from juveniles consistently disclose a positive correlation between employment and delinquency. This analysis tests three possible explanations for that correlation. The first is that differences in levels of delinquency between workers and nonworkers exist prior to employment. The second holds that working increases independence from parents, thereby reducing the controlling effect of parental influence. The third explanation, drawing on Sutherland's theory of differential association, is that employment increases delinquent behavior by exposing adolescents to a wider network of peers, including delinquent peers. Analysis of data from waves 1, 2, and 3 of the National Youth Survey reveals a positive association between employment and some forms of delinquency, especially alcohol and drug use. Selection bias explains much, but not all, of the association. Although no support is found for the parental influence explanation, the remaining employment effect is explained by exposure to delinquent peers.

THE ATTITUDES AND ACTIONS OF OTHERS: Tutelage and Sutherland's Theory of Differential Association

Contemporary studies of Sutherland's differential association theory argue that people learn about crime predominantly or exclusively through exposure to attitudes and motives that legitimize such behaviours. I suggest that Sutherland's writings demonstrate an equal concern with more direct exposure to crime; that is, with tutelage in criminal methods. I test this interpretation with models of drug selling and theft among a sample of homeless youths. In both cases, models that include deviant associations, attitudes, and desires improve with the addition of a measure of tutelage. Disregarding the role of tutelage may, therefore, mis-specify the differential association process and encourage misinterpretations of findings that correspond with Sutherland's theory.

Errata

The paper, “Modeling Sutherland's Theory of Differential Association: Toward an Empirical Clarification,” by Charles R. Tittle, Mary Jean Burke, and Elton F. Jackson—65 (December 1986): 405–32—contained two incorrect references. On page 430, the Adams reference should be Reed Adams, and the Erickson reference should be Patricia Erickson.

Errata: Modeling Sutherland's Theory of Differential Association: Toward an Empirical Clarification

Errata: Modeling Sutherland's Theory of Differential Association: Toward an Empirical Clarification

DIFFERENTIAL ASSOCIATION AND MARIJUANA USE: A CLOSER LOOK AT SUTHERLAND (WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM BECKER)*

Based on Sutherland's differential association theory and Becker's early research on marijuana use, a contingency model estimating the exact probability of getting high on marijuana under various associational and motivational conditions is specified and tested. Data from surveys at two universities fit this model closely. Predicted first‐order interactions and nonlinear effects of motivational balance and peer association are statistically significant and generate highly precise estimates of the probability of getting high. These results suggest that linear main‐effects models employed in previous research on differential association processes do not adequately reject the complex casual structure of Sutherland's theory. In addition, this study raises serious questions about claims that differential association theory is untestable and has been made outdated by social learning theory.

Modeling Sutherland's Theory of Differential Association: Toward an Empirical Clarification

Modeling Sutherland's Theory of Differential Association: Toward an Empirical Clarification

Modeling Sutherland's Theory of Differential Association: Toward an Empirical Clarification

Modeling Sutherland's Theory of Differential Association: Toward an Empirical Clarification

A Longitudinal Examination of an Integrated Social Process Model of Deviant Behavior

A social process model of deviant behavior incorporating constructs derived from both social bonding and differential association theories is used to explain adolescent cigarette smoking. The model hypothesizes that the bonding constructs explain the variance in associating with adolescents who smoke andlor have favorable attitudes toward smoking. Both the bonding and differential association constructs are expected to have direct effects on adolescent cigarette smoking. Using a structural equation approach to analyze three years of panel data on 1,065 seventh to twelfth graders, support is found for the predicted interrelationships of the bonding and differential association constructs and the effects of those constructs on adolescent smoking in the third year of the study. The social control theory of Travis Hirschi and Edwin Sutherland's theory of differential association (Sutherland and Cressey 1978) are the two dominant social psychological perspectives on deviant behavior found in contemporary sociological literature. Although differential association theory was initially formulated many years prior to Hirschi's social control perspective, the latter's emergence on the theoretical landscape was immediately perceived as a significant alternative conceptualization of social deviance to that offered by differential association theory. More recently, however, researchers have suggested that a more complete theoretical

Offense-Specific Models of the Differential Association Process

This paper attempts to clarify ambiguities and assess the offense-specific nature of Sutherland's differential association theory. We employ two-stage least squares to estimate causal effects in structural equation models specific to six different crimes and two non-criminal deviant acts using data from a large-scale survey of adults. The findings indicate: (1) As Sutherland claimed, excess association with definitions favorable to crime and/or deviance tends to increase crime/deviance (measured here by self-predictions), but this effect is mainly indirect, through increasing motivation to engage in deviant acts; (2) The same differential association process holds for a range of crimes and also for the two non-criminal deviant acts, suggesting that Sutherland's theory is more widely applicable than he himself claimed. Our analysis also suggests one conclusion that is more speculative: Definitions (social messages) favorable to different forms of crime/deviance may form several independent domains rather than a single general domain referring to all crime/deviance.

Organizational Crime : Its Concept and Theoretical Analysis

Recently, it appears that the serious illegal acts committed by organizations, including pollution, briberies, unsafe products, false advertising, price fixing, and spying, have increased. In the sociology of crime, these acts have been studied through the concept of 'white-collar crime' which was introduced by Sutherland in 1941. However, this concept is inadequate for dealing with the illegal acts of organizations in terms of content and terminology. Further, it is problematic that most of the studies of 'white-collar crime' have employed Sutherland's theory of differential association as an explanation of the crime.By these reasons, it is desirable to use the concept of organizational crime for the analysis of illegal organizational acts, instead of white-collar crime.In the case of an organizational crime, the criminal agents are not individuals, but the organization itself, because an organization is more of a collection of positions than that of members. Therefore, organizational theory can provide the framework for an understanding of how the properties of organizations relate to their crimes. In this paper, organizational crime is considered by the multistrata system model of organizations, which is composed of three action systems (economic system, political system and construction-building system), mediated by two institutional systems (organizational program and organizational constitution). So, the organizational crime can be regarded as a kind of an organizational program from this viewpoint. Thus, by dividing the process of program adoption into four phases (disclosure, decision, implementation and institutionalization), how the organizational properties cause organizational crimes in each phase may be examined.

Friends' Use and Adult Drug and Drinking Behavior: A Further Test of Differential Association Theory

Past research on drug behavior, especially at testing peer group influences, has tended to concentrate on high school and college populations. purpose of this study is to find out the extent to which the theoretical and empirical findings are applicable to an adult population. This Note reports the findings of an analysis of self-reported drug use data representing a general Texas adult population. Zero-order correlation results provide strong support for extending the usefulness of differential association theory to the explanation of drug use within an adult population. most influential theory of cultural deviance is Edwin Sutherland's theory of differential association.' third postulate of this theory states: The principal part of the learning of [deviant] behavior occurs within intimate personal groups.2 This study attempts to measure one's intimate personal groups in response to this postulate. Within intimate personal groups, value development and behavior learning, both deviant and nondeviant, take place. basic principle of differential association theory is that a person becomes deviant because of an excess of learned definitions favorable to the violation of norms.

Testing Control Theory and Differential Association: A Causal Modeling Approach

A number of strong theoretical statements have been based on analyses of delinquency data from the Richmond Youth Project. Hirschi (1969) and Jensen (1972), in particular, found that Hirschi's control theory was empirically supported over Sutherland's theory of differential association. This paper reanalyzes these data and reassesses this negative evidence pertaining to differential association theory. It is shown that the ratio of learned behavior patterns favorable and unfavorable to violation of legal codes, the critical variable in Sutherland's theory, can be operationalized by explicitly modeling its measurement error structure. In turn, this allows the testing of specific hypotheses derived from the theory. The analysis based on this strategy finds differential association theory supported over control theory. Specifically, the unobservable construct representing the ratio of learned behavior patterns successfully mediates the effects on delinquency of the model's other variables.

DIFFERENTIAL REINFORCEMENT THEORY EXAMINED

AbstractIt is argued that the attempts of Burgess and Akers and of Adams to formulate Sutherland's differential association theory in the language of operant conditioning theory fail to preserve Sutherland's interesting insights by reducing his theory to the mere claim that criminal behavior is operant conditioning behavior. Questions are then raised about the truth of even this claim. Some attention is also given to the question of the verification of both Sutherland's original theory and the operant Conditioning reformulations of it.

Female Hitchhiking: Strain, Control, and Subcultural Approaches

Sociological explanations of why individuals engage in deviant behavior are of predominatly three forms: strain or motivational theories, control theories, and subcultural theories (Hirschi, 1971). Motivational theories, such as Merton's (1962) well known anomie theory, focus on factors which motivate an individual to engage in deviant behavior. Control theories center on factors which maintain an individual's conforming behaviors (cf. Reiss, 1951). Subcultural theories, such as Sutherland's theory of differential association, suggest that deviant individuals are conforming to non-conventional group norms (Sutherland and Cressey, 1966). While these theories have been largely applied to juvenile delinquency and adult crime, their broad arguments can usefully structure sociological investigations of a wide range of deviant and quasi-deviant behaviors. In the study of female hitchhiking reported here, these three broad ap proaches served to locate possible explanatory factors and guide the analysis. In the eyes of many U.S. citizens, hitchhiking by females is viewed as a morally questionable behavior which may serve to impugn the reputation of the hitchhiker. Beyond these informal views about the impropriety of female hitchhiking are various laws and practices designed to curb hitchhiking. For example, laws prohibiting or regulating hitchhiking exist in some areas, and practices persist such as insurance company rules limiting coverage of persons who assist hitch hikers. Thus in both a moral and legal sense female hitchhiking and especially women hitchhiking alone can be heuristically and usefully conceptualized as quasi-deviant behavior. Despite popular reports of the increase of hitchhiking in the United States, the authors could not find any professional literature attempting either to describe or explain solo or group female hitchhiking. In at least two states known to the authors, law enforcement officers have in vestigated hitchhiking in an effort to understand and curb it. In one Mid western city with a substantial and rising rape rate, female hitchhiking has been actively discouraged by the police because a sizable minority of known rape victims are females hitchhiking alone. Yet despite this recent