0 Differential Association Theory: Defining the Root of Violent Crimes

Abstract

The complexities of the society over the years paved way for social problems such as crimes and violence in the community.  This study opted to explain violent crimes by going through the complexities of the definition and going through a theory that defines the mere presence of such social deviances.  The differential association theory is tackled along the content of this study to have better understanding of why violent crimes still arises against the strong will of the society to have it fully wiped of the system.  At the end of the study is a suggestion that the author deems necessary to help reduce if not totally eradicate presence of crimes in the community.

Key words: violent crimes, differential association theory, social deviance, society

Differential Association Theory: Defining the Root of Violent Crimes       

Everybody dreams of a perfectly safe world to live in, a world free from suffering and harm inflicted by the many violent acts of man against each other.  The road to freedom from violence and crime still travels a rough and tough path since the start of civilization.  The question still remains until now if are we living against a violent world or has the world changed to a safe place to live in?  Today people are aware of the violence around the community through the many forms of news expressed in tabloids, media and even the internet.  Every time people open the television for news, most often headlines always comprises of crimes and violence such as killings in many forms.  Or when people reads newspapers there has been no newspaper published in the history of publications that does not contain crime against people such as robbery.  Not to mention the vast information loaded in the internet with sites, blogs and addresses that explicitly spreads the presence of violence and crime such as rape and homicide.  The world indeed is as always a wonderful complicated place to live in.  Many efforts have been exerted to make living among the human populace as peaceful and harmonious as ever despite the differences in culture and beliefs.  But somehow those efforts made to secure the environment have evolved and indeed the world we have now is so far the greatest violence-fighting-society man has become.  Equal laws were promulgated and are implemented among the society that ensures penalty that would suffice a violation made against the law and the lawful right of another person. 

And to better understand the nature of these hostile unnatural acts of man, that have violated the rights of many people, is to go over not just by definition but to go thru various studies made.  To go over the complexities of violent crime is to understand the way it should be treated and prevented as well as if time and chances permit that it happens to a person, his knowledge about crimes could be the best defense.

Violent crimes are violations of criminal law that involves the unintentional use of violence by one person against another.  Criminologists favor narrow definitions of violence focusing on physical harm or threats.  Another definition of violence according to the National Research Council is that these are behaviors by individuals that intentionally threaten, attempt, or inflict physical harm on others (Rosenfeld 2010).  This definition includes a wide array of behaviors including homicide, assault, robbery, rape, torture and capital punishment but it excludes many acts that are encompassed by other reasonable definitions (Rosenfeld 2012).  Although many authors sought to define violent crimes in many context somehow the definition encompasses the same definition if all summed up together.  In that similar note, in the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, violent crime is composed of four offenses: murder and non negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault.  According to this UCR, violent crimes as those offenses which involve the use of force or threat of force in executing a certain behavior (federal Bureau of Investigation 2009).  According to Lassieur (2012) it feels like violent crime is everywhere that stories of gang shootings, knife fighting, drug-related violence or armed robbery is being heard and seen every day. 

Despite the obvious and alarming presence of violence in the community, for most people violent crime is not part of a day-to-day life.  Very few people are really unfortunate enough to be a victim or a witness to violence.  But even though violence does not happen to a person it does not necessarily mean that violence does not affect him nor have little impact on the safety of the whole community.  The mere presence of violence affects everybody’s way of life.  According to Lassieur (2012) the presence of scanners in buildings upon entering and not to mention the security people that have the power to go over through peoples stuff before letting them inside a secured vicinity.  Or have people noticed the bars commonly placed in houses, schools and every buildings window.  These security measures are so commonplace that people does not notice the presence of these measures but all these stuff are there because of the threat of violent crime that can happen anytime (Lassieur 2012).

There are actually experts that formulated theories that explain the presence of violent crimes in the community.  One of the most famous theories in the field of crime theories is the one formulated by Edwin Sutherland famously known in the field of criminology as the differential association theory.  From the concept formulated by Sutherland, he is trying to explain why crimes happen in the society.  Sutherland formulated that the normative conflict is the root cause of crimes in the society.  Sutherland Explains that crimes arises not from factors such as age, gender and ethnicity but rather arises from normative conflicts.  To explain further, according to Sutherland with the industrial revolution modern industrial societies developed with advance division of labor, market economies and increased conflicts.  Such societies become segmented into groups that conflict over basic interest, values, and behavior patterns thus they tend to have higher rates of crime.  From these observations, Sutherland hypothesized that high crime rates are rooted in normative conflict in which he defines as a society segmented into groups that conflict over the definition of appropriate behavior (Matsueda 2000).  Hence it is stated that the higher the conflict the higher the crime rate present in the community.      

            Differential association theory was Sutherland’s major sociological contribution to criminology.  This theory together with other criminal theories explains deviance in terms of the individual’s social relationships (Sutherland 1939 as cited by Hermida).

            According to the differential Association Theory criminal behavior is learnable and learned in interaction with other deviant persons. Through this association, they learn not only techniques of certain crimes, but also specific rationale, motives and so on. These associations vary in frequency, duration.  Differential association theory explains why any individual forwards toward deviant behavior. This assertion is most useful when explaining peer influences among deviant youths or special mechanism of becoming certain criminal (Hermida). By virtue of this theory it is believed that a person is prone to committing criminal acts by influence of the people mostly around him.  In other words, criminal behavior emerges when one is exposed to more social messages favoring criminal conduct than pro-social messages (Hermida).  Somehow there is a degree of dissociation among a deviant person that even something is wrongly done the repeated exposure to presence or commitment of the wrong act makes an impression that it is a normal behavior that is okay to be committed.   

Differential association is a learning theory which focuses on the processes by which individuals come to commit criminal acts (Hamlin 2006).  This explains the possibility of a person having to commit a crime against another person even if they are aware that the wrongful acts entail certain degree of sanction.  Differential association suggests that person socialized in disorganized neighborhoods is likely to have associations that will encourage criminal adaptations (Hamlin 2006).

Sutherland was able to formulate nine principles of Differential Association Theory. According to this principle criminal behavior is learned behavior.  This simply states that nobody was born a criminal because naturally men are born with innate goodness.  Criminal acts therefore arise from experiences along man’s journey aggravated by many factors such as poverty, revenge and the likes and are most likely gained through interaction with other people (Hermida; Hamlin 2006).

Another principle is that principal part of the learning of criminal behavior occurs within intimate personal groups.  This suggests that indirect influences such as newspapers, movies, and other media play an unimportant part in a person’s commission of criminal act (Hermida; Hamlin 2006). 

Furthermore the principle states that when criminal behavior is learned, the learning includes techniques, motives and attitudes of committing the crime.  In addition, 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. Negatively, this means that the learning of criminal behavior is not restricted to the process of imitation. A person who is seduced, for instance, learns criminal behavior by association, but this would not be ordinarily described as imitation (Hermida; Hamlin 2006). 

Lastly, a criminal behavior is an expression of general needs and values the same way non-criminal behavior is an expression of the same needs and values. For example robbers generally steal in order to secure money, but likewise honest laborers work in order to make money (Hermida; Hamlin 2006).

With these entire in mind, one can conclude that criminal acts and violence originated from the same society that defies them.  Violent crimes are products of conflicting behavior and beliefs and such conflicts should not arise if only understanding is of the value.  In order for crime rates to decrease society must be able to address conflicting behavior between its specialized sectors.  The differential Association theory highly suggest that criminal acts are products of felt deviant behavior against a person and somehow brings it back to the society in a form of a crime.  For example, bullying in school leads to violent behavior that ended into shoot outs that has ended lives of many students that happened multiple times just recently because the proprietor of the crime thinks everyone in school laughs at him thus he took revenge.  Since behavior is highly suggested to be the very essence of why people engage in certain activity, hostile and other socially deviant behavior such as bullying, superiority, gender inequality and other minor social deviance should be addressed in order to contain the conflict that may arise to greater conflicts such as crimes.  In lieu of this the society must be of great watch to the societal deviation present in the community.  Such as in school, bullying as the most common social deviant should be addressed properly by authorities to contain and suppress the issue through positive activities that would entail camaraderie, equality and brotherhood among members of the society.

References:

Rosenfeld R. (2010) Violent Crime.  Oxford University Press, University of Missouri-St. Louis, 3-16  

Lassieur A. (2012) Violent Crime.  Capstone Library Unlimited; London. 4-50.   

Federal Bureau of Investigation (2009) Violent Crime. Crime in the United States.  United States Department of Justice. 

Matsueda R. (2000) Differential Association Theory. University of Washington Seattle. 125-129

Hamlin J. (2006) Differential Association Theory: Sociological Theories of Deviance. 

Hermida J. (2012) Differential Association Theory. Algoma University, Department of Law and Politics; Canada.