Differential Association and Trust Violation

Abstract

Although the positive emphasis in Sutherland’s theory is that crime and delinquency are social phenomena, produced by and through social learning, much of the theory’s popularity probably has arisen from its negative implications, namely that criminality and delinquency are not biological, psychological or climatic phenomenon. Similarly, many of the criticisms reported in Chapter V seem to be addressed more to this negative implication than towards the theory’s positive assertions. The general proposition that individual criminality is learned in a process of differential association amounts to a “principle” for making sense of the multiple factors in individual cases, or a “framework” for study of those cases. However, the details of Sutherland’s statement, which he called a “theory” or “hypotheses,” as well as a “principle,” have only rarely been specifically subjected to the test of empirical research. To have continuing value, a theory must not only provide a general framework within which hypotheses may be formulated, as this theory does, but it must also be stated in such a way that it can be verified or rejected on the basis of empirical findings.