1. Social Process Theory
CHAPTER 7
CJ 450D

2. Learning Goal
Students will study the various theories under the umbrella of the social process tradition and will connect the major theorists with their contributions to criminology.

3. Performance Objectives
Describe and evaluate Sutherland’s differential association theory (DAT).
Explain the process of crime occurring under the social learning theory (SLT).
Define the operant psychology concepts of reinforcement, punishment, & discrimination.
List the four elements of Hirschi’s social bond.
Discuss the relationship between low self-control and criminal behavior.

4. Performance Objectives
Describe the criticisms of both social control and self-control theories.
Distinguish between primary and secondary deviance under labeling theory.
List the five (5) techniques of neutralization proposed by Sykes and Mata.
Discuss the various crime prevention policies under social process theories.

5. Introduction
Social process criminologists promote the concept of symbolic interactionism.
How people define their social reality and meanings they attach to it in the process of interacting with one another.
The processes most emphasized are socialization and cultural conflict.
They seek to describe criminal and delinquent socialization and
How social conflict “pressures” people into committing deviant acts.
Bullet #2 – If we want to understand social behavior, then we have to understand how individuals subjectively perceive their social reality and how they interact with others to create, sustain, and change it.

6. Differential Association Theory
Developed by Edwin Sutherland who stressed that where people grow up matters greatly to the patterns of behavior they exhibit.
Sutherland laid out his theory in nine propositions.
His basic premise is that delinquent behavior is learned from the exposure to the attitudes, beliefs, and expectations of the intimate social groups we belong to while growing up.
The learning of criminal behavior involves the same mechanisms involved in any other learning.
Bullet #1 – DAT asserts that humans are like chameleons in that they will adapt to their environments, blending in and conforming with natural ease.
Bullet #4 – Learning involves acquiring specific skills and techniques for committing crimes as well as the motives, rationalizations, justifications, and attitudes of criminals.

7. Differential Association Theory
Learning criminal conduct is a process of identifying with and modeling ourselves after people we respect and value.
Sutherland discusses the importance of definitions influencing criminal behavior.
The meanings our experiences have for us, our attitudes, values, and how we view the world.
Definitions become favorable to law violations the earlier and more often we are exposed, the longer the exposure lasts, and the more strongly we are attached to those demonstrating the behavior.

8. Differential Association Theory
Evaluation and criticisms –
What is there to learning how to lie, take things that don’t belong to you, fight, and have sex?
Is DAT simply a case of “birds of a feather flock together” or is it more “if you lie down with dogs, you’ll get fleas”?
DAT has a singular vision of delinquent peer influence, focusing on private acceptance, but ignoring the idea of compliance.
Bullet #3 – Research has shown that delinquent behaviors precede gang membership and that association with other delinquents simply speeds up and enhances delinquency among those predisposed rather than acting as a stimulator of behavior among those not predisposed.
Bullet #4 – Private acceptance is both the public and private acceptance of the attitudes, values, and behavior of the delinquent group. Compliance is “going through the motions” without privately accepting the appropriateness of what one is doing.

9. Social Learning Theory
Primarily associated with the work of Ronald Akers.
Social Learning Theory (SLT) looks at the social behavior mechanisms that lead individuals to either continue or desist from delinquency.
Differential reinforcement of behavior either amplifies or extinguishes criminal behavior.
“The balance of anticipated or actual rewards and punishments that follow or are consequences of behavior.”

10. Social Learning Theory
Four mechanisms that explain behavior:
Differential association – Differentially associating with others who commit, model, and support violations of social and legal norms.
Differential reinforcement – Deviant acts are reinforced over behaviors that conform to the norm.
Imitation – Exposure to and observation of more deviant models than conforming models.
Definitions – Learned definitions are favorable toward committing deviant acts.
Bullet #2 – The most important of these 4 principles is differential reinforcement. The next slide is dedicated to this topic.

11. Social Learning Theory
Behavior has two general consequences: it is reinforced or it is punished.
The most effective reinforcements and punishments come from one’s primary social groups.
Behavior that has positive consequences is said to reinforce or strengthen that behavior, making it more likely that it will be repeated.
Behavior that is punished is less likely to be repeated and may even be extinguished.

12. Social Learning Theory
Reinforcement can be positive or negative.
Positive reinforcement is receiving something rewarding.
Negative reinforcement is some aversive condition is avoided or removed.
Punishment can also be positive or negative.
Positive punishment the application of something undesirable.
Negative punishment is the removal of a pleasant stimulus.
Bullet #2 – The spoils of a successful burglary or status achieved by beating up a rival gang member.
Bullet #3 – Having a label of “punk” removed after performing some act of bravado.
Bullet #5 – The imposition of a prison sentence.
Bullet #6 – Loss of status in a gang; loss of driver’s license; loss of a girlfriend

13. Social Learning Theory
Discrimination – the process of learning to distinguish between stimuli that have been reinforced or punished in the past with similar stimuli you expect will result in the same response in the future.
While reinforcers and punishments follow behavior, discriminative stimuli are present before the behavior occurs and influences decision making.
An unlocked car with the keys in it is a discriminative stimulus that signals “immediate reward” for the criminal, but for the average person it probably signals nothing other than how foolish the owner is.
Bullet #1 – If we are approached by a person (a child, a clergyman, a Hells Angel, a police officer, an aggressive intoxicated panhandler, or an old friend) on the street in downtown Portland, our response to that person will represent what we have previously learned (personally or vicariously) about that type of person or others like them.

14. Social Learning Theory
The major criticism of SLT is that it ignores the role of individual differences in the ease or difficulty with which persons learn.
All complex behavior is social learning, so it is not too helpful to say that crime is socially learned.
SLT assumes “a passive and unintentional actor who lacks individuality…and is better at explaining the transmission of criminal behavior than its origins.”
SLT explains criminality better in terms of different environments, but not in terms of different individuals.

15. Social Control Theory
Social control theories are 180-degrees from social learning theories.
Social control theories assume that criminal behavior arises from natural motivations that we must learn to curb.
To ensure a peaceful and predictable social existence, all societies have created mechanisms (social controls) designed to minimize nonconformity and deviance.
Social control may be direct, formal, and coercive, but indirect, informal social control produces prosocial behavior regardless of the presence or absence of external coercion.

16. Social Control Theory
The question social control theorists want to answer is why most of us behave well most of the time.
Views society as “good” and humans, in the absence of proper training, become “bad”.
Recent longitudinal studies show that infants spontaneously use physical aggression and that humans learn not to physically aggress rather than learn to aggress.
Antisocial behavior will emerge automatically if social controls are lacking since humans are naturally self- centered.
Bullet #2 – “If we grow up naturally without cultivation, like weeds, we grow up like weeds – rank.”
Bullet #3 – A longitudinal study of children from ages 2-12 found that the frequency of hitting, biting, and kicking peaked at 27 months of age and declined 66% by the age 12. (Tibbetts & Hemmens, 2001)

17. Social Bond Theory
Travis Hirschi (late 1960’s) proposed that those most likely to commit crimes lack four elements of social bonding that form the foundation of prosocial behavior.
Attachment – emotional bonds existing between individuals and key social institutions (family / school).
Commitment – a lifestyle in which one has invested considerable time and energy in the pursuit of a lawful career.
Involvement – the time and energy constrictions placed on us by the demands of our lawful activities.
Belief – acceptance of the social norms regulating conduct.
Bullet #2 – Attachment to prosocial others is the foundation for ALL other social bonds. It leads us to feel valued, respected, and admired and to value the favorable judgments of those to whom we are attached. Lack of attachment to parents and lack of respect for their authority easily spills over into a lack of attachment and respect for the broader social groups of which a person may a part of. If a child has little respect for parental sanctions, the control exercised by others (neighbors, teachers, police officers, probation officers, and judges) has little effect because parental control has little effect.
Bullet #3 – People who invest heavily in a lawful career have a valuable stake in conformity and are not likely to risk it by engaging in crime.
Bullet #4 – The opposite is also true, non-involvement in conventional activities increases the possibility of exposure to illegal activities.
Bullet #5 – Persons lacking attachment, commitment, and involvement tend not to subscribe to conventional morality. A belief system that is void of conventional morality is filled with narrow self-interest. Control theorists do not view a criminal belief system as motivating criminal behavior, rather their view is that criminals act according to their urges and then justify or rationalize their behavior with thinking errors. In other words, behaviors give birth to beliefs, not vice versa.

18. Low Self-Control Theory
Hirschi and Michael Gottfredson (1990).
Low self-control theory accepts the classical idea that crimes are the result of unconstrained natural human impulses to enhance ________ and avoid _____.
Self-control – “the extent to which individuals are vulnerable to the temptations of the moment.”
Self-control is NOT a motivator of any act; it is a brake, not an accelerator.
Most crimes are spontaneous opportunities requiring little foresight and planning which earn the criminal minimal short-term satisfaction.
Bullet #3 – Enhance PLEASURE and avoid PAIN.

19. Low Self-Control Theory
Low self-control is established early in childhood (within the first decade) and persists throughout life as a result of incompetent parenting.
Children DO NOT learn low self-control; it is the default that occurs in the absence of adequate socialization.
Self-control is enhanced by parental warmth, nurturance, vigilance, and willingness to practice “tough love.”
Low self-control is fostered by parental criminality, family size, single parenting, and working mothers (if no substitute is provided).

20. Low Self-Control Theory
People with low self-control have the following traits that put them at risk for criminal offending:
They are oriented to the present and crime affords them immediate gratification.
They are risk taking and physical and crime provides them with exciting and risky adventures.
They lack patience, persistence, and diligence and crime provides them with quick and easy ways to obtain what they want.
They are self-centered and insensitive so they can commit crimes without feeling guilty for causing others to suffer.
Bullet #2 - Rather than oriented towards the future.
Bullet #3 – Rather than being cautious and cognitive.
Bullet #4 – Rather than working hard to earn money to purchase an item (instead of stealing it), or mediating a problem (instead of exacting revenge), or engaging in courtship (instead of having multiple sexual encounters)
Bullet #5 – Rather than putting the needs of others first by exhibiting compassion and empathy.

21. Evaluation of Social – and Self-Control Theories
Both have been criticized for neglecting social structure.
If a person can be emotionally attached to deviant parents and deviant peers, can’t their own deviant behavior be viewed as conforming to deviant expectations?
Self-control theory is a general theory trying to explain all crime.
Self-control theory attributes variation in people’s self-control solely to variation in parental behavior ignoring the child’s impact.
Bullet #1 – If family is so important, then the social, economic, and political factors that influence the stability of families should be addressed. Control theorists would argue that they are attempting to explain the consequences of weak, disrupted families, not why they are weak or disrupted.
Bullet #2 – Hirschi was just referring to attachment to prosocial others as a way to explain prosocial behavior and not all attachments.
Bullet #3 – It is too simplistic to claim that crime can be explained by the single tendency of low self-control. Low-self control cannot be necessary and sufficient explanation of criminality, nor can any other single risk factor.
Bullet #4 – Clearly socialization is a two-way street in which parental behavior is shaped by the evocative behavior of the child just as much as the child’s behavior is shaped by the parents. A number of genetic studies have shown that low self-control may be something that children bring with them to the socialization process rather than a product of the failure of that process.

22. Labeling Theory
Frank Tannenbaum viewed labeling of a person as “criminal” as a self-fulfilling prophesy embedding them further into criminality.
LT shifts the focus from the offender to the system by asking why some behaviors are labeled criminal, while others are not.
LT looks for the causes of crime after it has been committed, discovered, and punished.
LT theorists believe no act in and of itself is criminal until the act is witnessed and judged good or bad by others.
This ignores the fact that 180 countries recognize acts such as murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault are mala in se crimes.

23. Labeling Theory
Primary deviance – the initial nonconforming act that comes to the attention of authorities.
According to LT, being caught in an act of primary deviance is either the result of police bias or sheer bad luck.
Secondary deviance – subsequent nonconforming acts (committing more crimes) that as a result of society’s reaction (stigma) to a person’s primary deviance.
Labeled persons may alter their self-image to fit their label.
What label(s) may exclude the person from conventional opportunities (employment, housing, peer groups, etc)?

24. Juvenile Court Terminology
Adult System
Arrested/arrest report
Information/indictment
Trial
Found guilty
Convicted
Sentenced
Jail
Prison
Juvenile System
Custody/referral
Petition
Hearing
Found within Jurisdiction
Adjudicated
Disposition
Detention
Youth Correctional Facility

25. Neutralization Theory
Sykes and Matza suggested that criminals know their behavior is wrong, but the neutralize any sense of shame or guilt for having committed a wrongful act.
Five techniques of neutralization are:
Denial of responsibility – shifting blame away from the offender.
Denial of injury – claiming no harm caused = no crime committed.
Denial of victim – implying that the victim got what they deserved.
Condemnation of the condemners – attempts to share blame with the condemners by asserting their behavior is just as bad.
Appeal to higher loyalties – claiming altruistic motives to elevate one’s moral integrity.
Bullet #1 – Psychologists tell us that we find it a lot easier to make our attitudes consistent with our behavior, than to change the behavior to conform with our attitudes if the behavior is rewarding.

26. Policy & Prevention
The bottom line for all subcultural theories is that lower-class neighborhoods harbor values and attitudes conducive to criminal behavior.
If learning crime and delinquency within a particular culture is the problem, then changing aspects of that culture is the answer.
Differential association theory would advocate for the provision of prosocial role models to replace antisocial ones (mentoring programs).

27. Policy & Prevention
Social control and self-control theorists would support the idea of early family interventions designed to cultivate parental nurturance and attachment.
They would also attempt to increase bonding to social institutions (school) by increasing children’s involvement in a variety of prosocial activities.
Social control theory would also recommend more vocationally oriented classes to keep less academically inclined students connected to school.
Bullet #2 – Such activities should provide prosocial role models, teach moral beliefs such as personal responsibility, and keep youth busy in meaningful and challenging ways.

28. Policy & Prevention
Low self-control theory advocates programs designed to strengthen families and improve parenting skills, especially those relevant to teaching self-control.
They would also recommend efforts to delay pregnancy among younger, unmarried girls.
Labeling theory has had an impact on criminal justice policy that far exceeds its empirical support.
Criminals should be “treated” rather than “punished.”
Diversion programs development would keep offenders from entering the system and avoid labeling.

29. Policy & Prevention
Neutralization theory would support criminal justice agents charged with managing offenders (probation officers) to strongly challenge their cognitive distortions in an effort to extinguish excuse making and increase personal responsibility.

30. NEXT WEEK…