 Crime is learned, like other behaviors  One acquires habits and knowledge by interacting with the environment  Not instinctual or biological  Focus on content and process of learning  What crimes can be learned? How?  What behaviors that support crime can be learned?  What in a culture supports this learning?  Current learning theories based on association  Classical conditioning – passive learning ▪ Associating bell with meat produces salivation when bell rings  Operant conditioning – active learning ▪ Organism learns how to get what it wants ▪ Press a lever to get food – associate lever with food  Social learning – active learning + cognition ▪ Direct – reinforcement through rewards and punishments ▪ Vicarious – reinforcement by observing what happens to others

 Learning occurs in intimate social groups  Criminal behavior is learned from persons who transmit ideas or “definitions” that promote law-breaking  Attitudes towards legal codes by a person’s social group are important  “Normative conflict” – norms of group and society may be in conflict  “Definitions” – how members of a group look on legal codes: are they to be observed, or not? Which laws can be violated? Why?  Content of learning  Criminal techniques  Underlying drives, rationalizations and attitudes  A person’s associations with criminal and non-criminal patterns of thought and conduct differ in frequency, duration, priority and intensity  Delinquency is caused by an excess of definitions favorable to lawbreaking h/?id= n

 Criticisms  It focuses on juvenile crime committed in groups ▪ Perhaps delinquents simply “flock together” ▪ Not all who associate with delinquents become delinquent  Hard to test: How can we identify and count the definitions favorable and unfavorable to lawbreaking in each setting?  Cannot apply to all kinds of crime  Difficult to use to explain differences in crime rates in different places and between different demographic groups  Defenses  Strength, intensity of associations vary  It includes a cognitive (active processing) component in learning  Those with more delinquent friends do commit more crimes  Those with more definitions favoring lawbreaking commit more crime

 Behaviors can be learned as well as ideas  Differential association – Behaviors can be learned socially, from others and from “reference groups” whose definitions are favorable or unfavorable to lawbreaking  Differential reinforcement – Behaviors can be learned socially and non-socially, according to their actual or anticipated consequences  Learned socially through approval/disapproval by others  Learned non-socially (e.g., getting sick/high on drugs)  Learned vicariously by observing consequences of behavior for others  Once criminal behavior begins, it continues if reinforced either socially or non- socially  Structural conditions (inequality, strain) affect a person’s differential associations, definitions, models and reinforcements

 How persons become violent criminals  Based on Athens’ observations growing up in a violent environment  Theory developed through in-depth interviews with 58 prisoners  Four stages  Brutalization - victim of intra-familial violence, coached in violence  Belligerence - person decides to stop being the victim and take charge of their situation  Violent performances - person experiments with violence ▪ Failures may lead to exit from violence ▪ Successes may lead to more violence & acquiring weapons  Virulency - person treated differently by others, embraces image ▪ Sees violence as best response to many situations

 Lower and middle-class cultures are distinct  Middle-class emphasizes achievement  Lower-class has different concerns, which are a breeding ground for crime  Toughness, smartness (street sense), excitement, fate, autonomy  Male role models often absent, so an exaggerated sense of masculinity results  Crowding and domestic conditions send boys to the street, where they form gangs

 Violence is a cultural expression for lower socioeconomic status males  Many homicides result from very trivial events  Defending honor of relatives, neighborhood  Significance of an event (e.g., a jostle) is differentially perceived by races and socioeconomic classes  Persons who respond as socially expected are admired – those who do not are put down  Causes of “passion” behavior are ideas – norms, values, expectations – that originate in social conditions  Don’t focus on the origin of a subculture  Worry instead about the ideas it generates  Remedy is to disperse and assimilate the subcultures  New York Times: Gunfire Still Rules the NightGunfire Still Rules the Night

 Criminogenic environment  High concentration of poverty  Decline in legitimate jobs, increase in illegitimate jobs  Drugs, guns, crime and violence  Declining welfare payments, no hope for the future  Lack of faith in C.J. system  Code of civility respected by “decent” people has no value on the street  Code of the street  Cultural adaptation to living in declining circumstances  “Respect”, “disrespect” and “manhood”  Spreads to “decent” children through contagion and necessity  Theory is partly cultural, like Wolfgang & Ferracutti; partly social/structural, like Merton

 How do people “learn” to commit crime?  Sutherland: Crime is behavior that flows naturally from ideas and beliefs learned by associating with others  Akers and Athens basically agree, but extend the learning process to incorporate other factors, such as reinforcement and exposure to violence  If crime is a normal learned behavior, how society is structured and organized are important  Critical criminology: Those who set and define the rules and values get to define crime Social structure  behavior  Learning theories (Matsueda): Social structure counts, but culturally- defined ideas and beliefs are a more proximate cause of crime Social structure  culture/subculture  behavior