Chapter 3 Themes and Tools
Confessions of a Dying Thief
Differential Association/ Social Learning Theory
1.) People commit crime when crime is, or they are able to make it, subjectively acceptable morally, cognitively, or emotionally.
2.) Prior behavior and experiences in which people are rewarded for criminal involvement positively reinforces criminal behavior.
3.) Having or acquiring access to criminal oppurtunities and networks and having the criminal resourcefulness to take advantage of them foster criminal involvement.
* Sutherland; criminal behavior involves learning of techniques of committing crimes, orientations, and attitudes favorable to violation of law..
* Differential association refers to differences in association w/ messages favorable or unfavorable to law violation.
* Akers; crime is learned through differential association, differential reinforcement, and imitation.
* Diff Association/ Social Learning Theory are both theories of general criminal behavior and offense-specific behavior; of both generalized criminal propensity or versatility and specialization in crime.
Opportunity Theory
* Not only does embeddedness in diff groups, neighborhoods, communities, influence who has more or less criminal opportunities(differential social organization), but racism and sexism also shape the extent and types of criminal opportunities – blacks and women.
* Availability of criminal opportunities also has a motivational side – offenders gravitate to those activities which are easily available, within their skills, provide a satisfactory return, and carry the fewest risks.
* Cloward and Ohlin
Labeling Theory
* Braithwaite – developed notion of reintegrative shaming, and contrasted it with stigmatizing processes that exclude the deviant rather than reintegrate them.
* Emphasis on career and process
* Becker – deviant behavior in time produces its own set of deviant motivations
* Lemert – God of...