7. Differential associations may vary in frequency, duration, priority, and intensity. This means that 
associations with criminal behavior and also associations with anticriminal behavior vary in those 
respects. 
8. 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. 
9. While criminal behavior is an expression of general needs and values, it is not explained by those 
general needs and values, since noncriminal behavior is an expression of the same needs and 
values.
2 
Sutherland describes the content of what is learned, but also the process of how it is learned. Ultimately, 
he argued people give meaning to their situation; this meaning-making determined if they would obey 
the law or break the law. Hence, this meaning-making explains how siblings, who grow up in the same 
environment may differ in their behavior. 
Ironically, Sutherland and B.F. Skinner were teaching at Indiana University during the late 1940s. For 
some reason or another, Sutherland never used Skinner’s ideas of operant conditioning in his differential 
association theory. However, Ronald Akers utilized both approaches in his “social learning” or “differential 
reinforcement” theory. Akers’ theory comprised the four main concepts of differential association, 
definitions, differential reinforcement, and imitation/modeling. He was interested in the process of how 
criminal behavior is acquired, maintained, and modified through reinforcement in social situations and 
nonsocial situations. Differential associations refer to the people one comes into contact with frequently. 
These peers are the source of definitions that favor obeying the law or breaking it. It is the most important 
source of social learning. According to Akers, definitions are the meaning a person attaches to his or her 
behavior. Those meanings can be general (i.e., religious, moral, or ethical beliefs that remain consistent) 
or specific (i.e., apply to a specific behavior like smoking or theft). Differential reinforcements refer to the 
balance between anticipated rewards or punishment and the actual reward or punishment. For example, if a 
juvenile vandalized a storefront, his or her friends praise may reinforce that behavior. If the juvenile sought 
more praise, he or she might continue vandalizing more property (the peers’ reactionary praise positively 
reinforced the behavior). The final concept was imitation/modeling. Akers argued that human beings could 
learn by observing how other people are rewarded and punished. Thus, some people may imitate other 
people’s behavior, especially if that behavior was rewarded or not punished.
3 
Finally, there have been some theories that focus more on the content of what is learned. Residents 
who may live in disadvantaged neighborhoods, like in the transitional zone, my “learn” different things. 
Subcultural theories focus on the ideas of what is learned rather than the social conditions that foster these 
ideas. Some groups may internalize values that are conducive to violence or justify criminal behavior.
4 In 
other words, where we grow up may influence what we learn about crime, police, government, religion, 
etc. 
2. Sutherland, E.H. (1947). Criminology (4th ed.). Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott. 
3. Akers, R.L. (1994). Criminological theories. Los Angeles, CA: Roxbury. 
4. Anderson, E. (1999). Code of the street: Decency, violence, and the moral life of the inner city. New York, NY: W.W. Norton. 
ALISON S. BURKE, DAVID CARTER, BRIAN FEDOREK, TIFFANY MOREY, LORE RUTZ-BURRI, AND SHANELL
SANCHEZ
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