and punishments. Using rats and pigeons, Skinner wanted animals to learn a simple task (i.e., pushing a bar 
or key) through reinforcements. A reinforcement is any event that strengthens, or maximizes, a behavior. 
We reinforce behaviors that we want to continue or increase. We can use positive reinforcement or negative 
reinforcement. Positive is the addition of something desirable, and negative is the removal of something 
unpleasant; they do not mean “good” or “bad.” For example, if we wanted to more people to wear seatbelts, 
we would want to reinforce the behavior. A positive reinforcement may be praise or a reward for buckling 
up. Newer model cars come equipped with seatbelt alarms. The will ring until you buckle up. Once you 
buckle up, the sound stops. This is an example of negative reinforcement. Both examples reinforce the 
behavior (wearing a seatbelt) but in different ways. 
Consequently, if we want a behavior to stop or decrease, we punish that behavior. Punishments can also 
be positive or negative. A positive punishment involves the presentation of something unpleasant whereas 
negative punishment is punishment by removal. For example, a teenager breaks curfew and the parents 
want their child to stop breaking curfew. The parents can punish the child in one of two ways. An example 
of positive punishment would be scolding. A negative punishment would be removing the child’s driving 
privileges. Both punishments seek to decrease the adolescent’s breaking curfew but in two different ways. 
Punishment Exercise 
How does the Criminal Justice System positively punish offenders? How does the Criminal Justice System 
negatively punish? Give examples of both. 
Edwin Sutherland (1947) was the first and created the most prominent statement of a micro-level learning 
theory about criminal behavior. He first presented differential association theory in 1934, and his final 
revision occurred in 1947.
1 His attempt tried to explain how age, sex, income, and social locations related 
to the acquisition of criminal behaviors. Sutherland (1947) presented his theory as nine separate, but related 
propositions, which were: 
1. Criminal behavior is learned. 
2. Criminal behavior is learned in interaction with other persons in a process of communication. 
3. The principal part of the learning of criminal behavior occurs within intimate personal groups. 
4. When criminal behavior is learned, the learning includes: a) techniques of committing the crime, 
which are sometimes very complicated, sometimes very simple; b) the specific direction of the 
motives, drives, rationalizations, and attitudes. 
5. The specific directions of motives and drives are learned from definitions of the legal codes as 
favorable or unfavorable. In some societies, an individual is surrounded by persons who invariably 
define the legal codes as rules to be observed, while in others he is surrounded by a person whose 
definitions are favorable to the violation of the legal codes. 
6. A person becomes delinquent because of an excess of definitions favorable to violation of law over 
definitions unfavorable to violation of the law. This is the principle of differential association. 
1. Sutherland, E.H. (1947). Criminology (4th ed.). Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott. 
Introduction to the American Criminal Justice System
181