Theories in this category—often referred to as developmental theories—share the assumption that crime is best understood as a processual phenomenon, not as isolated acts. They introduce the variable of time as a crucial dimension for understanding why people become involved in crime, why they persist, and why they desist. Developmental perspectives emphasize that criminal behavior depends on the life-course and age of the individual, as well as the changing social environment and its dynamic influences. Many offenses are seen as the outcome of criminal careers that unfold over time, shaped by individual characteristics, relationships with others, and structural contexts. Unlike purely additive, multi-factorial approaches, developmental theories trace how and when different causal factors interact over time. They analyze sequences of events and transitions that can lead to different outcomes, making it necessary to investigate the pathways that generate crime or conformity.
Overview of Learning and Career Theories of Crime
The following table summarizes the main learning and career theories of crime, highlighting their key assumptions, main proponents, and differences in explaining criminal behavior.
| Approach | Main Proponents | Core Idea |
|---|---|---|
| Differential Association Theory | Edwin H. Sutherland | Crime is learned through interaction with others, especially within intimate groups |
| Social Learning Theory | Ronald L. Akers | Criminal behavior is learned through reinforcement, imitation, and differential rewards |
| Subcultural Theory | Albert K. Cohen | Deviance arises from group-based value systems that differ from dominant societal norms |
| Differential Opportunity Theory | Cloward & Ohlin | Access to illegitimate opportunities shapes different forms of delinquency |
| Delinquency and Drift | David Matza | Individuals move in and out of delinquency, influenced by situational factors and weakened controls |
| Techniques of Neutralization | Sykes & Matza | Offenders justify deviant behavior through cognitive rationalizations that neutralize moral norms |
As the overview shows, these theories share a focus on social learning and developmental processes but differ in how they explain the emergence, persistence, and justification of criminal behavior.
While some theories emphasize learning through social interaction (Sutherland, Akers), others focus on group dynamics (Cohen, Cloward & Ohlin) or the situational and cognitive processes that allow individuals to engage in deviance (Matza, Sykes & Matza).
Historical and Theoretical Foundations
Developmental criminology has its roots in longitudinal research such as the studies by Glueck and Glueck, who first highlighted how individuals change over time. While their work aimed at identifying additive risk factors for delinquency, it laid the groundwork for later theories that focused on dynamic, interactive processes.
CrimeActs or omissions that violate criminal laws and are punishable by the state. emerges through developmental processes that begin early in life and unfold across the entire life span. Individual and social factors interact to shape the onset, duration, and end of a criminal career.
Later theoretical work has explored these dynamics in greater depth. David Matza’s Delinquency and Drift framework, for example, emphasizes time-dependent “drifts” in and out of crime, challenging static views of criminal propensity. Greenberg’s age theory examines variations in anomic pressure, noting that adolescence is a particularly high-risk stage due to social expectations and limited legitimate opportunities. Thornberry’s interactional theory explains high adolescent crime rates as the result of weak social bonds, which both influence and are influenced by criminal behavior over time. The Age-Graded Theory of Sampson and Laub builds on these insights, highlighting turning points in life—such as marriage or employment—that strengthen social bonds and reduce criminal behavior over time. Terrie Moffitt’s Two-Path Theory further distinguishes between life-course-persistent and adolescence-limited offenders, underscoring heterogeneity in criminal trajectories.
Learning Theories
Learning theories argue that criminal and conformist behaviors alike are acquired through social interaction. Crime is not an innate trait but a behavior that is learned in the same way as any other social behavior, using similar cognitive, affective, and practical processes. Such theories emphasize the role of peers, subcultures, and communities in transmitting criminal techniques, motives, and rationalizations. Criminal behavior requires learning not only specific skills but also justifications and neutralizations that make deviance possible and sustainable.
Context
Historically, learning theories in criminology grew out of the Chicago School’s socio-ecological research and early psychological theories of imitation. Gabriel Tarde’s 19th-century theory of imitation was among the first to propose that crime spreads through social learning processes. Edwin Sutherland’s Differential Association Theory was pivotal in formalizing these ideas. Influenced by the Chicago School’s urban studies, Sutherland argued that crime results from interaction with others who hold favorable definitions of lawbreaking. He explicitly rejected biological determinism in favor of the idea that criminal behavior is socially learned, not inherited. Sutherland’s theory also links closely to Social Disorganization Theory (Shaw and McKay), which describes neighborhoods where weakened social controls and disorganization foster criminal subcultures. While Social DisorganizationA theory that links crime rates to the breakdown of social institutions and community cohesion in a neighborhood. Theory identifies the environmental conditions that make crime likely, Sutherland describes the processes through which individuals in such environments learn to become offenders.
Later developments include Glaser’s theory of differential identification and Cloward and Ohlin’s theory of differential opportunities, which incorporates notions of access to illegitimate means. Akers’s Social Learning Theory integrates principles from psychology such as operant conditioning and observational learning, providing a nuanced account of how criminal behavior is learned and reinforced.
