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Sutherland's differential association theory has long been criticized as a "cultural deviance" theory, and the critics have continued to apply this same designation to the theory's social-learning reformulation by Akers. According to this critique, differential association/social learning theory rests on the assumption that socialization is completely successful and that cultural variability is unlimited, cannot explain individual differences in deviance within the same group and applies only to group differences, has no way of explaining violation of norms to which the individual subscribes, and proposes culture as the single cause of crime. This article examines the basis and validity of this cultural deviance label. I conclude that the usual attribution of cultural deviance assumptions and explanations to differential association/ social learning theory is based on misinterpretations. Then, I offer a clarification of how cultural elements are incorporated into the theory.
Donald R. Cressey (1960) conducted an exhaustive review of the criticisms of Sutherland's differential association theory that had accumulated up to the end of the 1950s. Cressey argued persuasively that many of the critiques were simply "literary errors" or misinterpretation on the part of the critics. For example, the theory was judged by critics to be invalid because not everyone who had come into contact with criminals became criminal as a result. This misinterprets the theory's proposition that criminal behavior is learned through differential association (relative exposure to criminal and noncriminal patterns) not simply through any contact with persons who have violated the law. Cressey was able to clarify the major misconceptions of differential association theory, and they have seldom been proffered in the literature since then.
Cressey also recognized that an accurate reading revealed two major weaknesses of Sutherland's theory. The first problem was that the concept of "definitions" in the theory was not precisely defined, and the statement did not give good guidance on how to operationalize the ratio or "excess of definitions" favorable to criminal behavior over definitions unfavorable to criminal behavior. The second real problem with the theory was that it left the learning process unspecified. There is virtually no clue in Sutherland's theory as to what in particular would be included in "all the mechanisms that are involved in any other learning" (Sutherland, 1947:7). These two issues of conceptualization of...