Four Social Process Theories Of Criminal Behavior

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the social learning theory of crime, and how it relates to certain criminal acts. Ronald Akers would say that a person’s desire to engage in crime is learned “through exposure to and the adoption of definitions favorable to crime” (Cullen, Agnew, & Wilcox 2014, p. 140). When an individual commits a crime they are acting on impulse because of actions they saw others engage in primarily during childhood, and therefore mimic those actions. Akers saw the need to extend Sutherland’s Differential association theory therefore creating a modern viewpoint known as Social learning theory (Cullen, Agnew, & Wilcox 2014). Social learning theory has four main mechanism of learning to describe how crime is learned.

as a general concept, social learning theory has been applied to the many different fields of social science to explain why certain individuals develop motivation to commit (or abstain from) crime and develop the skills to commit crime through the people they associate with. Social Learning Theory (SLT) is one of the most frequently looked at theories in the criminology field. This theory was introduced by Ronald L. Akers as a reformulation of Edwin H. Sutherland 's (1947) differential association theory of crime meld with principles of behavior psychology (Bradshaw, 2011). Akers retained the concepts of differential association and definitions from Sutherland 's theory, but conceptualized them in more behavioral terms and

Social Strain Theory and criminal offending are seen by most theorist as a way of understanding what could be the causes of youth committing crimes. Theorist are very concern if social strain theory really does have the answer to why this is happening, but they also believe that the result may be inconclusive, because of all the different variables and independent variables that could be used in their research. We will take a look at this theory, and see if they and ask our participants from the state of Georgia inner-city neighborhoods a few question that they will supply their own answer to, and then ask them an open-ending question face to face and ask them to choose the answer that best state why they might commit a crime or not. If we are able to understand the results then we hope we can implement it into policy. And by incorporating it into policy, then we might be able to design a strategy that will help LEOs or other agencies to reduce youth offending, deter criminal acts and future crimes. Lastly, so with the implementation of social strain theory into the policy and the evaluation of the data, discussion and the questions we can create a foundation for further research studies to build on our results.

An example of the social process theory is watching how children respond to the adults and other children they are around. (Schmalleger, 2012, p. 180) A child who watches his parents smoke cigarettes may be told by the parent that they shouldn’t smoke but watching their parents smoke, a child is more likely to pick up the habit as an adult. It is a familiar process, that is not breaking

The social construct of crime - the process constructing crime was subjected to the constraints of a legitimate nature which allowed by law for the fairness between both the powerful and their less powerful counterparts. This was done with specific mechanisms to control the behaviour of the powerful, this process made laws such as environmental laws possible.

Aker wants people to develop motivation to commit crime, and the skills to commit crime through the people they associate with. The social learning is that when people learn bad behavior by watching others and learning from the social factors in their daily lives. They also see with differential association and imitation can be either positive or negative. On the positive side we see when people are rewarded for their action we began to see more crime occur. Though on the negative side we see can still see a lot of crime occur, but when they know what the consequences are for the crime they are less likely to do it again, or even commit a crime. Though the social learning theory gives us four central concepts. They are differential association,

The Nature and Nurture debate, one of the oldest debates in the history of psychology, questions whether or not criminal behaviour is a result of the nature of a person, meaning something that lies in their genes causing a person to act in a certain way, or nurture, the environment, therefore criminal behaviour as a result of a person’s life experiences (Sincero, 2012). This essay shall look in depth and answer to how the four areas of criminal behaviour, which are biological, sociological, psychological and environmental, as part of the nature and nurture debate, can explain criminality and deviance. This will be done by discussing a number of theories and experiments that have come to the surface over time. Researching the nature and nurture debate, it is shown that the debate continues to interest people today, mainly because of what is thought will be the outcome of these findings, which is preventing people turning to criminal behaviour by understanding people’s genetics, how they were born and avoid situations that lie in the environment to stop them interacting with criminal activities.

This theory also implies that the skills to commit crime are influenced by the people they associate with (Akers, 2012). The social process theory is based on the controls that society places on individuals through various institutions such as schools, workplaces, churches, and families are the causation for crime (Siegel & Welsh, 2014). This theory basically states that the reason people commit a crime is because of their environment. Crime is committed because of need and not due to a birth defect. This is much like a recent story I read on Facebook, where a teenage home intruder was shot and killed. His family instead of admitting that the teenager was wrong blamed the hard working person who shot him for the teen’s mistake. This is a great example social

One branch of social process theory is social learning theory. It says that crime is a product of learning the norms, values, and behaviors of criminal activity. The only time in the case we see them have any kind of education is the Octopus teaching the kids how to commit crimes; we see the kids being taught how to break into a safe. It isn’t just the environment that causes kids to commit crimes but specifically how they are being socialized by the people in their

One of the most significant news stories that have occurred recently is the David Petraeus affair. The scandal broke all over the major news networks as well as social media and has been at the forefront of the nightly news programs for the last several days. In order to understand the issue, though, one has to look at it from a criminology standpoint. There are concerns that Petraeus may have done something criminal in his actions because of the classified nature of so much of the information he had available to him. There are three different theories that can be considered here under the guise of social process. These are differential association theory, differential reinforcement theory, and neutralization theory.

As crime continues to occur, criminologists begin to define new theories to explain our seemingly naturalistic tendencies on what mental processes take place for an individual to actually partake in criminal activity. The symbolic interactionist perspective defines itself by its strong beliefs in the fact that criminals are defined by their social processes. The social process theory states that criminality is a function of people’s interactions with various groups, organizations and processes in society. For example, an individual’s connection with family, school, friends, religion and media would all be main factors in determining how their criminal structure within their personality came

2. Criminal behavior is learned in interaction with other persons in a process of communication. This communication is verbal in many cases but includes gestures.

In the social process theory, three areas are covered. The three are social learning theory, social control theory, and social reaction theory.

Socialization is defined as the process through which people learn social norms, values, behavior, and skills through their interaction with significant others such as teachers, family, and friends. Furthermore, the social process theory connects socialization and crime by stating that criminality is a function of people’s interactions with various organizations, institutions, and processes in society. Socialization is key to understanding criminal behaviors. So, according to the social process theory, if someone is socialized with dysfunction and destructive relationships, tradition success may be unachievable and the person may see crime as their only alternative. In addition, anyone can develop antisocial behavior

The social learning theory states that criminal behavior is learned. Criminals learn their bad behaviors from close relationships they may have with criminal peers (Siegel & Worrall, 2016). Children look up to their parents; they want to be just like them. So, if children grow up surround by crime, they think that it is both normal and acceptable, and it is likely that they will participate in criminal behavior when they are older. As a result of learning this behavior, it is passed down through generations and is never broken. This can also be learned from friendships people may have with negative influences. Young adults and children want to fit in with their peers, so if they are surrounded with those who commit crimes, they are probably going to do the same because “everyone is doing it”.