Deviance occurs when people define a certain
human situation as an appropriate occasion for
violating social norms or criminal laws
Definitions of the situation are
acquired through an individual’s
history of past experience
9 Principles
1. Criminal behaviour is learned
2. Criminal behaviour is learned in interaction with
other persons in a process of communication
3. The principle part of the learning of criminal
behaviour occurs within intimate personal groups
8. The process of learning criminal behaviour by association with criminal and anti-criminal
patterns involves all of the mechanisms that are involved in any other learning
4. When criminal behaviour is learned, the learning
includes the techniques of committing the crime
5. The specific direction of motives and drives is learned from
definitions of the legal codes as favourable or unfavourable
7. Number of contacts with criminals over non-criminals
may vary in frequency, duration, priority, and intensity
6. A person becomes delinquent because of an
excess of definitions favourable to violation of law
over definitions unfavourable to violation of law
9. While criminal behaviour is an expression
of general needs and values, it is not
explained by those general needs and values
Evaluation
Situational
Deterministic
Reductionist
Social & Behaviourist
Wikström and Tafel
Background
Socio-economic deprivation can be
seen as a plausible explanation for the
crime of theft; however, we still need to
consider individual differences
Disadvantaged
neighbourhoods are
associated with gangs;
however, this links more
clearly to the influence of
peers on criminality
Aim
To analyse the relationship between individual
factors, lifestyle and adolescent offending
Design
Cross-sectional
Sample
Nearly 2000 Year 10 (14– to 15–year-old) pupils
Method
Interviews
Data collection
Results
44.8 per cent of the males and 30.6 per cent of
the females had committed at least one crime
9.8 per cent of the males and 3.8 per cent of the
females had committed a serious crime of theft
One in eight offenders were reported to or caught
by the police for their last committed crime
One in eight offenders were reported to or
caught by the police for their last committed crime
Offenders were more often drunk and
more often used drugs than other youths
Conclusions
Presence of 3 groups of
adolescent offenders
Propensity-induced
Lifestyle-dependent
Situationally-limited
Evaluation
Social
Behavioural perspective
Deterministic from influence of others, but acknowledges
individual differences and therefore free will