Introduction

With the advancement in science and technology there are certain anti-social activities which the
person of upper class carries on their occupation or business. These anti-social activities are
termed as White-Collar Crime. White Collar Crime has become a political issue as it affects key
areas of contemporary life.

White collar crime encompasses a wide range of harmful activities which are not widely
regarded as criminal, raising questions of how it can be compared with other crimes. The
analysis of white- collar crime move beyond the traditional concerns of criminology into wide
areas of financial regulation, occupational health, consumer affairs and food regulation.

Historical Background Of White-Collar Crime

Carrier case was the first case of white- collar crimes which was documented in the year 1473 in
England. In this particular case, the agent was entrusted with the responsibility of the principal to
transport wool from one place to another. The agent was found guilty of stealing some of wool.

The English court after this case adopted the doctrine of breaking the bulk which means that the
bailee who was given the possession of goods tried to break it open and misappropriate the
content. In the year 1907 Edward A. Ross was the first to report upon the Sins of the Criminoid
in his classical Article in the Atlantic monthly in 1907.

The most influential criminologist and sociologist of the 20th Century, Edwin Hardin Sutherland
in the year 1939 first coined the term White Collar Crime and worked upon the concept of
white- collar crime throughout his career. Sutherland had not only defined the term white collar
crime but he had also given his opinion that the criminals who are committing these white collar
crime should be differentiated as there are differences between the person belonging to the lower
socio-economic status who are committing crimes by violating the regular penal code or
violating special trade regulation which are applicable to them or the person who are belonging
to high social economic status and violating the provision of regular penal code in such a way
which are not connected with their occupation and who are committing white collar crime.

Definition Of White-Collar Crime

Edwin Sutherland defined White Collar Crime as:

Crime which is committed by a person who is having high social status and also having
respectability which is acquired by him in the course of his occupation.

Hartung defined White Collar Crime as:

A violation of law regulating business which is committed for a firm by the firm or its agent in
the conduct of its business.

Herbert Edelhertz defined White Collar Crime as:

1
An act which is illegal or series of illegal act which is committed by using such means which are
non- physical and these acts are done for the purpose of concealment or guide for obtaining
money or for the purpose of avoiding the payment of loss in respect of money or property or for
the purpose of obtaining any business and in some cases the purpose is personal advantage.

Contribution Of Sutherland Towards White Collar Crime

Edwin Sutherland defined White Collar Crime as, Crime which is committed by a person who is
having high social status and also having respectability which is acquired by him in the course of
his occupation Sutherland definition of White- Collar Crime is therefore built upon three
overlapping circles of misbehaviour.

The first circle represents any crime committed by a person of high status. The second circle
represents the crime committed by a person having respectability.The third circle represents the
crime committed in the course of occupation.

Sutherland distinguished himself from those who preceded him in one important respect. He
made the study of white- collar crime not only respectable but feasible. He stated the problem
clearly and succinctly. He spearheaded the systematic study of the phenomenon. He articulated a
distinctive theoretical concept of white -collar crime and provided an operational definition and
supported his thesis with empirical data based upon legal and administrative violations of 70
companies. Thus, Sutherland contributions can be best summed up in the following propositions:

1. Sutherland concept of white- collar crime has put forward the kind of crime committed
by powerful and influential members of the elite society
2. Sutherland pointed out that White-Collar Crime was more dangerous to the society than
crimes committed by the members of the lower class because the financial loss were
higher and damage is inflicted on public moral.
3. Sutherland also elaborated the reasons why such crime went unpunished because of their
social status and principally due to difference in their social position.
4. White Collar criminality is real criminality, being in all cases in violation of the criminal
law
5. White Collar criminality differs from lower- class criminality principally in an
implementation of the criminal law which segregates white collar criminals
administratively from other criminals.
6. The theories of criminologist that crime is due to poverty, psychopathic and sociopathic
conditions are invalid because first they are derived from samples which are grossly
biased with respect to socio-economic status; second, they do not apply to white collar
crime criminals; and third they do not even explain the criminality of the lower class
since the factors are not related to a general process characteristic of all criminality.
7. A theory of criminal behaviour which will explain both white collar criminality and
lower-class criminality is needed.

2
 8. A hypothesis of this nature is suggested in terms of differential association and social
disorganisation.

Sutherland impact was great and unmistaken. He reoriented the thinking of a generation of
criminologists and others to come. He provided personal leadership in theory development and
research verification. He inspired others to follow his example. He raised controversial issues
and sharpened debates over existing theories and research of crime and delinquencies. Largely
because of his influence the period between 1940 and 1960 was described as the classical period
in the research and study of white-collar crimes.

Impact Of Sutherland's Legacy

The cumulative effect of Sutherland's contribution has given earth breaking concept to white
collar crimes with defined body, substantive content and renewed focus to gather the momentum.
Sutherland's concept of White- Collar Crime provided conceptual tools, theoretical foundations
and database for later researchers to build upon. Thus, Sutherland's legacy by virtue of his
pioneer quality set the tone, pace, texture, direction of later research and debate in the field.


Login
 Register

File Copyright Online - File mutual Divorce in Delhi - Online Legal Advice - Lawyers in
India

Differential Association Theory

By Vibhana | Views 91146
93 6 13 Blogger3 pocket8 Digg3

Meaning
Differential association is when individuals base their behaviours by association and interaction
with others.

In criminology, differential association is a theory developed by Edwin Sutherland

(1883–1950) proposing that through interaction with others, individuals learn the values,
attitudes, techniques, and motives for criminal behaviour. Differential association theory is the

3
most talked-about of the learning theories of deviance. This theory focuses on how individuals
learn to become criminals, but it does not concern itself with why they become criminals.

Differential association predicts that an individual will choose the criminal path when the
balance of definitions for law-breaking exceeds those for law-abiding. This tendency will be
reinforced if social association provides active people in the persons life. The earlier in life an
individual comes under the influence high status people within a group, the more likely the
individual is to follow in their footsteps. This does not deny that there may be practical motives
for crime. If a person is hungry but has no money, there is a temptation to steal. But the use
of needs and values is equivocal. To some extent, both non-criminal and criminal individuals are
motivated by the need for money and social gain.

Sutherland proposed differential association theory in 1939 and elaborated it in 1947. Initially,
he applied his theory only to systematic criminal behaviour, but, later on, extending his theory,
he applied it to all criminal behaviour. Sutherland forwarded mainly two explanations for
criminal behaviour: situational and genetic or historical.

The former explains crime on the basis of situation that exists at the time of crime, and the latter
explains crime on the basis of a criminals life experiences. He himself used the second approach
in developing his theory of criminal behaviour. Let us take an example. If a hungry boy comes
across a dhaba (restaurant) and finds the owner absent, he steals a roti (loaf of bread).

In this case, the boy steals not because the restaurant owner was absent and he himself was
hungry but because he had learnt earlier that one could satisfy ones hunger by stealing things.
Thus, it is not the situation which motivates a person to commit a theft; it is his learnt attitudes
and beliefs.

Sutherlands main thesis (Principles of Criminology, Philadelphia, 1947) is that individuals

encounter many inharmonious and inconsistent social influences in their lifetime and many
individuals become involved in contacts with carriers of criminalistic norms and as a
consequence become criminals. He called this process differential association.

Sutherlands 9 Points:
The principles of Sutherlands theory of differential association can be summarized into
nine key points.
1. Criminal behaviour is learned.
2. Criminal behaviour is learned in interaction with other persons in a process of communication.

3. The principal part of the learning of criminal behaviour occurs within intimate personal
groups.

4
4. When criminal behaviour is learned, the learning includes techniques of committing the crime
(which are sometimes very complicated, sometimes simple) and the specific direction of
motives, drives, rationalizations, and attitudes.
5. The specific direction of motives and drives is learned from definitions of the legal codes as
favourable or unfavourable.
6. A person becomes delinquent because of an excess of definitions favourable to violation of
law over definitions unfavourable to violation of the law.
7. Differential associations may vary in frequency, duration, priority, and intensity.
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.

9. While criminal behaviour is an expression of general needs and values, it is not explained by
those needs and values, since non-criminal behaviour is an expression of the same needs and
values.

An important quality of differential association theory is the frequency and intensity of

interaction. The amount of time that a person is exposed to a particular definition and at what
point the interaction began are both crucial for explaining criminal activity. The process of
learning criminal behaviour is really not any different from the process involved in learning any
other type of behaviour. Sutherland maintains that there is no unique learning process associated
with acquiring non-normative ways of behaving.

One very unique aspect of this theory is that it works to explain more than just juvenile
delinquency and crime committed by lower class individuals. Since crime is understood to be
learned behaviour, the theory is also applicable to white-collar, corporate, and organized crime.

Sutherlands theory was supported by James Short Jr. on the basis of his study of 176 school
children (126 boys and 50 girls) in 1955 (see, Rose Giallombardo, 1960: 85-91). Short measured
degree of presumed exposure to crime and delinquency in the community, frequency, duration,
priority and intensity of interaction with delinquent peers, and knowledge of and association with
adult criminals.

Origin
Before Sutherland introduced his theory of differential association, the explanations for criminal
behaviour were varied and inconsistent. Seeing this as a weakness, law professor Jerome
Michael and philosopher Mortimer J. Adler published a critique of the field that argued that
criminology hadnt produced any scientifically-backed theories for criminal activity. Sutherland
saw this as a call to arms and used rigorous scientific methods to develop differential association
theory.

Sutherland initially outlined his theory in 1939 in the third edition of his book Principles of
Criminology. He then revised the theory for the fourth edition of the book in 1947. Since then,
differential association theory has remained popular in the field of criminology and has sparked a
great deal of research. One of the reasons for the theorys continued pertinence is its broad ability
to explain all kinds of criminal activity, from juvenile delinquency to white collar crime.

5
Critiques
Differential association theory was a game-changer in the field of criminology. However, the
theory has been criticized for failing to take individual differences into account. Personality traits
may interact with ones environment to create outcomes that differential association theory cannot
explain. For example, people can change their environment to ensure it better suits their
perspectives. They may also be surrounded by influences that dont espouse the value of criminal
activity and choose to rebel by becoming a criminal anyway. People are independent,
individually motivated beings. As a result, they may not learn to become criminals in the ways
differential association predicts.

One critique levelled against differential association stems from the idea that people can be
independent, rational actors and individually motivated. This notion of one being a criminal
based on his or her environment is problematic—the theory does not take into account
personality traits that might affect a persons susceptibility to these environmental influences.

Differential association takes a social psychological approach to explain how an individual

becomes a criminal. The theory posits that an individual will engage in criminal behaviour when
the definitions that favour violating the law exceed those that dont. Definitions in favour of
violating the law could be specific. For example, This store is insured. If I steal these items, its
a victimless crime.

Definitions can also be more general, as in This is public land, so I have the right to do
whatever I want on it. These definitions motivate and justify criminal activity. Meanwhile,
definitions unfavourable to violating the law push back against these notions. Such definitions
can include, Stealing is immoral or Violating the law is always wrong.

The individual is also likely to put different weight on the definitions they are presented in their
environment. These differences depend on the frequency with which a given definition is
encountered, how early in life a definition was first presented, and how much one values the
relationship with the individual presenting the definition.

While the individual is most likely to be influenced by definitions provided by friends and family
members, learning can also occur at school or through the media. For example, the media often
they could contribute to an individuals choice to engage in criminal behaviour.

In addition, even if an individual has the inclination to commit a crime, they must have the skills
necessary to do so. These skills could be complex and more challenging to learn, like those
involved in computer hacking, or more easily accessible, like stealing goods from stores.
Criticism Of Sutherland's Definition Of White- Collar Crime

Sutherland definition of White- collar crime:

A crime committed by person of respectability and high social status in the course of his
occupation was fraught with objective ambiguity and has not given subjective value judgement.
The term respectability and high social status was not capable of precise definition and is

6
subjected to much less objective measurements.

Many scholars raised issues with regard to the definition given by Sutherland on the concept of
white- collar crime. Lack of conceptual clarity how important is social status in finding white
collar crime criminality and what is the exact meaning of occupational activity are some key
points where Sutherland faced criticism with regard to his definition on white collar crime.

While some scholars criticized Sutherland's definition because the definition has included
deviant behaviour and has covered a broad range of diverse and inconsistent behaviours that did
not considered them as criminals.

It is clear from the above discussion that white- collar crime are different from the other type of
offences as these offences cause harm in a greater magnitude if compared to the magnitude of the
traditional crime and these offences do not represent the cases of positive aggression or the cases
of invasion, though these offences generally do not create a direct or immediate injury but
actually they create such type of great danger which may hamper the economic growth of the
country.

After discussing the ambit of white-collar crime and contribution of Sutherland towards White
Collar Crime there is a need for the establishment of some special courts that would particularly
and exclusively deal with these types of offences and there should be effective and speedy
disposal of these types of cases so that the offender cannot get away from the purview of justice.

While concluding it is pertinent to note that in India there are several problems of ill
nourishment, corruption, poverty, illiteracy and exploitation that are coming in the way of
economic development of the country. If white- collar crimes continue to harm the economic
development of the country then we will not be able to develop as whole.

Summary of the book and previous reviews

This book consists of two parts; the first eight chapters were apparently written by the thief Chic
Conwell (aka Broadway Jones) and represent an account of the world of theft at a particular time
in American history. It is a highly entertaining, descriptive, and folksy account of a social milieu.
The last two chapters were written by Sutherland; he uses these chapters to establish the
criminological context for the book.

The Professional Thief is a book that has been in print for nearly 80 years and has already been
discussed, reviewed, praised, and critiqued many times. By October 2014, it had been cited 878
times in Google Scholar (retrieved October 27, 2014), which re-enforces Vasoli and Terzola’s
(1974, p. 132) assessment that “one can scarcely open a modern criminology text which does not
in some way pay homage to Conwell’s fascinating reminiscences and Sutherland’s annotative
and interpretive supplements to them.”

As is so often the case with a book that has been published many decades ago, the earlier reviews
and discussions are more positive than the more recent ones. This fact can be expected, for with
the passage of time, novelty wears off, empirical reality changes, and new theoretical

7
perspectives and methodologies are developed. A work that has once been at the cutting edge of
a field becomes more run of the mill. A book review published in 1937, the year Thief was
published, was very positive:

The reader of The Professional Thief gets the impression that the book is to a certain extent the
joint product of a man well versed in the practical experiences of crime and a man well versed in
the general field of criminal behavior. (Locke, 1937, p. 186)

The reviewer saw the concept of professionalism as a positive contribution to the criminological
literature (it was a time when most criminologists studied the urban underclass as the source of
all crime, but did not give a voice to criminals).

Snodgrass (1973) was considerably more critical than Locke (1937) had been. Among other
issues, Snodgrass accused Sutherland of not knowing Conwell particularly well; furthermore, he
accused him of falsifying some issues in Conwell’s past in order to protect the latter’s identity.
Around the same time, Vasoli and Terzola (1974) published a detailed and fairly criti cal
analysis of the book, in which they questioned Sutherland and Conwell’s methodology and
substantive findings: “Sutherland’s annotations in combination with Conwell’s text provide at
best a narrow view of professional theft” (p. 149).

Enduring themes and contributions

What are the enduring themes and contributions of this work? This is particularly a relevant
question as “the bulk of Conwell’s experiences and observations describe the state of the
profession between 1905 and 1925” (Vasoli & Terzola, 1974, p. 134). Clearly the terminology
used is archaic and, as Vasoli and Terzola (1974) argued, the rackets that Sutherland had
identified did not exist any longer in the 1970s. The substantive contributions that the book made
to the study of theft are at best marginal in the early 21st Century, and likely non-existent.
However, there are some enduring contributions.

White-collar crime v. street crime and differential association

Sutherland’s two major contributions to American criminology are the theory of differential
association (developed in his text book that has been published in 11 editions between 1924 and
1992: Sutherland, 1924; Sutherland, Cressey, & Luckenbill, 1992) and the concept of white-
collar crime (Sutherland, 1940; 1949). His theory of differential association was developed, in
part, by his publications on white-collar crime and The Professional Thief. In essence, he looked
at crime in the streets and the suites to develop a theory that was not dependent on low
socioeconomic status, what was referred to at that time as feeble-mindedness, or biology, the
prevailing explanations of the day. However, whereas he made contributions to both fields, it
seems very clear in retrospect that he respected the professional thieves for their honesty to
identify themselves as criminals, while white-collar offenders had a non-criminal self-concept:

8
It becomes evident that in some ways Sutherland came to admire and glamorize the professional
thief and to loathe the white-collar offender, a loathing that translated into his claim that
businessmen are the most subversive force in America and his equating of the advertising tactics
of the power and light utilities with the propaganda of the German Nazis. (Geis & Meier, 1977,
p. 25)

Although the theory of differential association could have been developed without the
publication of The Professional Thief, it is undoubtedly the case that this book, along with books
such as Cressey’s Other People’s Money (1953), contributed to the rising popularity of
sociological approaches among criminologists. Generations of researchers have been able to rely
on the sociological foundations Sutherland built, both theoretical and substantive, for their work.
The Professional Thief directed attention away from fairly crude biological theories of the day
and explanations that blamed the urban underclass and recent immigrants for the crime problem.

Qualitative methods

A debate has been raging in criminology over the relative merits of quantitative v. qualitative
research. This forum is not appropriate to rehash the various arguments, especially since
Sutherland contributed to both research traditions. However, it is clear that The Professional
Thief relied on the research approach of life histories (Wright, 2005). This approach has been
used heavily by qualitative researchers who would be well advised to consult this study for
guidance. This is not to say that there are no problems with this study; Sutherland has been
criticized that he was very selective in his reporting:

Even worse, speculation has surfaced that Sutherland misrepresented certain details …
Broadway Jones was heavily addicted to narcotics; Sutherland downplayed this part of his
biography… Sutherland insisted on the highest level of academic integrity among scholars
towards whom he was critical (the Gluecks, Hooton, and Sheldon); the idea that he may have
violated these same standards suggests a troubling hypocrisy. (Wright, 2005, p. 1629)

However, in some ways he was ahead of his time. The term data triangulation was not in vogue
during the 1930s, but Sutherland tried to verify Conwell’s experiences by relying on a variety of
sources including other thieves, two former police officers, and accounts in the popular press. As
is so often the case, when researchers develop new techniques (or, in case of quantitative
research, new statistical analyses), they make mistakes. However, subsequent researchers can
learn from them and improve on their work, but should not forget to give credit where credit is
due.

Convict criminology

Perhaps the most surprising contribution of The Professional Thief is to the relatively newly
defined field of convict criminology:

Convict Criminology represents the work of convicts or ex-convicts, in possession of a Ph.D. or

on their way to completing one, or enlightened academics and practitioners, who contribute to a
new conversation about crime and corrections…The convict scholars are able to do what many

9
previous researchers could not; merge their past with their present and provide a provocative
approach to the academic study of their field. The convict criminology perspective is also based
on perceptions, experiences, and analytical ideas that originate with defendants and prisoners,
and are then developed by critical scholars. (Convictcriminology.com)

Academic criminology has been the domain of predominantly White, male, and middle class
scholars. Other viewpoints have been underrepresented. It was not until the appearance of New
Criminology that voices of the previously silent have been heard: women, ethnic and racial
minorities, victims, and offenders. What is noteworthy is that the very people who live crime and
are the frontline participants of the criminal scene, the offenders, are often not heard in the
academic discourse. Sutherland let Chic Conwell speak for himself and introduced a new and
different criminology. What had been a relatively sterile academic enterprise became messy, but
also more real (to use methodological terminology, the reliability of measures decreased, but
their validity probably increased). Modern criminological approaches such as convict
criminology owe a debt of gratitude to Chic Conwell and to Sutherland. The latter practiced
convict criminology before convict criminology became cool.

Crime as craft or work

It is in vogue to consider criminals as relatively unskilled, not very reflective or self-aware, not
capable of planning, and not concerned with the long range consequences of their acts. While
this characterization may be accurate for some criminals, others clearly do not display these
personality characteristics. There are some crimes that require their perpetrators to achieve skills
and the honing of techniquesThe criminal reality that Chic Conwell (and, by implication,
Sutherland) faced may be very different from the reality of street crime today, but the idea of
crime as work or craft is found today in other criminal realms.

As Steinmetz (2015) pointed out, hacking is one such realm. Similar to Sutherland’s thief, a
hacker becomes one when s/he has mastered skills and is recognized as a hacker by others with
that specific brand of expertise:

Regardless of the domain in which one hacks, the honing and exercising of skill is characteristic.
Just as Sutherland (1937, p. 14) states that ‘a thief is not a professional until he is proficient,’ a
person is not a hacker until they are skilled. By and large, acts which do not stem from a degree
of skill are not considered hacking. (Steinmetz, 2015, p. 132)

Cultural criminology

10
In a related vein, cultural criminology (e.g., Ferrell, 1993) owes a debt of gratitude to Sutherland.
The Professional Thief is an early example of cultural criminology:

Cultural criminology is a theoretical, methodological and interventionist approach to the study of

crime and deviance that places criminality and its control in the context of culture; that is, it
views crime and the agencies and institutions of crime control as cultural products–as creative
constructs. As such they must be read in terms of the meanings they carry. Furthermore, cultural
criminology seeks to highlight the interaction between two key elements: the relationship
between cultural constructions upwards and cultural constructions downwards. Its focus is
always upon the continuous generation of meaning around interaction; rules created, rules
broken, a constant interplay of moral entrepreneurship, political innovation and transgression.
(Cultural Criminology, 2014)

Cultural criminology studies the meaning of crime in its cultural context. The Professional Thief
sets the world of theft in its cultural milieu, beyond which it loses most of its meaning. Although
the specific findings are no longer relevant, the approach still is. Similar to convict criminology,
Sutherland practiced cultural criminology before cultural criminology was developed.

Conclusion

There is a tendency not to pay tribute to who has gone before us. Criminological research of
yesteryear is seen as outdated and no longer relevant. Contemporary researchers either have to
reinvent the wheel, commit errors that others before them have committed (“Those who cannot
remember the past are condemned to repeat it”—Santayana, 1905, p. 284), or fancy themselves
as having invented or created an approach, methodology, or idea. Sutherland’s book The
Professional Thief may not be relevant in terms of its actual substance (the world of theft), but as
this review demonstrates, his book is an early forerunner of contemporary criminological
approaches. To paraphrase Sir Isaac Newton’s famous quote, criminologists should consider
saying, “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of one of our giants,
Sutherland.”

11
 References

Convictcriminology.com. (2014). About us. Retrieved November 7, 2014 from

convictcriminolog.com/about.

Cressey, D. R. (1953). Other people’s money. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.

Cultural Criminology. (2014). Retrieved November 7, 2014 from http://

blogs.kent.ac.uk/culturalcriminology.

Ferrell, J. (1993). Crimes of style: Urban graffiti and the politics of criminality. New York, NY:
Garland.

Geis, G., and Meier, R. F. (1977). What is “White-Collar Crime”? In G. Geis & R.F. Meier (eds.)
White-collar crime: Offenses in business, politics, and the professions (revised edition) (pp. 23-
28). New York, NY: Free Press.

Jacques, S., and Wright, R. (2012). Ironies of crime, control, and criminology. Critical
Criminology, 20

12