What Is The Social Process Theory Of Criminality?

The social process theories view criminality as a function of people’s interaction with various organizations, institutions, and processes of society. People of all walks of life have the potential to become criminals giving they maintain destructive social relationships. Improper socialization is a key component of crime. (2012. Siegel, L, Criminology (pg.256). The social process approach-an individual’s socialization-determines the likelihood of criminality. The key to understanding crime and criminal behavior is found in socialization of people. In most cases, people are influenced by their relationships, peer associations, educational experiences, and interactions with authority figures. People that experience healthy positive and supportive relationships succeeds within the rules of society, and those people that experience negative dysfunctional and destructive relationships with others succeeds in a life of criminal actions and become prone to crime as an alternative. This reflects the
Social learning involves the actual process of committing a crime, the psychological aspects of criminality, and dealing with the guilt and shame associated with illegal activities. The process of learning criminal behavior by association with criminal and anti-criminal behavior involves all mechanisms of any other learning process. There are theories under the banner of the social learning theory; in the differential association theory people learn how to commit crime from exposure of the elements of their social structure. The differential reinforcement theory describes that criminal behavior depends on the experiences of rewards of deviant acts that later leads to crime. The neutralization theory identifies the youth criminal’s ability to refrain from becoming adult offenders and drift in and out of criminal