Social Attributions: The Social Learning Theory

It is easy to assume that offenders are fully rehabilitated and ready to reenter society as a law- abiding citizen upon incarceration release; however this is simply not true. Rehabilitation does not necessarily address criminal behavior. Although offenders may try to deviate from criminal behaviors, this is increasingly difficult for offenders who do not have to opportunity to change their environment as well. As a result, criminals are more like to be rearrested within five years of release. There are several factors that lead to recidivism but the social learning theories focus solely on social attributions. It’s not a question of teaching individual’s right from wrong but determining what social and environmental elements contribute to
The social learning theory, proposed by Ronald L. Akers, addresses the unintentional flaws within the social disorganization theory as well as builds on the efforts of Edwin Sutherland’s theory of differential association. Instead of standing separately both the social learning theory and the differential association complement one another and together establish the learning processes of crime. This work fused the earlier sociological theory of differential association with the developmental psychological theory of reinforcement. This approach presents a concept that learning can simply occur by observing. In terms of criminology, criminal behavior is taught through observation. By adding a social element to the understanding of criminal activity, Sutherland and Akers were able to explain how a person’s interaction with his or her environment and surrounding others could easily influence deviant behavior. The best method to address the question of whether or not an offender is intentionally persistence on becoming a career criminal, is to examine the patterns of behavior presented by Sutherland and
Although he would agree with Sutherland, he would also accredit the offender’s acts of criminality to positive rewards and criminal reinforcement. The reinforcement model is a model of internal reward such as superiority or a sense of achievement. Crime is more likely to transpire when it is regularly reinforced and rarely punished. Reinforcements can be positive or negative. Positive reinforcements encourage offenders to remain deviant, while negative reinforcements deter. For a burglar, positive reinforcements could be adrenaline from the thrill, cash, societal approval, acceptance or pleasure and negative reinforcement could be imprisonment. As it relates to recidivism, individuals reoffend if the externally reinforcements does not match the offenders personal needs. For example, the scenario states that the offender has been arrested three times for the same crime. The frequency of robberies could ascribe to a financial burden and although this offender knows the consequences of his actions, this does not outweigh his