The Criminology of Edwin Sutherland

Mark S. Gaylord, John F. Galliher

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000679588
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Criminology
• Index: Social Sciences

Edwin Sutherland is the acknowledged father of American criminology. This is the first full-length analysis of his work and his person. Unlike the European schools of criminology, which sought to locate deviant behaviour within the deep structures of the economy, Sutherland eschewed such explanations in favour of proximate and observable causes. He located the sources of crime in the association and interaction of specific groups of people. For Sutherland, crime as a way of life results from an individual's attachment to criminals for whom criminal acts are a measure of success no less than a way of life. In a series of publications, Sutherland expanded the horizons of the classic "Chicago School" of interactionists, and in the process founded criminology as a separate area of research while locating it firmly within sociology. As the authors show, Sutherland's work was inspired by strong moral concerns and a sense of the needs of society for social order without falling prey to either blaming the victim or pandering to sentiment about the joys of criminal life. In this sense, he is a model of the sociological tradition long deserving of the biography acknowledging his role as a master and pioneer. Yet Gaylord and Galliher have written more than an intellectual biography. They take seriously the need to fit Sutherland and his "theory of differential association" into a social and historical context. They are also aware and critically straightforward about the limitations of Sutherland's work in criminology, but place both his achievements and their limitations in a fully developed analytical context.

1 Edwin H. Sutherland's Legacy

One April evening in 1942, Edwin H. Sutherland stood before the members and guests of the Ohio Valley Sociological Society. As retiring president it was his privilege to give an address following the Society’s annual dinner meeting. His listeners saw Sutherland as the dean of American criminology. That evening he spoke to them on the “Development of the Theory.” The theory to which the title of his address referred was differential association.

Sutherland was then fifty-eight years old and at the peak of his profession. In 1939 he had been elected president of the American Sociological Society in recognition of his scholarship and his service to the profession. In 1940 he had been elected president of the Sociological Research Association. He was currently chair of the department of sociology at Indiana University, which in 1935 he had established as an independent department. Sutherland was in constant demand to lecture, to consult with crime commissions and other study groups, and to teach at other universities.

Three years earlier, Sutherland had presented the first explicit statement of the theory of differential association in the third edition of his criminology textbook, Principles of Criminology (1939). Now, before this audience, he chose to reveal something of the theory’s origin and development over the course of two decades. He began his address by announcing:

I shall present a personal account of the hypothesis that criminal behavior is caused by differential association. This is to be a biography of the hypothesis and a report on its present status or its rise and decline. It is a story of confusion, inconsistencies, delayed recognition of implicit meanings, and of much borrowing from and stimulation by colleagues and students.¹

The theory about which he spoke that evening—differential association—represented a major landmark within the discipline. Nearly forty years after Sutherland’s death, his theory continues to guide research, stimulate debate, and organize empirical findings. Students of criminology are still taught the theory of differential association as an essential part of their education. Although most criminologists cite Sutherland’s textbook, his theory of differential association, and his ground-breaking work on white-collar crime as his most important intellectual achievements, this study will focus attention on the theory of differential association.

This theory postulates that criminal behavior is learned behavior. It is learned through interaction with other persons, usually within intimate personal groups. In such a context one learns the techniques of committing crime and acquires the motivation to do so. All of us are exposed to statements favorable and unfavorable to the violation of law. However, when a person’s association with definitions favorable to the violation of law is in excess of his or her association with definitions unfavorable to the violation of the law the person will become criminal. “Differential association” emphasizes the variable character of each person’s exposure to both kinds of definitions. The theory is sociological in the sense that it places emphasis on the social origins of criminal behavior.

In the decades immediately preceding the development of the theory of differential association, theoretical criminology was of little value in attempts to understand the causes of crime or for purposes of social control. In fact, in the first decades of the twentieth century there was no indigenous American criminology. Instead, American social scientists looked across the Atlantic for theories to explain New World criminality. Compared to American sociology, which by the 1920s had created a profound new social psychology and developed an empirical methodology, American criminology was intellectually backward and unscientific. From the start of the century, American criminology struggled for twenty years to free itself from the Lombrosian legacy of biological determinism, with its notions of “born criminals,” criminal types, and eugenics. Until the 1930s, American criminology was characterized by multiple factor theory, a misnomer that represented an intellectually flaccid and atheoretical stance toward understanding crime causation. Out of this unpromising background, Sutherland’s efforts to develop a theoretical understanding of crime causation will be documented.

It is the thesis of this study that Sutherland’s dissatisfaction with contemporary American criminology, together with a personality marked by perfectionism, professional ambition, diligence, and the desire to win acceptance from his colleagues, led him to search for a scientific sociological criminology. His seeking resulted in the development of the theory of differential association, which gave new direction and intellectual respectability to American criminology.

From the very beginning, Sutherland’s theory was widely accepted by his fellow sociologists, an acceptance that arose from two sources. First, as a system of ideas, the theory of differential association was generously accommodative to the concepts and perspectives shared by his colleagues. It not only explained most of the criminological findings of its day, but did so from a determinedly sociological perspective. His colleagues responded favorably to his efforts to develop a consistently sociological account of criminal behavior. Second, Sutherland was sociology’s able and staunch supporter against attacks from such disciplinary rivals as psychiatry and psychology. In his articles, book reviews, and speeches, he effectively solidified his stance against opponents from other disciplines. He used his ideas to further the interests of sociology as a profession as well as a discipline. By the 1930s Sutherland was deeply embedded within the professional organization of American sociology. He worked long and conscientiously on behalf of the American Sociological Society and other professional institutions and was highly respected and trusted by colleagues. While it cannot be proven, it is likely that his work won easy acceptance and loyal support in no small part because of his position as an effective and loyal member of the sociological profession.

But what sets Sutherland’s theory of differential association apart from most others is that it has continued to influence American sociological criminology for nearly half a century. Even after all the years since Sutherland’s death, current criminologists are just as familiar with his theory as were his contemporaries. Clearly the continuing influence of the theory of differential association must be attributed to the significance of its ideas rather than to the esteem in which Sutherland was held by his colleagues, friends, and students.

The theory of differential association was conceived, developed, and accepted because of three factors. First, Sutherland’s early career was marked by disillusionment with sociology and the absence of a clear professional identity. His first academic position following graduate study at the University of Chicago left him discontented and fearful that he might never achieve the professional recognition he sought. Later, when offered a position at the University of Illinois, he used the opportunity to establish himself as a criminologist. His textbook, Criminology (1924), incorporated the concepts and perspectives of general sociology and won instant acceptance as the sociological criminology textbook of its day. Although Sutherland failed to recognize it at the time, the seeds of a sociological theory of crime causation were present in that first edition of his criminology textbook.

Second, Sutherland was an active member of a group of Chicago-trained sociologists, including W. I. Thomas, Robert Park, Clifford Shaw, and Henry McKay, who drew from (and added to) the concepts and perspectives of the wider sociological community as well as from each other’s work to develop a general theory of human behavior. Sutherland considered his own endeavors to be merely a part of this collective effort. While he is remembered as a criminologist, he thought of himself as a sociologist first and as a criminologist second. That is, he saw himself as a sociologist whose data were the criminal law, criminals, and the agencies for the administration of justice. Sutherland’s genius as a criminologist was to adapt the concepts and perspectives of sociology to his particular field and in so doing create the theoretical underpinnings for sociological criminology. In addition to the University of Chicago-trained sociologists already mentioned, Sutherland’s theory building was also aided by his assocation with Thorsten Sellin, Frank L. Sweetser, Charles H. Cooley, and Alfred R. Lindesmith.

Third, the Great Depression created, in part, an intellectual climate in which a sociological theory of crime causation was readily accepted. The idea that deviant behavior had its roots in the fabric of society made sense in the context of those millions who experienced personal upheaval and the social dislocation of unemployment and material want that the Depression left in its wake.

What follows will be an intellectual biography of Sutherland and his theory, focusing on the ideas, institutional settings, and persons that most influenced Sutherland’s work. His growth as a sociologist will be traced over the course of more than forty years and the origin and development of his thinking on crime causation will be documented, mainly through an examination of his published and unpublished work, his letters to friends and colleagues, and the work of his professional reference group. While it is true that Sutherland provided some insight into the origins of his theory, it is believed that more detached observers should be able to provide a more balanced and complete statement.

Edwin H. Sutherland: The Early Years

In order to understand Sutherland’s life and career it is necessary to have some appreciation of the family in which his personality and character were formed. Most of what is known about his early years is found in Snodgrass (1972), Goff (1982), and Geis and Goff (1983). Jon Snodgrass’s Ph.D. dissertation (“The American Criminological Tradition: Portraits of Men and Ideology in a Discipline”) contains a chapter on Sutherland entitled “The Gentle and Devout Iconoclast.” What Snodgrass knew in 1972 about Sutherland’s early years apparently was all that had been discovered at that time. And precious little it was. Snodgrass writes:

Any attempt to recapture and retrace Sutherland’s past associations to account for his own personality, life-history, and intellectual career, fails miserably. The fact is very little is known about him, particularly about his childhood, youth, and pre-university days. It is somewhat ironic that Sutherland, a most famous and widely known criminologist, with innumerable students, colleagues and friends, is the least well known.²

That we now know more about his family background than we did a decade ago is largely due to the efforts of Colin Goff, whose 1982 Ph.D. dissertation (“Edwin H. Sutherland and White-Collar Crime”) contains considerable biographical material on Sutherland.

Edwin Sutherland was born on August 13, 1883 in Gibbon, Nebraska. He was the third of seven children born to George and Lizzie T. (Pickett) Sutherland. He grew up and was educated in Ottawa, Kansas, and Grand Island, Nebraska. In 1904 he received the bachelor of arts degree from Grand Island College, where his clergyman father, George Sutherland, was president.

That Edwin’s father made a lasting impression on his son is generally recognized by those who have written on the subject. George Sutherland had been raised in a deeply religious and sober family. As an adult he was opposed to vice in all forms, especially alcohol. He was a member of the Anti-Saloon League, the Nebraska State Temperance Union, and the Nebraska Prohibition Party. In his “Reminiscences” he refers to alcohol as the “great corrupter of mankind.”³ He endeavored to pass on such values as these to his children. Schuessler writes that Edwin’s parents “presided over a Protestant parsonage in a rural community, and in that setting they succeeded in giving their son a sense of the moral importance of carrying out one’s duties.”⁴

Snodgrass has described George Sutherland as a religious fundamentalist who “followed all the austere and strict practices of the Baptist faith.”⁵ Card playing, dancing, and other “sinful” activities were not permitted in the Sutherland home. Snodgrass quotes one relative who remembers George Sutherland as

a man of stern discipline. Even in those days there was a generation “gap” and he could not adjust to it. He punished his children severely for what seemed to them small lapses. Especially the older ones became bitter over the treatment of their little brothers and sisters. Arthur [the oldest brother] retained this bitterness through life, but Edwin, in the middle of the family, and by naturally wishing to please, seemed to me to have escaped most of the punishment and resentment.⁶

Thus, from what is known of George Sutherland, it must have been somewhat oppressive to live under his stern...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Foreword
• Introduction
• 1. Edwin H. Sutherland’s Legacy
• 2. The University of Chicago, 1906-1913
• 3. Sutherland’s Early Career, 1913-1926
• 4. Sutherland’s Mid-Career, 1926-1929
• 5. The Emergence of the Theory
• 6. The Development of the Theory
• 7. Conclusion
• Methodological Note
• Bibliography
• Index