Edwin Sutherland

Edwin Sutherland (born August 13, 1883, Gibbon, Nebraska, U.S.—died October 11, 1950, Bloomington, Indiana) was an American criminologist, best known for his development of the differential association theory of crime. In recognition of his influence, the most important annual award of the American Society of Criminology is given in his name.

Sutherland received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1913 with a double major in sociology and political economy. In 1935, after having taught at various other universities, including the University of Illinois and the University of Chicago, he took a position at Indiana University, where he remained until his death.

Sutherland’s approach was developed through several editions of his book Criminology (1924), arguably the most influential work in the history of the discipline. In opposition to the dominant biological and psychological explanations, Sutherland maintained that criminal behaviour is a product of normal learning through social interaction. He claimed that individual behaviour is learned through peers and that, if an individual’s peer group is delinquent, he will identify that behaviour as normal. Normal learning occurs through both verbal and nonverbal communication and helps to determine whether the attitudes an individual internalizes are favourable or unfavourable to law violation. Through the normal learning process, those individuals disposed toward breaking the law also develop motivations and rationalizations for engaging in criminal activity. Maintaining that individuals commit criminal acts when there is an excess of attitudes favourable to lawbreaking, Sutherland also acknowledged the existence of a criminal life cycle, which he defined in terms of the ways in which these attitudes vary in content and intensity throughout the criminal’s life. The question of why some normal learned behaviours are criminal while others are legal led him to explore white-collar crime, a term he is credited with having coined. Various criminologists later revised and updated Sutherland’s arguments about content and process but retained his focus on normal learning.

Although Sutherland’s theories received wide praise, his critics maintained that he failed to explain both the development of the first criminal and why some people with excessive exposure to criminal behavioral patterns do not commit criminal acts. At the time of his death, however, Sutherland’s theories dominated criminology, and they continued to do so for nearly a generation.