Always Running Supports Differential Association Theory

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Luis Rodriguez’s deviance supports Differential Association Theory because he joined a gang, numerous amounts of rebellious acts, and committed crimes against people because of peer pressure or the people he associated himself with. The events that took place in his life can be explained by his association with different people. Always Running supports Differential Association Theory because Luis joined a gang because of the pressure and need to protect himself and his friends. Negative deviance isn’t a natural thing, depending on who you're associated with or influenced by then you'll learn the behavior you'll exhibit. Therefore, "criminal behavior is learned.." (Sutherland 46). The quote from a Differential Association Theory packet by …show more content…

Before Luis took it as far as attempt murders and armed robberies, he was swayed to express himself in other ways. Luis opted to get a tattoo under an outside bleacher at his school for $5. “It was at Marina’s urging that I obtained my first tattoo” (Rodriguez 45), thus showing the effect Marina had on Luis by being his girlfriend and someone he trusted and relied on for support. This is a showing of how peer pressure from his girlfriend led him to getting a tattoo. Without the “urging” from Marina, Luis might’ve waited even longer for a tattoo. The severity of this rebellious act may be minor compared to his other offenses but that’s only the result of who he’s being pressured by. Luis also participated in trespassing. “I looked up and across the fence. A sign above us read: NO ONE ALLOWED AFTER 4:30 PM, BY ORDER OF THE LOS ANGELES COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT. Tino turned toward me, shrugged his shoulders and gave me a who-cares look” (Rodriguez 35). Luis was pressured by this sense of being a boy: tough, careless, rough. The way Tino made him feel as he had to comply and jump the fence. Luis was learning to be a criminal by watching the actions of Tino and listening to the commands of Marina. “The process of learning criminal behavior...involves all of the mechanisms that are involved in any other learning” (Sutherland 47) and this quote is proving that Luis wasn’t imitating what they proposed or showed to him but was learning the criminal