Ronald Aker's Social Learning Theory

There are several models that explain why people commit crime. One area of study, learning theories of crime, maintains the assumption that crime is not inherent, but rather crime is learned from family, friends, or other peers. One example of a learning theory is Social Learning Theory, which was developed by Ronald Akers in 1973. This theory explains the process that individuals go through in learning deviant or criminal behavior. It was developed as a response to and an expansion of previous theories.

The lineage of learning theories begins with Edwin Sutherland’s Differential Association Theory, which was developed in 1939. This learning theory proposes that all types of behavior, including criminal actions, are learned through socialization,

He addressed the question of how people learn the initial action. This newly developed theory, the Social Learning Theory, was built on the foundation of Sutherland’s Differential Association. The elements of differential association and definitions favorable to crime were not lost in the development. Social Learning Theory also maintained Aker’s previous discussions of punishment and reinforcement from his Differential Association Reinforcement Theory. With these developed theories as the cornerstone, Akers added the idea that the initial action, the action which is learned from interaction with others, which contains definitions favorable to crime, and which is reinforced, is learned through imitation and modeling of family, friends, and peers. The individual imitates the actions of those in their environment. Individuals will choose to model or imitate people around them whom they look up to or want to be like. When the individual first observes the action, they may mimic it “without necessarily understanding the consequences of the behavior” (Miller, Schreck, Tewksbury & Barnes, 2015, p. 103). It is through the operant conditioning that they discover the consequences. According to Akers, people learn to commit crime by differentially associating with others who commit crime. They are exposed to more deviant models. They observe definitions favorable to breaking the law, so they mimic the behavior. After the initial act, they experience a greater reward than punishment, so they continue their