tement of TraceyÆs serves as an excellent starting point for an analysis of the contrast between social theory on crime and choice theory on crime.
In 1939, it was criminologist Edwin H. Sutherland who pioneered the theory of Differential Association that underlies the social theory of crime (SutherlandÆs, 2003). SutherlandÆs (2003) theory was based on a variety of premises, chief among them that ôcriminal behavior is learnedö (1). The theories of ecological and cultural transmission, symbolic interactionism, and culture conflict were embedded in SutherlandÆs belief that criminal behavior is a learned behavior that is learned from interaction with others. Certainly TraceyÆs comments seem to support his belief that he learned how to be a criminal from his father and, learning such, there was no escaping his becoming one himself.
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