Criminology

According to the social learning theory, people learn new manners through punishment or through learning by observation the societal aspect in their surroundings by coming to close contact with them, imitating their superiors, having role models and understanding the behaviors.

Relationship between the human bond to moral order and criminal behaviorAccording to Sutherlands differential association theory, crime in any individual is learned as any other behavior. According to this theory criminal behavior like the actual techniques of committing crime and the motives behind committing any crimes, in any individual is learned through communication by other criminals within close-knit groups. 

Akers theory of Social learning however disputed this. According to the social learning theory, an individual becomes a criminal when they develops attitudes toward the behaviors and attaches definitions to those behaviors, defining them as good or bad, acceptable or unacceptable. These definitions help reinforce behavior and serve as cues for behavior. The more positive the definitions people have of a given behavior, the more likely they are to engage in it.

The directions preferred by individuals are decided by the relative balance of reinforcements, definitions given and behavior models. In this model, family and peers were accredited as having a great impact on deviant and criminal behavior amongst individuals. This was because criminality among parents tended to be predictive if the childrens future behavior and even if the parents exercised strict moral settings in the family, young ones with delinquent siblings were more likely to follow in the shoes of their siblings behaviors.

Nyes control theory on the other hand emphasized that moral order and criminality were controlled either by punishment being awarded for disobedience. Obedience, on the other hand, is rewarded by parents, or by indirect control where a youngster refrains from criminal activities as this would hurt the parents and families and lastly by internal control whereby the conscience of an individual prevents them from engaging in criminal acts. Nye gave much emphasis to the family as the social institution that was primarily responsible for the criminal behavior or moral order of an individual.

Hirschs theory of social bonding argued that the bond of individuals to the society is the key to criminality. This bond is formed when there is attachment to other people such that we care what these people think of us. Commitment to certain social activities such as education involvement with certain activities with well-known people in the society also helps form the bond. Beliefs in the norms and rules of the society and the belief that these rules should be followed and obeyed is also a factor. If these bonds are as much as broken, then criminal activities will manifest themselves in an individual. This theory suggested that a childs attachment to the parent determined whether the child would be a criminal or not. It also showed that individual with a positive attitude towards their accomplishments believed in the moral values and rules of the society and conformed to them.

Evaluate the effect of positive and negative reinforcement on crime. Differential reinforcement refers to the balance of actual or anticipated rewards and costs, both social and nonsocial that follow a behavior. (Reid 200) Positive reinforcement is the act of doing something that will persuade a person to replicate good behavior. Negative reinforcement on the other hand is punishment that results in the removal of the criminal or criminal behavior. Positive and negative reinforcement can be either intended or unintended.

Positive and negative reinforcements have various impacts on criminals. These impacts include
Criminal activities crime occurs in a society when this crime is frequently reinforced, i.e. criminals are rewarded for their criminal activities and when there is intermittent punishment of the crimes. If reinforcement of the crime leads to large amounts of rewards like money, respect and fear among peers and pleasure, and less punishment is given to condone this, then crime rates go higher. Crime may also escalate if reinforcement is given preference over upholding alternative behaviors of the delinquents.

Motivation positive and negative reinforcements can affect the motivations and beliefs of an individual to do either wrong or right. Punishment for example, when implemented harshly on disobedience may motivate a child not to do wrong for fear of being apprehended for mistakes done. This may go well if the parent in turn chooses to reward the child every time they do the right thing.

Self-recognition it has already been established that negative and positive reinforcements determine whether an individuals behavior will turn out to be moral or criminal. In the event that the behavior turns out to be morally upright or criminal due to the reinforcements given either negative or positive, then the individual will gain self-recognition. In the first case, the individual will recognize their accomplishments and status in the society as someone responsible while in the latter case, the individual will get self-recognition from the satisfaction that the criminal friends they have respect them and not the society. This will either lead him to strive to be accepted by the society or turn and become more violent.

Influence of older theories on developing contemporary theory
Older theories provided the foundation ideologies on which the modern theories now drew their ideologies from. These theories were critiqued by upcoming theorists for lack of failing to consider the entire variable in criminology. Sunderlands theory for example was critiqued for not being testable and hence the need to reformulate this theory to become testable. This led to the development of the Akers Social Learning theory, which made an effort to provide a more adequate specification of the learning process required in the theory of differential association. (Reid, 2000). This led to the refining of Sunderlands theory into a more acceptable one.

CONCLUSION
The social learning theory of criminology is the most overriding theory of crime nowadays. This is because it covers the aspects of individual responsibility to crime, social groupings and the society as well as the beliefs about crime, the reinforcements and punishments received and the models an individual is exposed to.

Positive and negative reinforcements go hand in hand in ensuring whether a criminal is made or not. One cannot do without the other. When implementing reinforcements, whether positive or negative, one should consider how one will affect the other and the effects of these on the individuals behavior.