Edwin H. Sutherland

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Edwin Hardin Sutherland (born August 13, 1883 in Gibbon , Nebraska , † October 11, 1950 in Bloomington , Indiana) was an American sociologist and is considered one of the most important criminologists of the first half of the 20th century. He was the first criminologist to draw attention to the phenomenon of the “ white collar crime ” and thus ended the fixation of criminology on what he called “lower class crime”. His " theory of differential contacts " became one of the most influential sociological theories of crime .

Life

The son of a college president Sutherland grew up in Ottawa ( Kansas ) and Grand Iceland ( Nebraska on). In 1904 he earned a BA from Grand Island College. He then taught Latin, Greek, history and shorthand at Sioux Fall College (South Dakota) for two years. In 1906 Sutherland went to the University of Chicago and studied sociology. Upon graduation, followed there in 1913 Promotion to Doctor of Sociology ( Ph.D. ). It is reasonable to assume that the ecological approach of the Chicago School, which was emerging at the time, also influenced him. From 1913 to 1919 he was professor of sociology at William Jewell College (Missouri). He was then from 1919 to 1925 Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Illinois.

As early as 1921, the dean of his faculty, Edward C. Hayes, commissioned him to write a textbook on criminology. Although Sutherland took courses in criminology, his focus was political economy. Hayes’s motives for commissioning Sutherland at the time are unknown. Sutherland had not yet published in criminology and was completely unknown in itself. The first edition of "Kriminologie" appeared in 1924 and was considered a solid scientific work. From 1925 to 1926 Sutherland was then Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Illinois . He was a full professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota from 1926 to 1929 and at the University of Chicago from 1930 to 1935. After all, he was Dean of the Sociology Faculty at Indiana University from 1935 to 1945. During this time he published three books, "Twenty homeless men" (1936), "The Professional Thief" (1937) and the third edition of his textbook founded in 1924, which is now called "Basics of Criminology" (1939). Sutherland was visiting professor at the University of Kansas (1918), Northwestern University (1922) and the University of Washington (1942). His students included Albert K. Cohen , Lloyd E. Ohlin , Karl Schuessler and Donald R. Cressey .

Sutherland held numerous presidential offices, e. B. Indiana University Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology, the American Prison Association, the Chicago Academy of Criminology, and the Sociological Research Association "(Sociological Research Association). His most significant office was that of the 29th President of the American Sociological Association .

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General

Sutherland is a major proponent within sociological crime theories . His sharpest attacks were directed against biological explanations of criminal behavior. For him, the prerequisite for crime was learning as a social product, separate from the functional areas of body and mind. In a series of book reviews published between 1934 and 1951, he sharply attacked theories related to biological elements, including those of Earnest Albert Hooton , William H. Sheldon, and the Glueck couple . For Sutherland, these reviews were an integral part of the foundation of crime as a social behavior .

The professional thief

In his book “The Professional Thief” (1937) Sutherland came to the conclusion that not everyone can be a professional thief , but that they must be accepted and trained in a group of professional thieves. The professional thief steals professionally. He made stealing a regular business activity and carefully planned each execution. He has various skills and methods that differ from those of other professional criminals . As a rule, he is on the move and comes to all cities in the USA.

According to Sutherland, the professional thief has a friendly character. A thief not only warns other thieves of the danger, but he also avoids things that put other thieves in danger, they help each other in difficulties. Thieves are rarely influenced by personal feelings. They are all united to the law enforcement authorities . The professional thief lives in the underworld, is understanding and has excellent relationships. Since the underworld is an exclusive society, it is necessary that the stranger is identified before he is admitted. The special language of the underworld is, for example, evidence of isolation and identification. Differential contacts determine who becomes a professional thief.

From today's perspective, Sutherland's descriptions seem a bit strange. However, the comments on the professional thief paved the way for his later “theory of differential contacts”.

Differential Contact Theory

→ Main article : Criminological learning theory

The "theory of differential contacts" was developed by Sutherland from the end of the 1920s, but was only published in 1939 and, with the support of his student Donald R. Cressey, brought into its final form, which appeared in 1947. The theory is that criminal behavior is learned. A person becomes delinquent if they have predominantly attitudes that favor violations of the law versus attitudes that evaluate violations of the law negatively.

White collar crime

content

In the lecture given in 1939 on the election of the President of the American Sociological Society, Edwin Sutherland pointed out that crimes were not only committed by the lower class, but also by middle and upper class members - the offenders with a "white collar". In his last major book, White Collar Crime (1949), he analyzed the crimes committed by American companies and executives and pointed to biases in crime statistics. The understanding and explanation of crime are incomplete and distorted if the crime of this group of perpetrators is not taken into account in criminology.

Sutherland described the crimes as "white collar crime" which were committed by "persons with a high status in the context of their professional activity". However, this was not a precise definition, but rather a heuristic concept that was intended to draw attention to the special importance of the subject area, which was previously neglected by criminology. Sutherland was primarily concerned with contrasting the crime of the "common people" with the crime of the economically and socially powerful and thus creating a class-appropriate balance in the criminological perspective; the conceptual and conceptual penetration of matter was less important to him.

criticism

From today's point of view, Sutherland's definition of the term has gotten too far on the one hand, as it covers, without further differentiation, all crimes that are committed by members of the prestigious professions, even if they have no relation to economic life (e.g. the fraud of a lawyer or the criminal malpractice of a lawyer) Doctor). On the other hand, it is too narrow for a complete record of white-collar crime, because by restricting itself to the crime of socially powerful perpetrators, it excludes those offenders from consideration who are active in the company hierarchy below the management level and who carry out their profession in offenses related to economic ones Committing company activities (e.g. corruption and bribery in middle management). Sutherland's definition has therefore not been able to gain acceptance in criminology.

Newer approaches

Newer concepts try not to define white collar crime in terms of the person (perpetrator with a “white collar”), but to link it to the behavior that makes a case an object of economic criminological interest. The more recent American criminology usually differentiates between crimes that are committed in the economic interest of companies and associations (corporate crimes) and crimes that are committed out of self-interest in the context of professional activities (occupational crimes).

meaning

His textbook, Principles of Criminology, first published in 1939, became one of the most influential textbooks in the history of criminology. After Sutherland's death in 1950, Donald R. Cressey and then David F. Luckenbill continued this. The 11th edition came out in 1992. Generations of criminologists and their students learned from it. So Sutherland's “theory of differential contacts” was also able to prevail.

Sutherland's effects on criminology were revolutionary. At the beginning of his career, criminology was considered a weak science and influenced by several disciplines. Most of all, it is thanks to him that American criminology today is largely a sociological discipline that regards crime as a social phenomenon.

“ Edwin H. Sutherland was in criminology like Albert Einstein in physics. He transformed a whole discipline. "

Several of his PhD students also became influential criminologists, such as Donald R. Cressey, Lloyd E. Ohlin , Albert K. Cohen, and Karl F. Schuessler .

In honor of Sutherland, the American Society of Criminology awards a prize that bears his name.

Fonts (selection)

• Principles of Criminology . Chicago, University of Chicago Press 1924 (from the 8th edition, 1960, together with Donald R. Cressey ).
• Twenty thousand homeless men. A study of unemployed men in the Chicago shelters . JB Lippincott Company, Chicago / Philadelphia 1936 (with Harvey J. Locke).
• The Professional Thief . University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1937.
• White collar crime. Dryden Press, New York 1949 (3rd edition as a white collar crime. The uncut version , Yale University Press, New Haven 1983).

literature

• Kunz, Karl-Ludwig (2004): Criminology - A foundation. Haupt Verlag (Bern), p. 147 f. (§ 20 III. Differential associations ).
• Gaylord, MS / Galliher, JF (1988): The Criminology of Edwin Sutherland. New Brunswick, New Jersey.
• Kaiser G. (1996): Criminology. A textbook. Heidelberg, § 72 Rn. 5.
• Kunz, K.-L., in Ackermann, JB / Donatsch, A./Rehberg, J. (Ed.) (2001): Economy and criminal law, Festschrift for Niklaus Schmidt. Zurich, p. 87 ff.
• Sutherland, EH (1968): The theory of differential contacts. In: Sack, Fritz, Rene König, (Ed.) (1968): Kriminalsoziologie. Frankfurt / M., Pp. 395-399
• Sutherland E./Cressey DR / Luckenbill, DF (1992): Principles of Criminology. 11th edition, p. 88 ff.
• Sutherland E., (1940): ASR 5, p. 1 ff.

Web links

• Edwin H. Sutherland , American Sociological Association (English).
• Thomas J. Bernard: Edwin-Sutherland , Encyclopædia Britannica (English).