Introduction

The previous chapter covered a range of social and economic factors and sociological theories concerned with the period after childhood and potentially relevant to the explanation of criminal behavior. Much of this material emphasized two key explanatory factors: (a) the social setting outside the home, in which adolescents and adults spend large parts of their waking lives; and (b) the performance of criminal behavior is largely rational. This chapter will make considerable use of these two factors in applying to the task of explaining crime some of the central areas of experimental psychology: learning, and cognitive and social psychology. In doing so, it draws on theory and research set out in Feldman (1977) as well a good deal of work published since then, as this general approach, termed the social learning theory (SLT) of crime, gathers momentum.

In setting out this theory, the author wishes to acknowledge his intellectual debt to Albert Bandura. During the past three decades, Bandura has produced a series of major theoretical analyses of human behavior which are based on the methods and findings of experimental psychology. Over the years, he has broadened his earlier emphasis on learning to give greater weight to the importance of social and cognitive factors. The term social learning theory is his, and I have built on his application of the theory to aggression (Bandura, 1973) to deal with crimes against the person, followed by an extension to crimes against property.