SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY AND CRIMINAL OFFENDING: SOURCES, MECHANISMS AND CONTEMPORARY EXPRESSIONS IN SELECTED EUROPEAN UNION MEMBER STATES

Абстракт

This article examines social learning theory as an explanation of the acquisition, maintenance, escalation and abandonment of criminal conduct. Its central claim is deliberately qualified: social learning is not the single source of criminality, but a transmission mechanism through which structural disadvantage, criminal opportunity and individual vulnerability may be converted into actionable definitions, skills, expectations and routines. The study uses a structured narrative review and a functional comparative case-study design. Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Italy and Bulgaria are selected because they illuminate different learning environments: hierarchical recruitment of minors into street networks, peer effects in prison, cyber-dependent offending and intergenerational organised crime, mafia-related territorial and family socialisation, and a juvenile prevention system documented through administrative data. The analysis finds the strongest support for differential association and definitions favourable to offending, while evidence for imitation and differential reinforcement is more context-dependent. Digital platforms accelerate exposure, visibility and vicarious reward, but they rarely operate independently of offline relationships and opportunities. Prisons and residential placements can reinforce specialised criminal capital when unstructured contact links less experienced offenders with credible and experienced peers. The article proposes a five-stage analytical sequence—exposure, definition, capability, reinforcement and network consolidation—and derives policy implications for youth justice, corrections, cybercrime prevention and organised-crime disruption. Effective prevention must change the learning ecology around the person, not merely increase the formal severity of punishment.