Wire: Differential Association Theory

In the first clip of the “Wire”, one of the theories that were discussed in class that was also discussed in the clip was Differential Association Theory which means that criminal behaviors are learned and criminals teach people who are not criminals. In this clip, we saw a man running away from a man and a woman because they were about to find and shoot him. The young man ran into a dead end where he had nowhere else to run while trying to escape. So, he cracked a window to an abandoned building and climbed inside to hide from the man and woman trying to escape from. The man and woman noticed that it was cracked so they went inside the building and were chasing him, the young man saw them and shot them both. The man and woman are criminals and they were teaching the young man how to survive if someone was after him or if he needed to escape from someone who was after him. The man and woman were teaching him a criminal behavior, they were his “teacher/mentors” and they had close ties to the young man. One of the principals of Differential Association Theory (Social
One of the man I would say is an innovator and the other man is a conformist. The reason why the man Avon is an innovator in this clip is because instead of him attaining wealth by following the rules of society he instead turns to crime because he doesn’t have the necessary means to be wealthy. Avon just rather remain a gangster. The other man is better known as a conformist, he rather just sticks to the rules and understand that working for Marlo will pay off after a while. Robert K. Merton was the first to discover this theory in the 1940’s. Merton developed the concept of Anomie which is Durkheim’s study which basically says, that group or individual lack social or ethical norms created by society. The Merton Theory has five parts too it, a conformist, innovators, ritualists, retreatists, and