The importance of the many contributions Sutherland made to the field of criminology cannot be overstated. The recognition that crime is a more widely dispersed phenomenon also indirectly led to the many attempts to determine the distribution of crime and delinquency with the use of self-report methodology. This work, along with Sutherland’s exploration of the passage and enactment of sexual psychopath laws ( Sutherland 1950a, Sutherland 1950b, both cited under Sutherland’s Work in the Sociology of Law), influenced the development of the sociology of law. This recognition not only led to a concentrated focus on white-collar and work-related crime but also called into question the process of passing and implementing criminal laws. Sutherland called on the field to recognize that crime was not exclusively a lower-class phenomenon but was prospering among the middle and upper classes as well. Up until the publication of his articles on white-collar crime in the early 1940s ( Sutherland 1940, Sutherland 1941, Sutherland 1945, all cited under White-Collar Crime), followed by his classic book on the topic ( Sutherland 1949, cited under White-Collar Crime), much of the work in criminology focused on street crimes among the disadvantaged classes. Sutherland’s work on white-collar crime also reoriented the field in important ways. It spawned a number of theoretical modifications, and its core concepts have been incorporated in many theoretical integrations and elaborations. It is a theory that, in spite of its critics, has withstood the test of time and is still influential in criminological work. In keeping with his overall agenda for criminological work, Sutherland created a theory that did not rely on the personal characteristics or deficiencies of offenders but instead focused on the socialization or learning process. Sutherland is best known as the author of the Theory of Differential Association. In doing so he defined the primary agenda for criminological work that has been dominant into the early 21st century. Instead, Sutherland emphasized a more sociological framework. In that text Sutherland called for a reorientation away from the emphasis on biological and individualist approaches that were popular in European studies of crime. In 1924 Sutherland authored one of the first American textbooks in criminology. There are a number of reasons for Gibbons’s high praise of Sutherland. Moreover, it is extremely unlikely that anyone will emerge in future decades to challenge Sutherland’s position in the annals of the field” (p. Indeed, there has been no other criminologist who even begins to approach his stature and importance. Gibbons, writing in Gibbons 1979 (cited under The Professional Thief), says: “The evidence is incontrovertible that Edwin Sutherland was the most important contributor to American criminology to have appeared to date. About the contributions that Edwin Hardin Sutherland made to our understanding of crime and the criminal law, Donald C.
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