ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the Social Structure-Social Learning (sssl) theory of crime. Its basic assumption is that social learning is the primary process linking social structure to individual behavior. Social structure can be conceptualized as an arrangement of sets and schedules of reinforcement contingencies and other social behavioral variables. The structural theories contend that more people in certain groups, located in certain positions in, or encountering particular pressures created by the social structure, will engage in deviancy than those in other groups and locations. The macro- and meso-level variables determine the probabilities that an individual has been, is, or will be exposed to different levels of the social learning variables. The very fact that crime and deviance are high within a community, neighborhood, or social area is itself sometimes used, tautologically, as an empirical indicator that the area, is socially disorganized.
