Criminal behavior is learned through conditioning or imitation. Criminal behavior is learned both in nonsocial reinforcing situations or nonsocial discriminative situations and thru social interaction. The principal components of learning occur in groups. Learning depends on available reinforcement contingencies. The type and frequency of learning depends on the norms by which these reinforcers are applied.
Criminal behavior is a function of norms which are discriminative for criminal behavior.
The strength of criminal behavior depends upon its reinforcement. Differential reinforcement theory tends to fit well with rational choice theory because they both explain the decision making process involved in developing the motivation, attitudes, and techniques necessary to commit crime. Like all learning theories, it claims to be a general theory of crime. Jeffery takes for granted the existence of constant stimuli in the environment, but argues that the key variables of deprivation and satiation are what make these stimuli reinforcing or not. A person deprived of something will respond to a stimulus in a much different way that a person satiated with something.