There is a scene in The Wire where a drug boss stops a gang meeting because someone is taking minutes: you don't keep minutes of a criminal conspiracy. The one who imposed those meetings —with an agenda and turns to speak— is Stringer Bell, the number two of the Barksdale organization, who runs the heroin trade the way one runs a company and, in his spare time, takes an economics class at the community college. Stringer learned to break the law on the corners of West Baltimore and learned to do business in a classroom, and that double education is, precisely, the subject of one of the most influential theories in criminology.
// The theoryCrime is learned
In 1939, the sociologist Edwin Sutherland proposed an idea that seems obvious today and was revolutionary then: crime is not a biological defect nor a disease nor a choice sprung from nowhere — it is learned, just as a trade or a language is learned. His theory of differential association spells it out: in interaction with intimate groups (family, friends, gang) a person learns two things — the techniques to commit the crime and, above all, the "definitions favorable to violating the law": the attitudes, justifications and values that make stealing or dealing seem normal, acceptable, even admirable. One becomes a criminal, Sutherland said, when the balance of those favorable definitions outweighs the unfavorable ones.
Others refined the mechanism. Ronald Akers merged it with the psychology of learning (social learning theory): we imitate models and repeat what is reinforced —with money, status, the group's approval. Daniel Glaser qualified it with "differential identification": being close to crime is not enough, you have to identify with the one who commits it, take them as a reference. In West Baltimore, Stringer grew up surrounded by a world where the drug game was the obvious path to respect and money, and where the corner taught its code with an efficiency the school never had. He learned crime the way others learn their father's trade: watching, imitating, being rewarded for getting it right.
The "definitions" that make crime normal
Sutherland's finest piece is not the techniques, but the definitions: the stories that turn a violation into something justifiable. "Everybody does it," "the system is already rigged," "it's just business, nothing personal." Stringer is a fascinating case because he handles two sets of definitions at once. From the street he learned those of drug trafficking; from the classroom, those of capitalism — which turn out to be astonishingly alike. When he applies market logic to drugs (cutting purity like one cuts costs, avoiding violence because it "scares off the customer," seeking a stable "product"), he is not betraying his criminal education: he is combining it with another. His line —"money has no owners, only spenders"— is pure learned definition: the morality of profit, which draws no line between the corner and the stock market.
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// The subjectTwo codes, no place
What makes Stringer a tragedy —and not just a clever gangster— is his attempt to use learning to escape learning. He does not want to be a boss all his life: he wants to launder the drug money into real estate developments and become a legitimate businessman, a respectable citizen. He believes, with almost moving faith, that if he masters the language of the legal world he will be able to move into it. And he fails twice over. He fails on the street, where his partner Avon Barksdale and his crew distrust his accountant's coldness and his contempt for the neighborhood's code of honor. And he fails in the legitimate world, where the politicians and developers take his money, laugh at him behind his back and never truly let him in: to them he will always be the Black dealer who doesn't know his place. Stringer learned two codes to perfection — and discovered that no one had reserved him a place in either.
Stringer Bell
// The crackLearning is not enough if there is nowhere to go
Differential association has known cracks. It doesn't explain the first criminal well (if crime is learned from others, who taught the first one?), nor impulsive or solitary crime, nor why two brothers raised on the same "definitions" take opposite paths. But Stringer illuminates a deeper and more political limitation: learning the legitimate code is not enough if the structure won't let you use it. Sutherland speaks of definitions and learning; Stringer had them all —he knew markets, contracts, strategy— and still could not cross over. There the learning theory runs into that of opportunity: it doesn't matter how well you learn to play fair if the fair game keeps the door shut for someone like you. Knowledge without access is a key to a lock that has been walled up.
There is also an irony that Sutherland himself would have savored: it was he who coined white-collar crime, and showed that respectable people learn their misdeeds (fraud, collusion, creative accounting) with the same "favorable definitions" in their offices and clubs. Stringer aspires to that world — and the world swindles him with contracts that he, trained on the street, does not see coming. The developers who bleed him dry are white-collar criminals who learned their trade in business schools; the difference from Stringer is not moral, it is one of impunity and belonging. The street and the stock market both teach you to steal; only one of the two also promises you won't go to prison for doing it.
If it is learned, it can be unlearned
The hopeful side of differential association is enormous: if crime is learned, it is not in the genes nor in destiny, and it can therefore be prevented by changing the associations — mentors, schools that teach other definitions, pulling kids out of the networks that recruit them. Much of the prevention that works rests on that intuition. But Stringer adds the fine print, and it is a warning against selling naïveté: teaching the legitimate code is necessary and not sufficient. There is little use in training someone for the legal world if that world, when it arrives, shuts the door because of their origin, their color or their record. Reintegration is not just a problem of learning; it is a problem of doors. Stringer studied economics to get in — and the real economy did not even bother to let him through.
That is why Stringer Bell is one of the most tragic characters on television: he does not fall for being foolish or weak, but for believing in a promise —"learn the rules and you'll get to play"— that the system had no intention of keeping. He learned crime because it was the language his neighborhood offered, and he learned capitalism because he wanted another; and in the end both worlds killed him at once, each for his not belonging to the other. Differential association explains how he got to the corner. What explains why he could not leave it is what the neighborhood never taught him, because it never had it: a way back.
Three key takeaways
- Differential association by Sutherland (1939) holds that crime is learned in intimate groups: techniques and "definitions favorable to violating the law." Stringer learned it on the corner (with Akers: reinforced by money and status; with Glaser: identifying with the model).
- His tragedy is trying to use learning to escape it: he masters the code of the street and that of economics, and tries to cross over into legitimate business — but he fits into neither of the two worlds.
- The crack: learning the legal code is not enough if the structure shuts the door (it collides with opportunity theory). The hopeful part: if it is learned, it can be prevented by changing associations — but reintegration needs open doors, not just new lessons.
Sources · further reading
- Sutherland, E. H. (1947). Principles of Criminology (4.ª ed.). Lippincott.
- Akers, R. L. (1973). Deviant Behavior: A Social Learning Approach. Wadsworth.
- Glaser, D. (1956). «Criminality Theories and Behavioral Images». American Journal of Sociology, 61(5).
- Anderson, E. (1999). Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City. Norton.
Case-file questionsFrequently asked questions
¿Quién es Stringer Bell?
Stringer Bell («Stringer») es un villano de The Wire, analizado en KRIMINIS con la lente de la criminología. Stringer Bell runs a drug organization in West Baltimore… with meeting minutes and the rules of parliamentary order.
¿Por qué Stringer Bell se convierte en villano?
The Wire and differential association: crime is learned like any other behavior, in the groups where we live. Stringer Bell learned the drug trade and, at the same time, went to economics class to escape it — and discovered that you can teach someone two codes and leave them no place in either.
¿Qué teoría criminológica explica a Stringer Bell?
El caso de Stringer Bell se analiza desde la Asociación diferencial. Edwin Sutherland argued that crime is neither inherited nor born from a vacuum: it is learned, like any behavior, through interaction with the groups closest to us — techniques and "definitions favorable to violating the law." Stringer Bell absorbed that learning on the street, but he also studied legitimate economics and tried to turn drug trafficking into a corporation and cross over into clean business. His failure shows the limit of the theory: learning a new code is not enough if the legitimate world keeps every door shut.
