Preliminary to this, of course, is a good deal of specific research on society. By 'society' here, I mean society in the abstract, rather than a particular community, region, nation, or other geographically bounded collection of people" (Sutherland, 1939). .
Sutherland's views and ideas on criminal behavior gradually made him to develop a theory that would connect an individual's criminal behavior, and the factors that lead to one becoming a criminal (Williams and Mcshane,2004). Before authoring his first version of his book Principles of Criminology in 1924 Sutherland had a numerous amount of influences for creating his text (Sutherland, 1924). One of the very first influences came when the Federal Bureau of Investigations began a yearly report on all the crime or reported crime in the nation (Sutherland, 1924). This allowed for sufficient evidence to examine that certain categories of individuals were more likely to commit crime (Sutherland, 1924). These statistics supported the fact that the reason for these individuals did this was more of a sociological influence rather than a biological cause (Sutherland, 1924). .
Another big reason or influence on Sutherland's work was that of the Great Depression (Sutherland, 1924). This instance allowed for a numerous amount of sociological observations to take place because the whole nation was going through the same hardship (Sutherland, 1924). It was seen, that individuals who had never committed crimes before were more open to the idea because of their economic situation (Sutherland, 1924). Of the few families that survived the depression they began to take advantage of the nation's economy by suppressing the banks and the stock markets (Sutherland, 1924). Crimes such as these had no biological influence, but happened to be a product of their environmental status (Sutherland, 1924). These individuals made their decisions based on their values, situations, and opportunities (Sutherland, 1924).