9.9 Conclusion

In this chapter, we have provided an overview of the main tenets of learning theories that occupy an important role in the history and study of criminology. First and foremost, both theoretical perspectives emphasise the social nature of our world as the source of learning criminal and deviant behaviours. Peers, friends, romantic partners, and coworkers all have the capacity to inform our attitudes towards deviance and even teach us to commit crime. While empirical evidence strongly supports the role these theoretical perspectives have in explaining crime, much remains in the pursuit of an inclusive and critical development of learning theories. The different perspectives offered in this chapter represent our attempt at employing a decolonial approach to reviewing learning theories. Learning theories suggest that definitions acquired through associations are important. Contextualised through the material practices and ideologies of colonial states and by the resistances of Indigenous peoples, one can begin to uncover how the colonial state structures norms, values, and associations that may facilitate state-defined crime. As has been emphasized in this chapter, colonialism, genocide and the imposition of foreign laws, justice and governance coupled with displacement, dispossession and oppression (the reserve system, residential/day schools, foster care), and criminalisation and control (the pass system, Indian Act provisions, imposed criminal justice system) are the root causes of Indigenous over-incarceration. In other words, the state has created the problem it seeks to control.