Transcript Control Theory

Control Theories
Control Theory is different
• Most theories assume that people naturally obey
the law and that special forces drive people to
commit crime
– Biological, psychological
– Economic, Strain, Social Learning
• Control theory assumes that people would commit
crimes if left to their own devices
– Crime caused by weaknesses in restraining
forces
Early control theories
• Reiss – personal and social controls
– Personal controls thru ego and superego
– Failure to submit to social controls
• Do not attend school, disciplinary problems
• Toby – control through “stake in conformity”
– Students who do well in school have more to lose
– Contagion through peer support
• Nye – social control through family
– Direct control through punishment
– Internal control - conscience
– Indirect control (ID with parents & others)
– Availability of means to satisfy needs
Matza – “Delinquency and Drift”
• Most delinquents not essentially different from non-D’s
– D’s engage in law-abiding behavior most of the time
– Most D’s usually grow out of delinquency
• Drift: Weakening of the moral bind of the law
– D’s do not reject conventional mores but neutralize them with
excuses and justifications
– “Sense of irresponsibility” – can still commit crimes and consider
self guiltless
– “Sense of injustice” – wrongly dealt with by the CJ system
• Once bond is weakened, positive causes take over that make the
juvenile choose delinquent behavior
– D’s beset by hopelessness and lack of control over future
– D’s gain a sense of power through acting
• Serious D’s may not be “drifters” - may be committed or compulsive
Hirschi – Social Control Theory
• Individuals tightly bonded to conventional social groups
less likely to be delinquent
– Family, school, non-D peers
• There are four elements of the social bond
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Attachment: affection for and sensitivity to others
Commitment: to conventional society
Involvement: in conventional activities
Belief: in obeying conventional rules
Hirschi’s Test of Social Control Theory
Self-report survey of 4,000 junior and senior-high students
• Findings (attachment to parents, school, peers)
– Boys more attached to parents report less delinquency
– Boys less attached or successful in school report more delinquency
– Boys more attached to peers reported less delinquency
– Attachment to D peers can increase D if other controls not in place
• Findings (commitment, involvement, belief)
– D’s have low educational and occupational aspirations
– The higher the aspiration, the lower the D - inconsistent with strain
– Youths who spent more time working, dating, watching TV, reading, etc.
had higher D - inconsistent with Control Theory
– But - youths who reported being bored, spent less time on homework,
more time talking to friends & riding around in cars had higher D.
– Youths who thought it o.k. to break the law reported more delinquency
– No support for a “lower-class culture” - D beliefs held by academically
incompetent youths from all strata
Hirschi’s control theory - issues
• Hirschi tested only for relatively trivial misconduct - few
seriously delinquent youths in the sample
• Are different causal processes at work for serious
delinquency?
– Hirschi’s delinquency takes little time - it is not an allconsuming lifestyle, such as an active criminal gang
– Hirschi assumes that control applies to all D behavior,
trivial and serious
– Hirschi assumes that D behavior does not need a
specific cause - it is “naturally motivated”, requires no
explanation other than it is “fun”
• Are shootings “natural”?
• Do individual pathologies matter? Aggression?
Gottfredson and Hirschi - General Theory of Crime
• All types of crime can be explained by “low self-control” + the
opportunity to commit crime
• Self control is internal
– Affected by social control (Hirschi’s prior theory) only to age 8
• Ordinary crimes have similar characteristics
– Immediate gratification, few long-term benefits
– Exciting, risky
– Require little planning or skill
– Heavy cost to victim
• Ordinary criminals have “low self-control”
– Impulsive, Insensitive
– Physical, non-verbal rather than mental
– Risk taking, short-sighted
– These characteristics also cause them to smoke and drink heavily,
become involved in many accidents
Cause of low self-control: Poor child-rearing
practices
• Adequate child-rearing properly “socializes” a child
through imposing controls that are ultimately internalized
• By age 8 self-control is essentially set
– After age 8, change in rate at which people commit
crime determined by opportunities to commit crime
• Low self-control explains many relationships
– Delinquent peers  delinquency: Those with poor
self-controls seek each other out
– School performance  Delinquency
– Unemployment  Crime
Issues
• Theory is tautological: only way to determine if people
have “low self-control” is to determine if they engage in
“low self-control” behavior
• Can low self-control explain white collar crime?
• How can low self-control explain variation in crime rates?
• Difficulty on testing causal connection between poor childrearing and self-control
• Is it really over by age 8?
• Just how do opportunities to commit crime interact with
low self control to produce variations in crime rates?
– Test: Relationship between low-self control and
opportunity for crimes of fraud, not for crimes of force
– Test: Low self-control and opportunity have a very
small explanatory effect on criminal behavior