control theory criminology essay

Hirschi’s Social Control Theory of Crime

Charlotte Nickerson

Research Assistant at Harvard University

Undergraduate at Harvard University

Charlotte Nickerson is a student at Harvard University obsessed with the intersection of mental health, productivity, and design.

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Hirschi’s social control theory proposes that people are inherently inclined to deviance, and that bonds to society deter criminal activity. It argues that those with strong social bonds of attachment, commitment, involvement, and belief are more likely to conform to societal norms and less likely to engage in criminal behavior than those with weaker social bonds.

Key Takeaways

• Social control theory assumes that people, by default, are motivated to and capable of committing crimes. However, the social costs of committing crimes deter would-be offenders from deviance.
• Travis Hirschi’s social control theory hypothesizes that the stronger one’s social bonds to family and religious, civic, and other groups – the less likely one is to commit crime. Hirchi argues that social bonds promote conformity with the community’s shared values and norms.
• Social control theory has precedents dating to Thomas Hobbes. The theory became popularized in the 1950s, before being heavily critiqued in the latter half of the 20th century. However, new evidence has emerged, suggesting again that Social control theory may be correct in assessing the causes of some types of crime.
• Social control theory, unlike many other criminological theories, is able to account for differences in criminality across life stages. However, many sociologists have rejected the idea that criminality varies significantly from early adulthood on.

Introduction

Social control theory of crime was proposed by Travis Hirschi (1969), and posits that strong social bonds increase conformity with social groups and decrease deviance.

Social control theory assumes that people are motivated to and capable of committing crimes without special training.

According to this theory, people are prevented from committing crimes due to the costs of criminal behavior, monetarily, legally, and in terms of disapproval from people that the offender cares about.

Social control theory has intellectual origins dating to Thomas Hobbes. In his most famous book, Leviathan, Hobbes (2020) describes the life of early humans as “nasty, poor, brutish and short,” and as a “war of all against all.”

He argues that this is the natural state of humanity where crime is the rational choice. Hobbes proposes an alternative to this violent life: a system of laws and a government with enough power to punish those who result to force and fraud in pursuing their private interests.

Preferring the safety of themselves and their property, rational people, in Hobbes”s argument, would choose to submit to government authority.

Hobbes”s theory of crime is a choice theory, where people are motivated by weighing the costs and benefits of crime, acting consequently.

However, in contrast to later self-control theories, Hobbes believed that this control comes from the states. Social control theory believes that the most important costs of crime are the social ones: shame.

By the 20th century, sociology became the dominant discipline in studying crime. Sociologists rejected Hobbes” perspective altogether, seeing human behavior as caused rather than chosen.

Nonetheless, the early decades of the 20th century saw the emergence of social disorganization theory as a way to describe the breakdown of societal order they saw in immigrant communities and the slums of large cities.

Sociologists believed that these high rates of crime could be attributed to the fact that families, schools, and neighborhoods were too weak to control the behavior of their residents, allowing delinquency to flourish. As H

Hobbes suggested, delinquency is natural — but, the penalties of the criminal justice alone were not enough to contain it.

The degree of someone”s bond to society, and, according to social control theory, their capacity to commit crimes, depends on factors such as attachment, commitment, involvement, and belief.

Hirschi: Bonds of Attachment

Family attachment is one factor that is strongly correlated with delinquency. In their book, Unraveling Juvenile Delinquency , Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck (1950) indicated that the amount of affection that mothers and fathers give to their children is a powerful indicator of delinquency.

Those who had stronger emotional ties to their parents were less likely to be delinquent. How adolescents answered the question, “do your parents know where you are (And what you are doing) when you are away from home?” was another powerful predictor of juvenile delinquency.

As those whose parents know when they are away from home are those who inform their parents about their whereabouts, well-supervised children are those who have close relationships with their parents.

Attachment to school is another well-established predictor of delinquency.

Students who report liking school and caring about the opinion of their teachers are less likely to be delinquent (Hindelang, 1973). Meanwhile, those who have negative thoughts about school see it as less effective as a moral force.

In social control theory, commitment is the idea that conforming to one”s behavior protects and preserves what one has, while crime and delinquency put it at risk. Delinquents calculate the costs and benefits of crime.

The more that a delinquent has to lose, the greater the potential costs of the crime and thus the less likely it is to be committed. What someone has to lose from committing a crime depends on one”s assets, prospects, accomplishments, and aspirations.

One outlet for the display of accomplishment and achievement in school. This is expressed through academic achievement. Indeed, of all the measures of school-related activities, grade point average has been considered to be the best predictor of delinquency.

Students with high-grade point averages are likely to aspire to further education and less likely to commit delinquent acts or get into difficulties with the police.

This grade point average connection also forms an indirect connection between IQ test scores and delinquency: those with higher IQs are more likely to obtain a higher grade point average, strengthening their commitment to the school (Heimer & Matsueda, 1994).

Involvement

Involvement signals involvement in conventional activities. According to social control theorists, people who do conventional things, such as walking, playing sports, doing homework, engaging in hobbies, or talking to parents, are, in doing these activities, unable to commit delinquent acts regardless of their delinquent tendencies.

The idea of involvement has contradicted evidence. Multiple researchers, such as Agnew (1986), have found that adolescents carrying out a seemingly conventional activity — having a job — are more, rather than less likely to be delinquent.

Counts of the amount of time that adolescents spend carrying out conventional acts have also shown little correlation between involvement and delinquency.

The concept of involvement in control theory shows little connection to actual rates of delinquency, scholars argue, for two reasons.

First of all, most criminal acts require little time to complete — perhaps minutes, or even seconds. Thuss an offender can commit a large number of offenses in a short period of time. Someone could steal several expensive coats, or several video game cartridges, in a matter of seconds.

Crimes can be committed almost everywhere, making the prospect of preventing them by occupying a potential offender a largely feckless one.

The other problem facing the concept of involvement is that it neglects the fact that the opportunities for crime reside in the ability for the offender to find opportunities for crime.

Objective conditions as well as the perceptions of actors matter in whether or not a crime occurs. According to control theory, people differ in the strength of their bonds to society.

People, in this view, who are strongly bonded to society are less likely to both engage in activities that provide opportunities for delinquency as well as seeing these opportunities in the first place as they arise.

There has historically been controversy over the role of beliefs in causing delinquency. While some social scientists believe that they are of central importance, others ignore them, sometimes considering them to be merely words that reflect and justify past behavior while being in no way responsible for it.

Control theories reject the idea that beliefs are causes of delinquency, and that offenders are acting according to their beliefs in committing delinquent acts. Nonetheless, control theory is compatible with the view that some beliefs prevent delinquency while others permit it.

Scholars have studied beliefs as a way of understanding how the bonds of attachment, commitment, and involvement work to prevent delinquency.

For instance, those who believe that those who break the law are almost always caught and punished are more likely to commit delinquent acts than those who do not. However, many have argued that responses to questions such as these are more related to impulse than core beliefs.

Those who think in the short term — saying that most acts are not caught — have a lack of engagement and thus an attitude more conducive to delinquency than those that believe that, in the long term, most criminals will be caught.

Social control theory and life stages

Social control theory originally took the form of what sociologists call a life-course theory. The idea of social control theory was that people are controlled by ties to the significant people and institutions in their lives.

As they move through the stages of their life, people and institutions change, and their ties to institutions change accordingly. For example, as one moves from a child to an adult, the structure of family often changes from that of parents and siblings to spouses and children.

Early theorists believed that this transition from one family to another would cause a period of freedom from social bonds and consequently a high rate of delinquency. Adolescents could have secure attachments to their job, church, community, and family or end up with weak and fleeting ties to the central institutions of adulthood.

Just as adolescent delinquents could wind up as law-abiding adults, adolescent conformists could wind up as late-starting adult offenders.

Social control theory, in its original iteration, was based on studies that conducted data at one point in someone”s life — a cross-sectional study.

Nonetheless, the theory accounted for the weakening and strengthening of conventional bonds that could lead to varying levels of deviance over the course of a lifespan.

Nonetheless, more recent data has suggested that the differences in levels of delinquency were relatively constant across individuals as they aged.

Hischi and Gottfredson (1983), in their analysis of this data, explicitly rejected the life course perspective on crime and declared that criminality, established in late childhood, stabilized and did not change.

Others, such as Sampson and Laub, have reworked the original social control theory study by Gluecks and Gluecks (1950) by following the original participants into adulthood.

Sampson and Laub (1993) confirmed Glueck and Glueck findings and confirmed involvement in social bonds such as income, marriage, attachment to spouse, job stability, and commitment as predictors for delinquency.

Social control theory and adolescent alcohol use

Social control theory can be used as justification for behavior that is not necessarily illegal, such as rates of alcohol consumption.

Johnson (1984) conducted a study investigating the efficacy of social control theory in accounting for how adolescents think of alcohol use.

Their findings suggested that differing informal control mechanisms influence adolescents” alcohol use, and that higher alcohol use is associated with weakened bonds to conventional social structures.

However, these consequences differed depending on the age of the adolescent.

Critical Evaluation

Social control theory has been criticized for how it considers the role of delinquent peers. Notable mid-20th century theorist Walter Reckless (1961), for instance, concluded that friendship is a prominent force in predicting whether or not males committed crimes.

Control theorists have questioned the correlation between one”s own delinquency and the levels of delinquency among one”s friends. In terms of control theory, weak bonds to society lead to association with delinquents and thus delinquent behavior — companionship and delinquency are both caused by the delinquent”s rejection by society.

However, this argument is limited. Social learning theorists saw this strong correlation between delinquency and companionship as evidence against social control theory.

Alternatively, learning theorists have offered a compromise that combines the two theories; the lack of social control, according to this theory, frees the adolescent to be taught crime and delinquency by their peers.

The notable criminologist Hirschi (1969) rejected this compromise, believing that it would cause internal contradictions. While social control theories assume that crime is the natural state of humanity, social learning theorists assume that crime must be learned. These postulates are in direct contradiction.

Other theorists have attempted to explain the role of delinquent peers without violating social control theory. Instead of teaching delinquency, according to these theorists, peers make crime easier or less risky, increasing the temptation to commit crime by lowering its costs.

Another complicating factor regarding the validity of control theory stems from the validity of measures of peer delinquency.

Most studies about the delinquency of peers ask respondents to describe their own friends. Some researchers have argued that this leaves the potential for projection as respondents describe their friends as they describe themselves.

Haynie and Osgood (2005) tested this hypothesis and found that standard data contains a large amount of projection, and measures of delinquency collected directly from the peers in question found that whether or not one”s peers commit crimes has only a modest effect on someone”s criminal habits.

This finding has brought control theory to the attention of researchers again, shaping its critiques.

Agnew, R. (1986). Work and delinquency among juveniles attending school. Journal of Crime and Justice, 9(1), 19-41.

Agnew, R. (1991). A longitudinal test of social control theory and delinquency . Journal of research in crime and delinquency, 28 (2), 126-156.

Black, D. (1983). Crime as social control . American Sociological Review , 34-45.

Bredekamp, H. (2020). Thomas Hobbes-Der Leviathan. De Gruyter.

Glueck, S., & Glueck, E. (1950). Unraveling juvenile delinquency. Juv. Ct. Judges J., 2, 32.

Heimer, K., & Matsueda, R. L. (1994). Role-taking, role commitment, and delinquency: A theory of differential social control. American Sociological Review, 365-390.

Hindelang, M. J. (1973). Causes of delinquency: A partial replication and extension. Social Problems, 20( 4), 471-487.

Hirschi, T. (1969). Key idea: Hirschi’s social bond/social control theory. Key Ideas in Criminology and Criminal Justice,(1969), 55-69.

Hirschi, T. (1986). On the compatibility of rational choice and social control theories of crime . The reasoning criminal: Rational choice perspectives on offending, 105-118.

Hirschi, T., & Gottfredson, M. (1983). Age and the explanation of crime. American Journal of Sociology , 89(3), 552-584.

Janowitz, M. (1975). Sociological theory and social control . American Journal of Sociology, 81 (1), 82-108.

Johnson, K. A. (1984). The applicability of social control theory in understanding adolescent alcohol use. Sociological Spectrum, 4 (2-3), 275-294.

Laub, J. H., & Sampson, R. J. (1993). Turning points in the life course: Why change matters to the study of crime. Criminology, 31(3), 301-325

Pratt, T. C., & Cullen, F. T. (2000). The empirical status of Gottfredson and Hirschi’s general theory of crime : A meta‐analysis.  Criminology ,  38 (3), 931-964.

Reckless, W. C. (1961). The crime problem. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.

Wiatrowski, M. D. (1978). Social control theory and delinquency . Portland State University.

• A-Z Publications

Annual Review of Criminology

Volume 3, 2020, review article, social control theory: the legacy of travis hirschi's causes of delinquency.

• Barbara J. Costello 1 , and John H. Laub 2
• View Affiliations Hide Affiliations Affiliations: 1 Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, Rhode Island 02881, USA; email: [email protected] 2 Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA; email: [email protected]
• Vol. 3:21-41 (Volume publication date January 2020) https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-criminol-011419-041527
• First published as a Review in Advance on September 03, 2019
• Copyright © 2020 by Annual Reviews. All rights reserved

The publication of Travis Hirschi's Causes of Delinquency in 1969 was a watershed moment in criminology. There are many reasons for the work's lasting influence. Hirschi carefully examined the underlying assumptions of extant theories of crime in light of what was known about the individual-level correlates of offending. He then developed critical tests of hypotheses derived from social control theory and competing perspectives and empirically assessed them using original self-report delinquency data. Many of his key findings, such as the negative correlation between attachment to parents and delinquency, are now established facts that any explanation of crime must consider. Causes of Delinquency is still cited hundreds of times per year, and it continues to spark new research and theoretical development in the field. Perhaps the most lasting legacy is the volume of criticism it has attracted and fended off, leading to its enduring contribution to the study of crime and delinquency.

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• Article Type: Review Article

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Social control theory.

Social control theory assumes that people can see the advantages of crime and are capable of inventing and executing all sorts of criminal acts on the spot—without special motivation or prior training. It assumes that the impulse to commit crime is resisted because of the costs associated with such behavior. It assumes further that a primary cost of crime is the disapproval of the people about whom the potential offender cares. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

I. Introduction

Ii. attachment, iii. commitment, iv. involvement, vi. historical development, vii. similarities and differences between social control theories and other major theories of crime, viii. a critical issue, ix. theoretical and research extensions, x. policy implications.

The social control approach to understanding crime is one of the three major sociological perspectives in contemporary criminology. Control theorists believe that conformity to the rules of society is produced by socialization and maintained by ties to people and institutions— to family members, friends, schools, and jobs. Put briefly, crime and delinquency result when the individual’s bond to society is weak or broken. As social bonds increase in strength, the costs of crime to the individual increase as well.

The first task of the control theorist is to identify the important elements of the bond to society. The second task is to say what is meant by society—to locate the persons and institutions important in the control of delinquent and criminal behavior. The following list of elements of the bond— attachment, commitment, involvement, and belief—has proved useful in explaining the logic of the theory and in summarizing relevant research. It has also provided guidelines for evaluation of delinquency prevention programs.

Social control theory assumes that people can see the advantages of crime and are capable of inventing and executing all sorts of criminal acts on the spot—without special motivation or prior training. It assumes that the impulse to commit crime is resisted because of the costs associated with such behavior. It assumes further that a primary cost of crime is the disapproval of the people about whom the potential offender cares. To the extent that the potential offender cares about no one, he or she is free to commit the crime in question. Sociologists often explain conformity as the result of such sensitivity. Psychologists as often explain deviation as the result of insensitivity to the concerns of others. Together, they tell us that sensitivity is a continuum and that some people have more than others and some have less than others. This is the position adopted by control theorists. They focus on the extent to which people are sensitive to the opinion of others and predict that this variable will predict rates of crime and delinquency.

Sensitivity suggests feeling or emotion, and this element of the social bond indeed attempts to capture the emotions (or lack thereof) involved in conformity and deviance. The words are many: affection, love, concern, care, and respect, to name only some. Social control theorists use attachment as an abstract summary of these concepts.

The evidence is clear that family attachments are strongly correlated with (non)delinquency. In their famous book Unraveling Juvenile Delinquency, Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck (1950) indicated that, according to their research, affection of the father and the mother for the child were two of the best five predictors of delinquency. They found, too, that in the other direction, the emotional ties of the child to the parent tended to be weaker among delinquents. From this, we may conclude that family attachments play a role in the socialization of the child as well as in maintaining his or her subsequent conformity to the rules of society. Researchers have reported that family attachments may account for the apparent effects of other variables. For example, the item “Do your parents know where you are (and what you are doing) when you are away from home?” has been often found to predict levels of self-reported delinquency. These correlations are of course taken as evidence of the importance of parental supervision. They are better seen as evidence of the importance of communication between parent and child. Scandinavian scholars have shown that parents know where their children are to the extent that their children inform them of their whereabouts. In other words, well-supervised children are those who supervise themselves, those who in effect take their parents with them wherever they happen to go.

Attachment to school is also a well-established predictor of delinquency. Students who report liking school and caring about the opinion of teachers are far less likely to be delinquent regardless of how delinquency is measured. Indeed, it is practically a truism that “delinquents don’t like school.” The general principle would seem to be that withdrawal of favorable sentiments toward controlling institutions neutralizes their moral force. Rebels and revolutionaries may dispute this principle, but that says nothing about the element of truth it contains (and they prove it by their actions).

Everyone seems to understand the paraphrased song lyric that freedom is another way of saying that one has nothing left to lose. Control theory captures this idea in the concept of commitment, the idea that conforming behavior protects and preserves capital, whereas crime and delinquency put it at risk. The potential delinquent calculates the costs and benefits of crime. The more he or she has to lose, the greater the potential costs of the crime and the less likely it is to be committed. What does one lose or risk losing from crime? The short answer is life, liberty, and property. The long answer, attachments aside, is that it depends on one’s assets and prospects, on one’s accomplishments and aspirations.

For young people in American society, the main arena for the display of accomplishment or achievement is the school. Athletics aside, and however diverse the curriculum, the currency of this realm is academic achievement. Also, truancy aside, of the available measures of school-related activities, grade point average appears to be the best predictor of delinquency. Good students are likely to aspire to further education and are unlikely to commit delinquent acts or to get into difficulties with the police. Grade point average accounts for the correlation between IQ test scores and delinquency. Put another way, IQ affects delinquency through its effect of grades. It has no direct effect on delinquency. This means that the ancient idea that, other things equal, intelligent people are better able to appreciate the consequences of their acts is not supported by the data; instead, the data suggest that the correspondence between achievement and prospects on one side and delinquency on the other is just what one would expect from rational actors, whatever their level of intelligence.

In television courtrooms, one task of the prosecutor is to establish that the defendant had the opportunity to commit the crime of which he or she is accused. Crimes are events that take place at a given point in time. Conditions necessary for their accomplishment may or may not be present. Control theorists, like most other theorists, have seized on this fact and tried to incorporate the notion of opportunity into their explanation of crime. They do so through the concept of involvement, which is short for “involvement in conventional activities.” The idea is that people doing conventional things—working, playing games, watching sporting events or television, doing homework, engaging in hobbies, or talking to parents—are to that extent unable to commit delinquent acts, whatever their delinquent tendencies may be.

Despite its firm place in the common sense of criminology, the idea of involvement/limited opportunity has not fared well when put to the test. More than one researcher has found that adolescents with jobs are more rather than less likely to be delinquent. Also, counts of the hours of the day the adolescent is doing an activity that is inconsistent with delinquent acts have proved disappointing.

There are two problems with the concept of involvement. First, it is based on a misconception of the nature of crime. Most criminal acts, perhaps especially those available to adolescents, require only seconds or minutes for their completion—the pull of the trigger, a swing of the fist, a barked command, a jimmied door, a grab from a rack or showcase. This fact allows the commission of large numbers of criminal acts by a single offender in a short period of time. (It also makes ridiculous attempts to estimate the average number of offenses committed by individual offenders in an extended period of time.) Because opportunities for crimes are ubiquitous, the hope of preventing them by otherwise occupying the potential offender has proved vain.

A second problem with this concept is that it neglects the fact that opportunities for crime reside to a large extent in the eye of the beholder. Objective conditions matter, but so do the perceptions of actors. Control theory claims that people differ in the strength of their bonds to society. It therefore predicts that people who are strongly bonded are less likely to engage in activities that provide opportunities for delinquency and are less likely to see them should they arise.

The role of beliefs in the causation of delinquency is a matter of considerable dispute. Some social scientists argue that they are of central importance. Others ignore them, suggesting that they are nothing more than words that reflect (and justify) past behavior but are in no way responsible for it. Control theory rejects the view that beliefs are positive causes of delinquency, that offenders are somehow living up to their beliefs when they commit delinquent acts. Control theory is, however, compatible with the view that some beliefs prevent delinquency while others allow it.

Perhaps the principal benefit of the study of beliefs is that they help us understand how the other bonds work to prevent delinquency. For example, responses to the statement “People who break the law are almost always caught and punished” are related to delinquency in the expected direction. Individuals who disagree are more likely to report delinquent acts. What can be said about the factual accuracy of this belief? Do delinquents know the truth while non-delinquents have been systematically misinformed? The answer appears to be that both delinquents and non-delinquents are correct, at least from their point of view. In the short term, “getting away with it” may well be the rule. In the long term, offenders are typically caught and, in various ways, punished. A short-term orientation reflects a lack of commitment and is therefore conducive to delinquency. A long-term orientation is indicative of commitment and prevents delinquency. All of this teaches two lessons: (1) Manipulating beliefs without changing the reality on which they are based is unlikely to reduce the level of delinquency, and (2) changing actual levels of law enforcement efficiency is unlikely to change the beliefs that allow and disallow criminal conduct.

The intellectual underpinnings of social control theory may be seen in the 17th-century work of Thomas Hobbes. In his famous book Leviathan Hobbes described a set of basic assumptions about human nature and the origins of civil society. Hobbes believed that humans naturally seek personal advantage without regard for the rights or concerns of others. In the absence of external restraints, in a state of nature, crime is a rational choice, a “war of all against all” naturally follows, and the life of everyone is “nasty, poor, brutish, and short.” Fortunately, in Hobbes’s view, a second choice presents itself to individuals capable of calculating the costs and benefits of their actions. They can continue in a state of war, or they can establish a system of laws and a government empowered to punish those who resort to force and fraud in pursuit of their private interests. Given the choice between war and peace, rational people choose to submit to government authority in return for the safety of their persons and property.

Hobbes’s theory of crime is a choice theory. People consider the costs and benefits of crime and act accordingly. The important costs of crime are those exacted by the state—which has the power to deprive citizens of life, liberty, and property. The content of the criminal law is not problematic. There is consensus that the use of force and fraud for private purposes is illegitimate. Crime is real. It is a not a matter of definition; it is not a social construction that may vary from time to time and place to place.

As we have seen, social control theory accepts choice and consensus. People are not forced by unusual needs or desires to commit criminal acts. Belief in the validity of the core of the criminal law is shared by everyone. Control theory nevertheless rejects Hobbes’s view (which is still a popular view among economists and political scientists) that the important costs of crime are the penalties imposed by the state. It can reject this view because of the assumption (and fact) of consensus. Everyone agrees that theft, robbery, and murder are crimes. As a result, victims and witnesses report offenses to interested parties, and their perpetrators embarrass and shame those who know them. Shame and the penalties that follow from it are, according to social control theory, major costs of crime.

Hobbes’s view of human nature does not imply that people are inherently criminal or that they prefer crime; it suggests only that self-interest underlies whatever they do. They harm others because it gives them pleasure or advantage. They steal because stealing provides goods or money. They hit or threaten to hit others because such acts may bring status, a feeling of justice, or control of their behavior. They do good things for self-interested reasons as well. They are trustworthy and helpful because being so brings such rewards as trust and gratitude. From the point of view of their motives, there is thus no difference between offenders and non-offenders, between criminal and noncriminal acts; all reflect the same basic desires. Thus, working from the Hobbesian view of human nature, social control theories do not ask why people commit criminal acts. They ask instead why, given the plentiful opportunities for criminal acts and their obvious benefits, people do not commit more of them.

Sociology is the dominant discipline in the study of crime. Sociologists reject Hobbes’s perspective. They see human behavior as caused rather than chosen. They tend to reject the idea of consensus, preferring the idea of cultural diversity or even culture conflict. Nevertheless, in the early years of the 20th century, sociologists in the United States often talked about social disorganization, the breakdown of society they saw occurring in immigrant communities and the slums of large cities. The high rates of crime and delinquency in these areas were seen as symptoms of this breakdown. In disorganized areas, unemployment is high and families, schools, and neighborhoods are too weak to control the behavior of their residents. The theory of crime implicit in the concept of social disorganization is a variety of social control theory. In the absence of the usual social restraints imposed by jobs, families, schools, churches, and neighborhoods, delinquency flourishes. In other words, delinquency is natural, as Hobbes suggested and, worse— but contrary to Hobbes—the penalties of the criminal justice system are insufficient to contain it.

By the middle of the 20th century, the concept of social disorganization was no longer fashionable. Sociological theories had come to focus primarily on the impact of social class and culture on law-violating behavior. Lower-class adolescents were said to be forced into delinquency in their efforts to realize the American Dream or they were socialized into a lower-class culture that justifies or requires delinquent behavior. As an explanatory factor, the family had fallen from favor and the school was rarely mentioned except as an important source of strain and subsequent malicious delinquency among lower-class boys.

Sociology, however, is more than a theoretical perspective that is brought to bear in efforts to explain criminal and delinquent behavior. It is also a research discipline that attempts to locate the causes and correlates of such behavior. While sociological theories of delinquency were painting one picture of delinquency, research was painting a very different picture, and sociological researchers were forced to use or invent a sociologically incorrect language to describe it.

By the mid-20th century, hundreds of studies of delinquency had been published, and the number was growing at an ever-increasing rate. With respect to its findings, perhaps the most important was the work of a Harvard University couple, Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck. Their book Unraveling Juvenile Delinquency (1950), discussed earlier in this research paper, is unrivaled in the scope and complexity of its results. The Gluecks compared 500 delinquent boys with 500 non-delinquent boys on a large number of carefully measured variables: family structure and relations, school attitudes and performance, physical and mental characteristics, and attitudes and behavior. The Gluecks reported that the five best predictors of delinquency were “family” variables: (1) discipline of the boy by his father, (2) supervision of the boy by his mother, (3) affection of the father (and [4], separately, the mother) for the boy, and (5) cohesiveness of the family.

The Gluecks’s research was said to be atheoretical, and they did not advertise themselves as theorists, but there could be no doubt that their findings supported social control theory. There also could be no doubt that their characterization of their findings reflected acceptance of a control theory perspective—and rejection of then-popular sociological theories. (For example, whereas popular sociological theories assumed that delinquents tend to be eager to succeed in school, the Gluecks reported that truancy and “lack of interest in school work” were from an early age one of their defining characteristics.) In one fell swoop, then, the Gluecks put control theory back on the table.

The Gluecks were not alone; other researchers were reporting results consistent with control theory and using the language of the theory to interpret them. Albert Reiss resurrected the distinction found in the social disorganization literature between personal and social controls. Walter Reckless and colleagues advanced a containment theory of delinquency that was said to account for the behavior of “good” as well as “bad” boys. Jackson Toby introduced the idea of stakes in conformity—the costs of delinquency to people with good reputations and bright prospects—as an important factor in the control of delinquent behavior.

During the same mid-20th century period, social control theory benefited from introduction of an innovative technique of research, what came to be known as the self-report method. Prior to the invention of this method, researchers had been forced to rely on official measures of delinquency, basically police and court records. The new method allowed them to ask juveniles about their delinquent activities regardless of whether they had official records. It allowed researchers at the same time to ask young people about their relationships with parents, their attitudes toward school, and much else of interest to those wishing to explain delinquent behavior. Indeed, this research technique put the explanation of delinquency in a new light. For example, whereas the Gluecks stressed the affection of the parent for the child, it now became apparent—because it could be measured—that the affection of the child for the parent should be equally, if not more, important.

Relying on the terms and assumptions of the social disorganization perspective, F. Ivan Nye (1958) undertook the first major self-report study of delinquency, distinguishing between internal control and direct and indirect forms of social control. Nye’s particular focus was on the family. He showed how parents limit access of their children to opportunities for delinquency (an example of a direct control) and how adolescents refrain from delinquency out of concern that their parents might disapprove of such actions (an indirect control). He illustrated internal control with the concept of conscience, which acts to prevent one from committing acts that are harmful to others.

The various strands of thought and research on social control were brought together in Travis Hirschi’s Causes of Delinquency, published in 1969. This book reports in a study of a large sample of junior and senior high school students using self-report and official measures of delinquency. The theory guiding the study, as well as some of the study’s findings, are summarized at the beginning of this research paper. Hirschi’s study was a small part of a larger study based on ideas compatible with alternative theories of delinquency. Hirschi was therefore able to compare and contrast the predictions of social control theory with those stemming from its major competitors. These comparisons and contrasts have proved useful in providing structure to subsequent research.

As we have seen, the underlying assumptions of social control theory are in many respects similar to those of classical theories of crime, theories that have come down to us under such names as deterrence theory and rational choice theory. The differences among them are often differences in emphasis. Deterrence theory claims that the key to crime control is found in the swiftness, severity, and certainty of the punishments administered by the legal system. Rational choice theory focuses on the costs and benefits of crime. Control theorists accept the importance of punishment, but they ignore the punishments of the legal system and thereby question their role in the control of crime. They do the same with benefits of crime—that is, they ignore them on the grounds that the benefits of crime are the same as the benefits of non-crime.

The assumptions of control theories contrast sharply with those of other sociological explanations of crime. Cultural deviance or social learning theories assume that there is no natural capacity for crime. In their view, all human action, whether crime or conformity, is the product of a combination of socializing influences. Peers exert influence on the individual, as does the family and, more broadly, the prevailing culture. Where the sum total of influences directs the individual in particular instances to engage in crime, then that person will do so. Where these influences are absent, crime cannot occur. The offender is thus a conformist, albeit not to the rules of the dominant society.

Strain theories (sometimes called anomie theories) assume that an individual is naturally inclined to conform to standard cultural values but can be pushed into crime when the social structure fails to provide legitimate opportunities to succeed. These theorists emphasize the influence of the American Dream, which produces aspirations and desires that often (all too often, scholars say) cannot be satisfied within the limits of the law. These sociological perspectives have proved popular and adaptable. They continue to provide a foundation for critiques of social control theory.

One question that social control theory has faced from its inception relates to the role of delinquent peers. Walter Reckless (1961), a prominent theorist whose work is usually associated with control theory, concluded from the Gluecks’s (1950) data that “companionship is unquestionably the most telling force in male delinquency and crime” (p. 10). If this conclusion were allowed to stand unquestioned, whatever debate there might be between social control theory and social learning theory would be settled in favor of the latter. From the beginning, control theorists have questioned the meaning of the admittedly strong correlation between one’s own delinquency and the delinquency of one’s friends. Their major counterhypothesis was that advanced by the Gluecks, who interpreted their own data as showing that birds of a feather flock together, so to speak. In control theory terms, this argument is that weak bonds to society lead to association with delinquents and to delinquent behavior. Companionship and delinquency thus have a common cause. The limits of this argument were readily apparent. The correlation between companionship and delinquency was so strong that no combination of its supposed causes could possibly account for it. Social learning theorists naturally saw this as evidence against social control theory and in favor of their own theory. A compromise solution was to integrate the two theories, the idea being that lack of social control frees the adolescent to be taught crime and delinquency by his or her peers.

Hirschi resisted this compromise, observing that the two theories, if combined, would contain fatal internal contradictions. Social control theories assume that crime is natural. Social learning theories assume crime must be learned. The two assumptions cannot peacefully coexist, because one assumption must necessarily negate the other. Yet the delinquent-peer effect would not go away. Its presence forced social control theorists to confront a fact seemingly in contradiction to the theory’s internal logic. Attempts were then made to explain the role of delinquent peers without violating the assumptions of control theory. Perhaps peers do not teach delinquency, but they make it easier or less risky, thus increasing the temptation to crime by lowering its costs. Assaults and robberies and burglaries are, after all, facilitated by the support of others, just as they are facilitated by muscles and guns and agility.

Another tack was to question the validity of the measures of peer delinquency. If the data collection methods were faulty, then the seemingly strong evidence supporting the delinquent peers–delinquency correlation could also be faulty. Most studies of the delinquency of peers ask the respondents to describe their friends. The results, some researchers argued, could reflect the phenomenon of projection, whereby study respondents, apparently describing their friends, are in fact describing themselves. Dana Haynie and Wayne Osgood (2005) tested this hypothesis. They reported that standard data do contain a good quantity of projection. Using measures of delinquency collected directly from the peers in question, they found that what was once the strongest known predictor of crime turned out to have only a modest effect, an effect that could be accounted for by alternative theories of crime. This story teaches several lessons. Persistent attention to a theoretical problem may produce unexpected results. The facts that are at the root of the problem may themselves fail to survive, and the end results of criticisms of a criminological theory do not necessarily take the form imagined by its critics.

In its social disorganization form, social control theory was what is now called a life course theory. The idea was straightforward: Individuals are controlled by ties to the significant people and institutions in their lives. As they move through the various stages of life, these people and institutions automatically change. Their significance and the strength of the individual’s ties to them may change as well. The favorite example was the transition from the family of orientation, with parents and siblings, to the family of procreation, with a spouse and children. In principle, the transition from one family to the other could be a period of deregulation, of relative freedom from social bonds and a consequent high rate of delinquency. In principle, successful completion of this transition was problematic. The adolescent could end up securely wrapped in the arms of job, church, community, and family, or he or she could end up in a stage of protracted adolescence, with weak and fleeting ties to the central institutions of adulthood. Adolescent delinquents could easily end up as law-abiding adults, and adolescent conformists could easily end up as late-starting adult offenders.

The social control theory described was based on data collected at one point in time. It could not therefore deal directly with questions of change and transition. It was designed, however, with the change and transition problem firmly in mind. If the connection between juvenile delinquency and adult crime depended on events that could not be foreseen, this posed no problem for the theory. It assumed that strong bonds could weaken, or break, that the people and institutions to which one was tied could change their character or cease to exist. It assumed, too, that weak bonds could strengthen, that they could be established where none previously existed. Social control theory was thus seen as the only major theory capable of dealing with variation in levels of crime and delinquency over the life course.

Readily available data suggested, however, that the facts were not so complicated. The data suggested that differences in levels of delinquency were relatively constant across individuals, that the form of the age distribution of crime was the same from one group to another. As a result, in 1983, Hirschi and his colleague Michael Gottfredson explicitly rejected the life course perspective on crime, declaring that criminality, once established in late childhood, stabilized and did not change. Put another way, they said that if a researcher ranks children on their propensity to commit criminal acts at age 8, he or she will find the same rank order when the children are 15 and any age thereafter. They concluded that no criminological theory, including social control theory, could explain the relation between age and crime.

Shortly thereafter, Robert Sampson and John Laub came into possession of the data originally collected by Sheldon and Eleanor Gluecks in the famous study described earlier. After reworking and supplementing these data, they were able to follow the Gluecks’s (1950) participants into adulthood and, by so doing, restate and test the life course (or longitudinal) version of social control theory, which they called a theory of informal social control. Analyses reported in their book Crime in the Making (1993) confirm the Gluecks’s findings about the correlates of delinquency and move on to a focus on stability and change in levels of delinquency during adulthood. Their analyses (and subsequent analyses based on even more extensive data) confirm the importance for delinquency involvement of such adult social bonds as income, marriage, attachment to spouse, job stability, and commitment. It should be mentioned that their analyses of full-life histories reveal a substantial decline in crime with age that their bond measures cannot explain.

Current crime control policy in the United States emphasizes the value of incarceration on the one side and treatment or rehabilitation on the other. Increased rates of incarceration have been encouraged by renewed academic interest in so-called “career criminals” and by the view that crime control requires swift, certain, and severe punishment by agents of the criminal justice system. The emphasis on punishment is encouraged by politicians, the media, an influential segment of academic criminology, and of course by law enforcement officials themselves. The crime problem is a blessing to all of them, and they do not fail to take advantage of it.

Increased levels of concern and punishment automatically produce greater numbers of potential offenders, probationers, inmates, and parolees—all of whom are thought to benefit from exposure to modern treatment and rehabilitation programs. The emphasis on treatment is encouraged by the belief that it provides a humane alternative to punishment. It is also encouraged by renewed faith in its effectiveness in reducing subsequent involvement in criminal and delinquent behavior. Where it was recently believed that treatment does not work, the question of effectiveness is now answered in advance by advocacy of evidence-based programs. An emphasis on treatment is a blessing for psychologists, social workers, and social service agencies.

Support for neither of these general policies is found in social control theory. Consistent with the theory, potential offenders are not influenced by the threat of legal penalties, and their behavior is not altered by changing the certainty or severity of such penalties. Consistent with the theory, the behavior of people exposed to the criminal justice system is not affected by such exposure. The level of punishment (e.g., the length of sentence) imposed by the system does not affect the likelihood that its wards will be seen again. Put another way, the criminal justice system receives people after they have committed offenses, but it has little or no influence on their prior or subsequent behavior.

Incarceration is sometimes justified on the grounds that it reduces the crime rate by incapacitating offenders. Even if punishment and treatment do not work, the argument goes, people in prison are not committing countable crimes while they are there, though a derivation of this argument from any version of control theory is not supportable.

The idea that crime can be prevented by treating or rehabilitating offenders is contrary to the assumptions of control theory. The theory sees crime as a choice that does not reflect illness or defective judgment but the social circumstances of the actor and the logic of the situation. The renewed enthusiasm for treatment is also not justified by research. As often as not, it seems, the difference between the treatment and control groups is disappointing, or even in the wrong direction. Given the investment in various treatment strategies and the felt need to counterbalance punitive policies, the return of a skeptical view of treatment in the near future is unlikely, but better evidence that treatment works will be required to make it a serious challenge to the control theory perspective.

Crime control strategies that go by such names as situational crime prevention, the routine activity approach, and environmental design are perfectly compatible with control theory. All assume that crimes may be prevented by focusing on the conditions necessary for their occurrence—by reducing their benefits, by making them more hazardous or difficult. Unlike control theory, these approaches focus on one type of crime at a time—burglary, robbery, assault—but they, too, see the potential offender as acting out of choice rather than compulsion. A choosing offender may attack a lone individual but will not consider attacking a member of a group; a choosing offender may enter an unlocked door but refrain from breaking down a door that is securely locked. The beauty of these approaches is that, to the extent they are successful, they eliminate criminals by eliminating crime. Situational crime prevention theorists like to say that “opportunity makes the thief,” but a more direct statement of their position would be that “theft makes the thief.”

Social control theories typically do not provide specific positive guidance about crime control policy. Those who attack their policy implications tend to focus on the odious implications of “control,” suggesting that control theorists favor selective incapacitation and value thoughtless conformity over individual freedom. It may be partly for this reason that control theorists are reluctant to play the policy game, but it may be that the policy implications of control theory are too obvious to bear repeating. If weakened social bonds are the reason crime flourishes, the straightforward way to reduce the crime problem would be to help individuals intensify their relationships with society. How is this to be accomplished? Control theory cannot provide particularly good answers to this question anymore than strain theory can offer unusual insight about how to improve economic conditions among the poor. We do know that stakes in conformity cannot be imposed from without, that society cannot force friends on the friendless. But we know, too, that some conditions are more conducive than others to the creation and maintenance of the natural bonds that make people consider the consequences of their acts for the lives and well-being of others. With such conditions in place, the theory claims, the need for crime control policies is greatly reduced.

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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Social Control Theory

Introduction, origins of the theory.

• Development of the Theory
• Hirschi’s Elements of the Social Bond
• Attachment to Parents, School, and Peers
• Commitment to Conventional Institutions
• Involvement
• Belief in Legitimate Order
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Social Control Theory by Kimberly Kempf-Leonard , Nancy A. Morris LAST REVIEWED: 24 July 2012 LAST MODIFIED: 24 July 2012 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195396607-0091

Unlike most criminology theories that purport to explain why people offend, control theory offers the justification for why people obey rules. Control theory provides an explanation for how behavior conforms to that which is generally expected in society. Some control theories emphasize the developmental processes during childhood by which internal constraints develop. Social control theories, however, focus primarily on external factors and the processes by which they become effective. Deviance and crime occur because of inadequate constraints. For social control theory, the underlying view of human nature includes the conception of free will, thereby giving offenders the capacity of choice, and responsibility for their behavior. As such, social control theory is aligned more with the classical school of criminology than with positivist or determinist perspectives. For the most part, social control theory postulates a shared value or belief in social norms. Even those who break laws or violate social norms are likely to share the general belief that those rules should be followed. Crime and deviance are considered predictable behaviors that society has not curtailed. Explaining conformity, particularly the process by which people are socialized to obey the rules, is the essence of social control theory. Thus, social control theory focuses on how the absence of close relationships with conventional others can free individuals from social constraints, thereby allowing them to engage in delinquency. Alternatively, other prominent criminological theories focus on how close relationships with delinquent peers or negative relationships with others can lead or compel individuals to commit delinquency.

The first notions of social control theory may be found in the work of some of the Enlightenment thinkers and the classical school of criminology. One author, Thomas Hobbes, an English philosopher writing in the seventeenth century about the inherent tendency toward self-indulgence and evil that requires external restraint and the corresponding role of government, is frequently mentioned (see Hobbes 1957 , first published in 1651). More often, the origin is connected to Emile Durkheim, the prolific French writer who many consider the founder of sociology and structural functionalism. In addition to explaining the condition of anomie that results from a breakdown in social norms, Durkheim also offered crime and deviance as social facts, present in all societies ( Durkheim 1938 , originally published in 1895). Durkheim said, “We are moral beings to the extent that we are social beings” ( Durkheim 2002 , p. 64). In his view, crime serves the function of identifying boundaries for behavior, which are recognized collectively in communities and reinforced by negative societal reactions. Social order is thereby maintained by the process of being socialized to avoid disapproval associated with deviant acts. This process also is the means by which boundaries are altered and social change occurs. Durkheim’s view of social control is conveyed as follows: “The more weakened the groups to which [the individual] belongs, the less he depends on them, the more he consequently depends only on himself and recognizes no other rules of conduct than what are founded on his private interests” ( Durkheim 1951 , p. 209; originally published in 1897).

Durkheim, Emile. 1938. Rules of the sociological method . Translated by Sarah A. Solovay and John H. Mueller. Edited by George E. G. Catlin. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.

This book advances Durkheim’s conception of social facts, sociology as an objective science, and the methods of investigation. First published in 1895. Copyright renewed in 1966.

Durkheim, Emile. 1951. Suicide . Translated by John A. Spaulding and George Simpson. New York: Free Press.

This scientific investigation of suicide exemplifies Durkheim’s theory of anomie and is considered the first sociological study. First published in 1897 as Le Suicide: Étude de sociologie (Paris: Alcan). First translated 1930 by Marcel Mauss.

Durkheim, Emile. 2002. Moral education . Translated by Everett K. Wilson and Herman Schnurer. Mineola, NY: Dover.

Originally published in 1961. This book of lectures conveys Durkheim’s belief that morality is learned through a process of developing self-discipline and understanding the importance of the collective interest across individuals.

Hobbes, Thomas. 1957. Leviathan, or, The matter, forme and power of a commonwealth, ecclesiasticall and civil . Edited by Michael Oakeshott. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Reprint. One of the Enlightenment thinkers who wrote about human nature, the social contract, and sovereign rule during the English Civil War. First published in 1651.

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Social Control Theory in Criminology Essay

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Control theories represent one of the sociological explanations for delinquent behavior. Travis Hirschi is a popular control theorist who presented a social control theory; Edward Ross, Walter Reckless, and Jackson Toby are other contributors to its development (Cullen, Agnew, & Wilcox, 2017; Alvarez, 2018). The main idea of the theory is that social bonds are the most significant factors that can prevent individuals from engaging in unlawful activities. To understand the main claims of Hirshi’s work, it is necessary to analyze the concept of social control in detail.

The main components of the theory are commitment, attachment, involvement, and belief (Smith, 2017). The first factor is related to an individual’s desire to achieve conventional, law-abiding goals and willingness to adhere to social expectations.

The theory claims that acceptance of social norms can prevent individuals from committing crimes. The study by Cretacci, Rivera, Gao, and Zheng (2018) supports this argument and shows that commitment can constrain delinquency. Involvement refers to people’s participation in activities related to their goals. Cretacci et al. (2018) report, however, that not all types of involvement can prevent a person from engaging in unlawful activities.

The attachment factor is associated with individuals’ bonds with their families, partners, and peers, which eliminates their desire to offend against the law. Cretacci et al. (2018) add that parental attachment may be the most influential. Finally, belief refers to a person’s attitude towards the rules of society. The more individuals agree with the fairness of existing norms, the less likely they are to commit a crime (Cretacci et al., 2018). It is possible to say that this factor exclusively cannot have a significant impact on a person; there should be a combination of several components. In summary, the social control theory presents a reliable explanation for delinquent behavior.

Alvarez, C. (2018). Testing social bond theory on Hispanic youth . Web.

Cretacci, M. A., Rivera, C., Gao, Y., & Zheng, L. (2018). Bonding to Bamboo: A social control explanation of Chinese crime. International Journal of Criminal Justice Sciences , 13 (1), 122.

Cullen, F. T., Agnew, R., & Wilcox, P. (2017). Criminological theory: Past to present: Essential readings (6th ed.). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Smith, M. (2017). Prison programming and recidivism as a method of social bond theory: A meta-analysis of research from 2000-2015. Web.

• Anomie and Strain Crime Theories
• Feminist Theory of Delinquency by Chesney-Lind
• The Social Control Theory by Travis Hirschi
• "References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot" by Rivera
• Rivera's "Marisol" Drama on the Stage
• Crime Theories: Shooting in Northwest Washington
• White-Collar Crime Theories and Their Development
• Crimes in Biological, Psychological, Sociological Theories
• Genetic and Social Bond Theories in Criminology
• Offenders’ Age and Anti-Black Hate Crimes
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Control Theory

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Community control: criminality, community social organization, cultural organization, deviant opportunities, directs controls ; Criminal phenomenon: crime, criminal, criminality ; Event control: criminal event, routines activities, presentness, occasions ; Personal control: criminal behavior, social control, self-control, models, constraints

The central notion of our theory is control. Control as the exercise of restraining and directing influences over the criminal phenomenon. The criminal phenomenon involves three embedded levels: the crime, the criminal, and the criminality. In appropriate contexts, control triggers conformity in harmony with social and moral expectations. The restraining and directing influences for each levels of the criminal phenomenon are the result of four mechanisms: bonding, unfolding, modeling, and constraining. Our theoretical statement is an expansion of existing psychological and sociological theories and a mixture of various control...

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Control Theories of Crime and Deviance

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Last Updated on November 16, 2023 by Karl Thompson

‘Social Control’ Theory sees crime as a result of social institutions losing control over individuals. Weak institutions such as certain types of families, the breakdown of local communities, and the breakdown of trust in the government and the police are all linked to higher crime rates.

Control theory doesn’t so much ask the question “Why do they do it?”. The question control theorists asks is “Why don’t we do it”.

Control Theory: Key Points:

Hirschi: bonds of attachment.

‘Delinquent acts result when the individual’s bond to society is weak or broken’ (1969:16)  Hirschi, T. (1969). Causes of delinquency. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Travis Hirschi (1969) argued that criminal activity occurs when an individual’s attachment to society is weakened. This attachment depends on the strength of social bonds that hold people to society. According to Hirschi there are four social bonds that bind us together – Attachment; Commitment; Involvement and Belief.

Hirschi later developed control theory with Gottfredson – they claimed crime flows from low self-control. It provides an immediate gratification of desires that appeals to those who cannot postpone pleasure. 

In the main it requires little skill or planning and it can be intrinsically enjoyable because it involves exercising cunning, agility, deception or power. Required lack of sympathy for the victim but did not provide long term benefits like those from more orthodox careers. 

Thus crime committed by those who were impulsive, insensitive, and short-sighted.

Who commits crime according to Control Theory…?

According to this theory one would predict the ‘typical delinquent’ to be young, single, unemployed and probably male. Conversely, those who are married and in work are less likely to commit crime – those who are involved and part of social institutions are less likely to go astray.

Politicians of all persuasions tend to talk in terms of social control theory. Jack Straw from the labour party argued that ‘lads need dads’ and David Cameron made recent speeches about the importance of the family and the problems associated with absent fathers. These views are also popular with the right wing press, which often reminds their (middle class, nuclear family) readers that ‘Seventy per cent of young offenders come from lone-parent families; children from broken homes’.

Developments of Control Theory

Harriet Wilson (1980) researched socially deprived families in Birmingham. She concluded that parents who closely chaperoned their children was the key variable in preventing offending. Some parents were convinced their local neighbourhood was so dangerous and contaminating that they kept their children under close supervision. They escorted them to school, kept them indoors as much as possible and prohibited them from playing with other children they thought were undesirable. Wilson called this practice ‘chaperonage’ and children subjected to it had lower rates of offending. In short, parents who controlled their children more prevented them from offending. 

Hagan et al theorised that deviance which involves fun and excitement in public spaces was more open to men than women. Women are less likely to engage in risk-taking behaviour in public because they are more subject to control at home. This works in two ways: firstly it means women are less visible to formal agents of social control such as the police, so less likely to be processed formally as deviants or criminals. Secondly, women are more likely to subject themselves to internal control: they are less likely to engage in deviant acts in public because they are more likely to be shamed for doing so. 

An extension of this theory is that the more firmly structured and hierarchical the family and the clearer the distinction between male and female roles, the greater the difference between rates of male and female offending. This is the basis of Pat Carlen’s ‘gender deal’ theory. Women are more likely to offend when they leave the formal constraints of being in a traditional female gender role subject to male control. 

They argued that marriage, employment and military service can act as a changing point in the life-course. At these times men develop new connections, new responsibilities and reflect on their lives. 

The study reinforced the idea that it is the fundamental, formal connections to society which usually help prevent deviance. 

One criticism of this study is that it ignored domestic violence and offending within the military.

Contemporary Supporting evidence for Social Control Theory

Martin Glyn has pointed out that many young offenders suffer from what he calls ‘parent deficit’ . He argues that this is the single most important factor in explaining youth offending. He argues that children need both discipline and love, two things that are often both absent with absent parents.

Criticisms of Social Control Theory

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Social Control Theory is a major component of consensus theories of crime, usually taught as part of the Crime and Deviance module within the AQA’s A-level sociology specification

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Article contents

Self-control theory and crime.

• Michael Gottfredson Michael Gottfredson Criminology, Law and Society, University of California, Irvine
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264079.013.252
• Published online: 27 July 2017

Gottfredson and Hirschi advanced self-control theory in 1990 as part of their general theory of crime. Self-control is defined as the ability to forego acts that provide immediate or near-term pleasures, but that also have negative consequences for the actor, and as the ability to act in favor of longer-term interests. An individual’s level of self-control is influenced by family or other caregiver behavior early in life. Once established, differences in self-control affect the likelihood of delinquency in childhood and adolescence and crime in later life. Persons with relatively high levels of self-control do better in school, have stronger job prospects, establish more stable interpersonal relationships, and attain higher income and better health outcomes. Self-control theory was initially constructed to reconcile the age, generality, and stability findings of criminological research with the standard assumptions of control theory. As such, it acknowledges the general decline in crime with age, versatility in types of problem behaviors engaged in by delinquents and offenders, and the generally stable individual differences in the tendency to engage in delinquency and crime over one’s life-course. Self-control theory applies to a wide variety of illegal behaviors (most crimes) and to many noncrime problem behaviors, including school problems, accidents, and substance abuse.

A considerable amount of research has been undertaken on self-control theory and on Gottfredson and Hirschi’s general theory of crime. As a result, self-control theory is likely the most heavily researched perspective in criminology during the past 30 years. Most reviews find substantial empirical support for the principal positions of the theory, including the relationship between levels of self-control and delinquency, crime, and other problem behaviors. These relationships appear to be strong throughout life, among most groups of people, types of crime, in the United States and other countries, and over time. The posited important role of the family in the genesis of self-control is consistent with substantial bodies of research, although some researchers argue in favor of important genetic components for self-control. The theory’s expectations about the age distribution of crime, versatility of offending, and stability of individual differences over long periods of time also receive substantial support. Researchers have long studied variations in age effects, particularly seeking continuously high levels of offending for the most serious offenders, but reviewers have found that the evidence for meaningful variability is not convincing.

For public policy, self-control theory argues that the most promising approach for crime reduction focuses primarily on prevention, especially in early childhood, and secondarily on situational prevention for specific types of crimes. Gottfredson and Hirschi argue that self-control theory is inconsistent with reliance on the criminal justice system to affect crime levels. On the one hand, general reviews of the empirical literature on deterrence and incapacitation support the expectations of self-control theory by finding little support for severity of sanctions, sanctions long removed from the act, and selective incapacitation for “serious offenders.” On the other hand, experimental studies from education, psychology, and criminology generally support the idea that early-childhood family and educational environments can be altered to enhance self-control and lower expected delinquency, crime, and other problem behaviors later in life.

• self-control
• general theory of crime
• control theory
• age and crime
• self-regulation
• criminal careers
• family and crime
• generality of deviance
• Gottfredson and Hirschi

Self-Control Theory

Self-control theory, proposed by Michael Gottfredson and Travis Hirschi in A General Theory of Crime ( 1990 ), is a widely researched perspective in criminology focusing on individual differences in attention to the consequences of one’s actions as a general cause of delinquency, crime, and analogous behaviors. They argue that those who learn early in life to exercise self-control will have much less involvement in delinquency, crime, and other problem behaviors (such as substance abuse, accidents, and employment problems) later in life. Those who develop high levels of self-control in childhood will be less likely to be delinquent as adolescents and less likely to be arrested or convicted as adults; have greater success in school; obtain more successful employment; attain higher incomes; and even experience many and better health outcomes throughout life.

Concept of Self-Control

As Gottfredson and Hirschi use the term, self-control refers to the ability to forego immediate or near-term pleasures that have some negative consequences and to the ability to act in favor of longer-term interests. It is related to concepts such as self-regulation and impulsivity in psychology (Baumeister & Heatherton, 1996 ; Moffitt, Poulton, & Caspi, 2013 ), time discounting and skill formation in economics (Heckman, 2006 ), and social control in sociology (Hirschi, 1969 ). For self-control theory, important negative consequences can include physical harm, legal sanctions, removal from educational institutions, or disappointment or disapproval of family, teachers, and friends. Gottfredson and Hirschi argue that most crime and delinquency can be seen as the pursuit of relatively immediate and easy benefits or immediate and momentary pleasures, and therefore acts of delinquency and crime tend to be disproportionately undertaken by individuals with relatively low self-control.

Self-control is not regarded as either a predisposition to crime or a personality trait for crime and delinquency. Rather, self-control is understood as an inclination to focus on the short term rather than the long term, on immediate gratification of needs, and on wants and desires (whatever they may be), and not on the longer-term negative consequences of behavior. Self- control theory is a choice theory rather than a deterministic one. In fact, self-control is not a concept specifically focused on crime—low self-control does not require delinquency and crime, nor does it compel it. High self-control can be described as part of social capital or social advantage, since it helps to create successful outcomes for many life experiences and beneficial results from social institutions, including education, the labor market, and interpersonal relations (such as marriage).

Control Theories

Self-control theory belongs to a general class of crime theories, which include social control theory (Hirschi, 1969 ) and deterrence theory, each of which builds on the assumptions of the classical school in criminology (Beccaria, 1764 ; Bentham, 1789 ). According to these theories, people tend to act in accordance with the principles of rationality and self-interest (Gottfredson, 2011a ). These theories do not assume that people are inherently bad or immoral; rather, they assume that all people seek to pursue common motivations in accordance with their own view of self-interest and to maximize pleasure and avoid pain.

Control theories in criminology build on these assumptions by focusing on the constellation of controls (personal, social, legal, and situational) that inhibit the pursuit of self-interest via antisocial and problem behaviors. Control theories try to predict differences among individuals and groups in the constellation of these controls, which in turn will indicate which people, groups, and settings will have the most delinquency and crime (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990 ). Gottfredson and Hirschi argue that personal and social controls (as opposed to legal controls, emphasized by deterrence theories) are the most important factors in causing delinquency and crime. Control theories are sometimes referred to as restraint theories because it is the absence of effective restraints (from self, friends, family, and social institutions) that causes differences among people in crime and delinquency, rather than differences in motivations or incentives for crime.

According to self-control theory, people are not inherently criminal, nor are they socialized into crime; rather, people differ in the extent to which they have developed self-control and attend to the controls in their environment which inhibit crime and delinquency. Self-control and social control theories are appropriately regarded as socialization theories, since they focus on the factors that teach adherence to norms and social rules, assuming that children require training in how to conform to these expectations.

According to self-control theory, there is variability in the extent to which people are effectively taught these principles in childhood (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990 ; Hirschi & Gottfredson, 2003 ). The theory of self-control assumes that socialization differences in childhood produce a continuum among people (not discrete categories of “high and low” self-control) in their ability to focus on longer-term goals and that those with less self-control are more likely to engage in delinquent and criminal behavior than those with greater self-control. Once developed, individual differences in self-control remain relatively stable throughout life. It is not argued, however, that an individual’s self-control cannot change, particularly before adulthood, or that it is necessarily permanently “fixed” at an early age—stability is first an empirical observation .

A General Theory of Crime

Gottfredson and Hirschi described and justified self-control theory in their book A General Theory of Crime ( 1990 ) and amplified, extended, and supported it in numerous additional papers (especially Hirschi & Gottfredson, 1994 , 1995 , 2000 , 2008 ; Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1994 , 1995 ). Self-control is an important element of their theory of crime, for it is the principal individual-level cause of delinquency and crime. Although they cite many other causes of crime in their theory (such as age, family and school factors, and opportunities for crime), they describe self-control as a general cause of crime both because its influence is so strong and because differences in self-control affect many other factors (e.g., peers, school, and many other problem behaviors). It is therefore a major focus of their general theory.

Self-control theory was constructed to connect better modern control theories of crime with important facts from the empirical literature about crime and delinquency. In addition to the long-established family, school, and peer correlates of delinquency, of particular importance are consistency in the age, generality, and versatility effects for crime and delinquency. Self-control theory first emerged from a consideration of the age distribution of crime, as described by Hirschi and Gottfredson ( 1983 ). The form of the distribution of crime by age is striking and virtually invariant—delinquency/crime rates increase rapidly during adolescence, peak in late adolescence and early adulthood, decline rapidly in early adulthood, and then decline more gradually but continuously throughout life. Considerable research suggests that this distribution is typically found for all techniques of measurement and for all people, places, times, and crimes. The consistency of this relationship means that it resists explanation (at least by social and psychological concepts) and therefore creates challenges for most criminological theories. This is especially true when it is judged simultaneously with the stability effect: crime declines with age, and yet differences in the tendency to be involved in problem behaviors persist. The generality or versatility effect describes the lack of specialization in types of delinquencies or crimes committed by offenders and the tendency for problem behaviors to cluster together with crime in the same individuals (Hirschi & Gottfredson, 1994 ; Osgood et al, 1988 ; Donovan et al., 1991 ; Farrington, 2003 ).

Hirschi and Gottfredson ( 1986 ) argued that age and stability can be resolved for theory by distinguishing between crime (acts) on the one hand which changes with age and criminality (characteristics of people) on the other hand which does not. Therefore, both concepts are needed for a theory to be true. These distinctions indicated to them the importance of the personal characteristic of self-control and of the formulation of a different view of how crime should be defined for criminology. The theory they described in A General Theory of Crime has become one of the most heavily researched and cited perspectives in criminology.

Definition of Crime for Self-Control Theory

The theory of crime outlined by Gottfredson and Hirschi has a number of components that are integral to the theory and that distinguish it from other perspectives. One is the definition of the dependent variable for the theory—the definition of crime. For self-control theory, crime is defined as behaviors (events) that provide momentary or immediate satisfactions, but that have subsequent negative consequences. They have argued that crimes are essentially acts of force or fraud undertaken in pursuit of self-interest. Gottfredson and Hirschi thus use a behavioral rather than a legal definition of crime—although most criminal and delinquent acts qualify, not all do. Moreover, many noncriminal acts, such as many kinds of accidents, substance abuse, bullying, and school misconduct, qualify as acts with immediate benefits but subsequent costs (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990 ; Gottfredson, 2011b ).

According to their general theory, most delinquent and criminal acts are highly opportunistic, momentary or adventitious, and require little by way of planning. Typically, they are easily dissuaded by obstacles such as locks, lights, or the presence of other people. They often involve momentary advantage in personal relations (many assaults) or assertion of self-interests. They typically promise little gain for the offender (although they often have a high cost to the victim); they require little ingenuity (breaking a window, bullying themselves to the front of the line, hitting with an available instrument); they are not a path to success or status or the satisfaction of some deep-seated psychological issue. Rather, they provide common or normal human satisfactions or wants in what appears to be an easy way, but only by ignoring costs.

Armed with this definition, it may be seen that self-control explains why delinquencies, crimes, and other problem behaviors “go together”: they all disproportionately appeal to individuals with relatively low self-control. It also accounts for the lack of specialization in types of crimes and for the versatility effect: interpersonal violence, stealing, drug use, accidents, and school misbehavior are commonly found to be in association as a result of individual differences in self-control. All the acts associated with these problems provide some immediate benefit for the actor (money, pleasure, the end of a troubling dispute), and carry with them the possibility of harmful consequences to the actor or others.

Origins of Self-Control: Early Childhood and the Family

Self-control theory begins with the assumption that human nature shares the general tendency to pursue satisfaction of individual needs and desires. Left unregulated, the pursuit of these needs and desires causes inevitable conflict with others and, consequently, potentially harmful consequences to the actor. As a result, those who care about the child seek to train the child to restrict the pursuit of acts of self-interest that also causes harm to the self or to others, and to attend to the needs and wants of others. For self-control theory, this process is what socialization entails: “parental concern for the welfare or behavior of the child is a necessary condition for successful child-rearing” (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990 , p. 98). As the child develops, concerned and affectionate caregivers (parents, other relatives, friends and neighbors, and schools) monitor and sanction behavior harmful to the child and others. As a result, children are taught to pay attention to the longer-term consequences of their actions. When a caring adult is present in the developing child’s environment and takes an active role in socialization, high levels of self-control are established and appear to become a stable characteristic of the individual over the life-course. Sometimes, however, such early caregiving is not present in the child’s environment, because an adult who cares about the long-term interests of the child is not around or because the caregiver who is around lacks the skills or resources necessary to create self-control in the child.

As the child moves into formal school environments, the school can play an important role in developing self-control (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990 , p. 105). Of course, self-control also greatly enhances prospects for successful school experiences. The theory postulates differences among groups, nations, and over time in the level and success of this socialization process. According to control theory, these differences produce differences in levels of crime, violence, and other problem behaviors among individuals, communities, and cultures, and in different time periods.

Emphasis on the learning of self-control in early childhood and on the important roles of the family and school is consistent both with the results of a large research literature on family effects on delinquency (see, e.g., Hirschi, 1969 ; Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990 ; Hirschi & Gottfredson, 2003 ; Glueck & Glueck, 1950 ; West & Farrington, 1973 ; Loeber & Dishion, 1983 ; Loeber & Stouthamer-Loeber, 1986 ; Brannigan et al., 2002 ; Vazsonyi & Huang, 2010 ) and with demonstrations from control group studies that differences in family socialization practices affect both self-control and delinquency (Piquero et al., 2010 , 2016 ).

Some researchers question the strength of these environmental causes and claim to have discovered strong biological causes for self-control (e.g., Cullen, Unneaver, Wright, & Beaver, 2008 ; Wright & Beaver, 2005 ; see Vazsonyi et al., 2017 for a careful review). Gottfredson and Hirschi argue that the evidence does not support the claim that biology mandates or determines that particular individuals must engage in delinquency or crime or in the specific manifestations of the versatility effect (what they refer to as “biological positivism” (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990 , Ch. 3). Their self-control theory explicitly rejects the idea of a biological predisposition to crime or to delinquency (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990 , pp. 61–62), even as it has always allowed for biologically caused individual differences in amenability to environmental causes of self-control. But the strong evidence for family effects and the lack of support for biological compulsion would seem to support the claim of self-control theory that socialization is nearly always possible, given an amenable environmental setting conducive to development of self-control in childhood. (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990 ; Hirschi & Gottfredson, 2003 ; Gottfredson, 2006 ).

Increasingly, the literature in education and economics (Cunha & Heckman, 2007 ) also demonstrates the importance of early family environment for development of individual skills such as self-control. According to Heckman ( 2007 , p. 13250):

[T]hese skills are important determinants of educational attainment, crime, earnings, and participation in risky behavior. . . . Evidence of the importance of early environments on a spectrum of health, labor market, and behavioral outcomes suggests that common developmental processes are at work.

Self-control theory was influenced by the observation that people differ considerably in their tendency to ignore the long-term costs of their actions and that these differences appear before adolescence. When self-control becomes established, concern about parental disappointment, shame from family and friends, loss of affection, respect, and approval of significant others are the sanctions of greatest moment. With time, such concerns become a consistent and forceful part of the self and are carried throughout life. Self-control governs actions both consciously (some of the time) and preconsciously (much of the time), restraining unfettered self-interest, including commission of delinquent and criminal acts. A substantial body of recent scholarship from psychology, sociology, education, and child development is consistent with this model (Gottfredson, 2006 ; Baumeister & Heatherton, 1996 ; Moffitt et al., 2013 ; Heckman, 2006 ).

Foundational Facts for Self-Control Theory

Self-control theory was initially constructed with an appreciation for decades of research and literature on crime and delinquency. This literature represents an important foundation for theory, and as such the empirical status of self-control theory is tied ineluctably to the continuing validity of these correlates of crime and delinquency. They include the following (see, Gottfredson, 2006 ):

[T]the age distribution of crime, whatever the form of crime and whatever the characteristics of the person, peaks in late adolescence or early adulthood (around age 17–22) and declines sharply and continuously from this peak. [T]hat delinquents are less likely than nondelinquents to be closely tied to their parents is one of the best documented findings of delinquency research. There is enormous variability in the types of crime and delinquency committed by those who engage in crime and delinquency. . . . This versatility extends into analogous behavioral manifestations of low self-control such as truancy, dropping out of school, employment instability, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, child and spouse abuse, motor vehicle accidents, and unwanted pregnancy. The correlation between the delinquency of the subject and the delinquency of his or her friends is one of the strongest in the field. According to virtually all reviews of developmental research on antisocial and delinquent behavior . . . differences in antisocial behavior remain reasonably stable from the time they are first identified. Early antisocial behavior predicts antisocial behavior in adulthood. School performance . . . strongly predicts involvement in delinquent and criminal activities. Those who do well in school are unlikely to get into trouble with the law. (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1991 , p. 526; see also 1983 );(Hirschi, 1969 , p. 85);(Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1991 , p. 528);(Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990 , p. 154);(Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1991 , p. 527); and(Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990 , p. 107).

The fact that “early delinquency predicts later delinquency” provides two critical elements for the general theory that distinguishes it from other perspectives—the period of early childhood is extremely critical in the causation of crime and delinquency and the likelihood that childhood causes for problem behaviors will influence other causes coming later in life. The nature of self-control helps to account for the versatility effect—the fact that many delinquencies, crimes, and other problem behaviors seem to “go together” and that interpersonal violence, stealing, drug use, accidents, and school misbehavior are commonly found in association. The acts associated with these problems all provide some immediate benefit for the actor (money, pleasure, the end of a troubling dispute). But each also carries with it the possibility of harmful consequences. What differentiates people is not that such acts may provide them with benefits, but that some people routinely ignore the potential costs attendant on the acts and perform them anyway.

The strong and persistent correlates between attachment to parents (and from parents to children) and delinquency, and attachment to school and teachers and success in school, all strongly suggest that self-control is fostered by these relationships and by the success (or lack thereof) of parents and schools to effectively teach self-control or to teach children to care about and attend to their longer-term interests.

The empirical status of these foundational facts has not been in serious dispute among empirically oriented criminologists for decades. It seems safe to conclude that recent research continues to validate them (e.g., Vold et al., 2002 ; Farrington, 2003 ; Gottfredson, 2006 ).

Empirical Tests of Self-Control Theory

The concepts of self-control and self-regulation are among the most widely researched perspectives in several fields, ranging from psychology and public health to education and criminology (for examples of reviews for criminology, see Pratt & Cullen, 2000 ; Gottfredson, 2006 ; Heckman, 2006 , Cunha & Heckman, 2007 ; Engel, 2012 ; Baumeister & Heatherton, 1996 ; Caspi et al., 1998 ; Moffitt et al., 2011 ; Schulz, 2006 ; Tangney et al., 2004 ; Vazsonyi et al., 2017 ). For example, in the heavily cited Dundin, New Zealand, longitudinal study, childhood self-control predicted participants’ eventual (adult) financial socioeconomic position and income, substance use (tobacco, alcohol, cannabis, and street drugs), general health, as well as criminal convictions (net of social class and IQ) (Moffitt et al., 2011 , 2013 ; Caspi et al., 1998 ; Duckworth, 2011 ).

The extensive research literature focusing on various elements of the theory of self control makes brief summaries of the research difficult. Much of the literature focuses directly on the measurement of self-control and its relationship to delinquency, crime, or analogous acts. Other literature focuses on the causes of self-control and on family factors associated with crime more generally. Yet other pertinent literature focuses on Hirschi’s earlier description of social control factors (such as attachment to parents, supervision by parents, belief in the moral validity of the rules, and involvement in conventional activities)—all factors central to the meaning of self-control because they establish the most important costs to unfettered pursuit of self-interest (Hirschi, 2004 ; Gottfredson, 2006 ). Some evidence derives from studies initially focused on noncrime-dependent variables, such as education or health. Policy studies focusing on deterrence, incapacitation, and other putative criminal justice system effects are relevant to the theory. So also are studies directly researching age, stability, and versatility effects in criminology. As a result, the summary that follows is not meant to be exhaustive, but rather to include categories of evidence, with the greatest direct relevance to the overall validity of self-control theory for crime and delinquency.

Studies of the Direct Relationship between Self-Control and Crime

The general conclusion from contemporary research is that measures of self-control in childhood are regularly related, at a moderately strong level, to problem behaviors using a wide variety of measurement methods and study designs and in several disciplines. As Franken, Moffitt, and colleagues ( 2016 ) recently put it, “Impaired childhood self-control is highly important as it is associated with an abundance of negative life experiences, such as substance use, criminal offending, school dropout, or unplanned teenage pregnancies, and with negative long term health and financial outcomes . . . [also] adolescents with lower self-control are more likely to have deviant friends.”

The direct relationship literature has focused on the relationship between self control and characteristics of people, on the strength of the relationship for different places or cultures, for different types of crime or other problem behaviors, and over time. Vazsonyi et al. ( 2001 ) show self-control effects for males and females from four different countries and for five different age groups. Vazsonyi and Crosswhite ( 2003 ) show similar results for African American and Caucasian adolescents. DeLisi ( 2001a , 2001b ) shows self-control effects among offender samples, and Baron ( 2003 ) provides them for property crime, drug use, and violent crime among homeless youths. Tittle et al. ( 2003 ) indicate that the self-control relationship holds for nonstudent adults, college students, youths, males and females, those with and without official criminal backgrounds, and among people in various countries and places. Tittle and colleagues also argue that “many types of measures of self-control predict a variety of acts. At least some measures of self-control predict some misbehavior for cross-sectional and longitudinal samples, as well as for experimental subjects” ( 2003 , p. 144).

Vazsonyi and colleagues ( 2001 ) show common self-control effects for adolescent samples in the United States, Switzerland, Hungary, and the Netherlands. Moffitt et al. ( 2013 ) demonstrate the relevance of self-control in New Zealand. Self-control has been used to explain differences within Japan (Vazsonyi et al., 2004 ) and in Spain (Romero, Luengo, & Sobral, 2001 ). Vazsonyi et al., ( 2015 ) show self-control effects for 11 different countries.

Perrone et al. ( 2004 ) cite 13 studies of different crime types and analogous behaviors supporting the relationship between self-control and crime. Vazsonyi et al. ( 2001 ) show effects for theft and assault, alcohol and drugs, vandalism, and general deviance. Misconduct for active offenders (failure to appear, probation and parole arrests) is studied by DeLisi ( 2001a , 2001b ), serious delinquency by Junger and Tremblay ( 1999 ), intimate violence by Sellers ( 1999 ), crime by Brownfield and Sorenson ( 1993 ) and Gibbs et al. ( 1998 ), occupational delinquency among juveniles by Wright and Cullen ( 2000 ), a wide variety of delinquent acts and drug use in French-speaking Canadian samples by LeBlanc and Girard ( 1997 ), general delinquency in a national probability sample of adolescents by DeLisi ( 2004 ), white-collar offending by Blickle et al. ( 2006 ), and general deviance by Gibbs et al. ( 1998 , 2003 ).

The literature includes impressive demonstrations of the scope of versatility effects and of the connection between self-control and problem behaviors generally. An excellent example is Junger and Tremblay ( 1999 ), who provide evidence of the relation between accidents and delinquency and the relation between self-control and other problem behaviors (see also Junger et al., 2001 ). In general, the connection between self-control and the wide variety of analogous acts is documented by Perrone et al. ( 2004 ) for a list that includes cheating, drugs, accidents, traffic risks, school truancy, misbehavior, and dropout; school problems by Nakhaie, Silverman, and LaGrange ( 2000 ); accidents by Keane et al. ( 1993 ); cheating by Gibbs and Giever ( 1995 ); drinking, drug use and delinquency among adolescents by Zhang et al. ( 2002 ); grade point averages, self-esteem, binge eating, alcohol abuse, interpersonal relationships, and optimal emotional responses by Tangney et al.( 2004 ); cigarette use, early unwed parenthood and early marriage by Martino et al. ( 2004 ); attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and bullying by Unnever and Cornell ( 2003 ); risky sex, driving behavior, academic dishonesty and gambling in college samples by Jones and Quisenberry ( 2004 ); and unemployment and homelessness by Baron ( 2003 ). Pinker ( 2011 ) argues that self-control changes substantially explain the general decline in violence across centuries.

Meta-analyses and General Reviews of Self-Control Research

A number of meta-analyses have been undertaken that are specifically focused on the relationship between self-control as described by Gottfredson and Hirschi and a dependent variable of delinquency or crime (Pratt & Cullen, 2000 ; Engel, 2012 ; Vazsonyi et al., 2017 ; see also the general review by Schulz, 2006 ; a related meta-analysis using a related concept of self-control and a broad range of outcome variables has been provided by de Ridder et al., 2012 ). Each of these studies finds consistent evidence that self-control is associated with delinquency, crime, and other problem behaviors. Pratt and Cullen’s ( 2000 ) widely cited study examined research selected for rigor published between 1993 and 1999 . This included 21 studies and 49,727 individual cases. They concluded that their estimated effect size in excess of .20 “would rank self-control as one of the strongest known correlates of crime” and that “future research omitting self-control from its empirical analyses risks being misspecified” ( 2000 , p. 952).

Vazsonyi et al. ( 2017 ) substantially updates the Pratt and Cullen study and includes a larger number of qualified studies, published between 2000 and 2010 . A total of 99 studies with over 200,000 subjects were included. They found random effects mean correlation between self-control and crime and deviance of .415 for cross-sectional studies and .345 for longitudinal studies (design difference was not significant). The strongest effects of low self-control in their study were discovered for “general deviance” ( r = .56) and for physical violence ( r = .46). They concluded that their study of some of the best available research

provided strong and convincing evidence, based on about 100 cross-sectional and longitudinal studies, that a strong link between low self-control and deviance or crime exists and that it does not greatly vary across modes of assessment, across study designs (cross-sectional versus longitudinal), across measures of deviance, across different populations within the United States, but also across samples across cultures. In this sense, self-control theory has established itself as one of the most influential pieces of theoretical scholarship during the past century, as it continues to stand up to a plethora of rigorous empirical tests. (Vazsonyi et al., 2017 , p. 30).

Thus, with respect to reviews of some of the most rigorous research, reviewers consistently report strong validity for self-control theory from several disciplines and methodologies. In fact, reviews place the empirical support for the theory as among the strongest known to criminology. According to DeLisi ( 2005 , p. 91):

Empirically, the relationship between low self-control and various antisocial outcomes has been nothing short of spectacular. Dozens of studies have explicitly tested the theory and found that low self-control was predictive of failure in family relationships, dating, attachment to church, educational attainment, and occupational status; risky traffic behavior; work-related deviance; having criminal associates and values; residing in a neighborhood perceived to be disorderly; and noncompliance with criminal justice system statuses. Moreover, persons with low self-control are significantly more likely to engage in drinking alcohol; substance abuse; smoking; gambling; violent, property, white-collar, and nuisance offending, and they are more likely to be victimized.

Validity Evidence from Policy Studies: Criminal Justice versus Childhood Prevention Programs

Gottfredson and Hirschi ( 1990 ) argue that self-control theory has strong implications for public policies about delinquency and crime. The focus on early-childhood socialization and on the family provides a clear public polity alternative to the influential criminal career focus on imprisonment and policing. Because major causes of crime originate in early childhood, there is considerable promise in programs that direct resources toward child care among high-risk populations. A large number of experimental studies focusing on parenting or child caregiver effects on delinquency and other problem behaviors now indicate strongly that such programs do indeed have important effects in reducing the level of delinquency.

Gottfredson and Hirschi ( 1990 , 1995 ; see also Gottfredson, 2006 ) and Moffitt et al. ( 2011 , 2013 ) argue that the relative stability of self-control provides a good reason to look for the potential benefits of focusing on early childhood and the development of self-control for crime prevention policy. A burgeoning research literature based on relatively strong research designs now clearly supports the idea that substantial and lasting prevention effects can be achieved by affecting early-childhood experiences in ways designed to enhance socialization and monitoring. Greenwood’s ( 2006 ) careful review provides a classification of six types of effective programs, ranging from home visits by nurses to parent training (see also Eckenrode et al., 2001 ; Olds et al., 1998 ). Piquero and colleagues ( 2009 , 2016 ) performed meta-analyses of studies of parenting undertaken with children under 5 years of age. In the 78 studies meeting their criteria for inclusion, and using self-report criteria for delinquency, they reported a mean effect size of .37. In a companion review, Piquero et al. ( 2010 ) focused on self-control training in random design studies ( n = 34) that sought self-control improvement among young children. They concluded that not only was it possible to systematically alter self-control, but that these interventions reduced delinquency. Similarly, Heckman ( 2006 ) found an array of early-childhood education research to bolster his argument that family environments variously foster skills essential to crime and health, as well as school and workplace success. An economist, he argues strongly that the financial returns to society from early intervention greatly exceed those from later interventions, such as those available to the criminal justice system.

Gottfredson ( 2006 ) argued that these early-intervention studies that experimentally produce variation in socialization and monitoring experiences, coupled with good follow-up measures, are, in fact, properly seen as validity studies for self-control theories. These studies manipulate levels of self-control in experimental groups and contrast the outcomes with nonintervention groups selected at random. They show an effect on delinquency for the self- control changes, clearly supporting the theory and its emphasis on early family relationships.

Given the age, stability, and generality effects, it is clear that prevention focused on early intervention would be the more cost effective and consequential as a means of reducing the amount of crime than prevention focused on adult interventions such as policing and incarceration. The threat of severe future sanctions can have little effect on the behavior of those unlikely to know or care about them (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990 ; Gottfredson, 2011a , 2013 ). Research on policing is consistent with this expectation (Gottfredson, 2011a , 2013 ), as is the now widely agreed finding of a general lack of influence of long-term imprisonment on crime rates (Gottfredson, 2011a , 2013 ). On this point, the recent conclusions of a panel of the National Research Council are instructive: “one of our most important conclusions is that the incremental deterrent effect of increases in lengthy prison sentences is moderate at best.” The Research Council similarly critiques the use of incarceration for incapacitation: “because recidivism rates decline markedly with age and prisoners necessarily age as they serve their prison sentence, lengthy prison sentences are an inefficient approach to preventing crime by incapacitation” ( 2014 , p. 131). Given the consistency of these findings with the predictions of self-control theory, it is appropriate to view the findings of lack of severity effects and lack of incapacitation effects in criminal justice as providing validation for the theory.

Self-control theory is also consistent with much of the evidence about “situational crime prevention” (Clarke, 1995 ; Bennett, 1998 ). These policies seek to take advantage of the idea that some crime events can be reduced by lowering the attractiveness of the target to the offender (e.g., make cash less available) or by establishing obvious barriers to them (lighting, locks, observers). Because self-control theory does not see strong, unique motivations for most crimes and regards most crimes as adventitious acts focused on opportunities plainly in the environment, the plausibility of such crime-specific methods is consistent with the theory. In fact, the effectiveness of programs that make immediate sanctions clear can be regarded as validity studies for self-control predictions.

Contemporary Research on Age, Generality, and Stability Effects

In part owing to the conflicting expectations of general theory with the criminal career perspective (cf. Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1986 , 1990 , 2016 with Blumstein et al., 1986 ), a great deal of research interest has centered on depicting age, generality, and stability effects over the last several decades. This has resulted in a large empirical literature, using widely different methods, definitions, and samples. Several recent reviews in each of these areas have sought to summarize the literature on these topics in terms of the theory of self-control.

Results from the decades-long search for meaningful discrepancies from the now standard “age–crime curve,” particularly for “serious offenders” or for individuals whose high level of offending does not decline substantially with age, are compatible with the age-invariance hypothesis and its implications for theory and policy. For example, a recent report from the National Research Council of the National Academies on the causes and consequences of incarceration summarized the evidence:

The criminal career model assumes that the offending rate is constant over the course of the criminal career. However, large percentages of crimes are committed by young people, with rates peaking in the midteenage years for property offences and the late teenage years for violent offenses, followed by rapid declines . . . application of group-based trajectory modeling . . . show(s) that the offending trajectories of all identified groups decline sharply with age ( 2014 , p. 143).

In arguably the most important study of criminal careers to date, Laub and Sampson ( 2003 , pp. 565–569) offer more specific information on this point: “[T]he classic age pattern (Hirschi & Gottfredson, 1983 ) is replicated even within a population that was selected for their serious, persistent delinquent activity.” Laub and Sampson describe the pattern of crime with age for serious offenders in their data as “fractal” of the overall distribution. (See also results and discussion of Danish data in Kyvsgaard, 2003 , Ch. 17.)

In some samples, however, interpretation of the age data for offenders is controversial, particularly studies employing statistical “trajectory” methods (see, e.g., Macmillan, 2008 ). Recent, independent reviews of this statistical taxonomy literature (which searches for different “trajectories” of offending as subjects age) do not find consistent support for meaningful differential distributions by age (e.g., Skardhamar, 2009 , p. 874). Summarizing two decades of taxonomic research using trajectory methodology in an effort to find significant groups of serious offenders who deviate from the standard age distribution of offending, Erosheva, Matsueda, and Telesca ( 2014 ) concluded that

the estimated trajectory groups in criminology exhibit weakly unimodal shapes with some differences in the level and timing of offending. This finding is consistent with the age-invariance thesis proposed by Hirschi and Gottfredson ( 1983 ). Empirically identified trajectory groups do not reveal the life-course persistent group with a constant rate of offending that criminal career and dual taxonomy approaches predict. ( 2014 , p. 316).

The self-control thesis for age in self-control theory is that the effect of age on crime and analogous behaviors is invariant across social and cultural conditions and that it applies to all demographic groups. Stability and versatility effects can be derived from it, and it enables a general theory by showing that diverse acts spread over the life course have common causes. It has implications for social policy and research design. It implies that conceptually similar measures of self-control will have similar effects at different ages and that policies like incapacitation will not be effective ways to lower crime rates. It thus “organizes in a consistent way an enormously diverse body of criminological findings” (Hirschi & Gottfredson, 1994 , pp. 12–14). This diverse body of research to which age invariance pertains continues to suggest that it is the most tenable reading of the scientific research.

Generality or versatility continues to be regularly reported in research, even though some modest “specialization” in crime-type can be discovered statistically in large samples of recidivists (DeLisi, 2005 ). As summarized by Farrington ( 2003 , p. 223), “offending is versatile rather than specialized . . . including heavy drinking, reckless driving, sexual promiscuity, bullying, and truancy.” An impressive body of empirical literature has extended the versatility finding well beyond the traditional definitions of crime and delinquency, to accidents, health and welfare behaviors (Cunha & Heckman, 2007 ; Heckman, 2006 , 2007 ; Moffitt et al., 2011 ; Junger et al., 2001 ; Donovan et al., 1991 ). DeLisi and Piquero ( 2011 , p. 291) put it this way: “There is a large stock of research on offense specialization and/or versatility (23 citations omitted). A main conclusion is that the preponderance of offenders, and by preponderance we mean virtually all offenders, are generalists” (see also DeLisi, 2005 , p. 40).

The stability concept of self-control theory has also received research attention, with some scholars questioning the strength of the finding as a basis for self-control theory (e.g., Pratt, 2016 ). However, self-control theory is based on the well-substantiated observation of the substantial correlation over time between measures of early delinquency and subsequent offending. The relative stability of individual differences in crime, delinquency, and problem behaviors over the life-course is one of the most consistently reported findings in the field—although it is not by any means a perfect correlation (see the preceding discussion). The empirical observation is clearly substantial enough to indicate that a persistent individual characteristic or skill (self-control) is a major source. It is not, as Gottfredson and Hirschi repeatedly point out, a fact that implies that self-control is not caused, cannot change, can be measured by the same indicators at all points in life, or cannot be purposefully manipulated. The evidence remains substantial and consistent with the theory that self-control differences can be measured early in life and that these differences help predict later offending and movement into and out of many social, educational, and interpersonal roles throughout life.

The stability of the personal characteristic of self-control used by Gottfredson and Hirschi and the “lifelong impact of self-control” argued by Moffitt and colleagues (Moffitt et al., 2013 is inferred from the number of problem behaviors measured at different points in time. Researchers who report short-term instability in self-control typically use self-reported attitudinal or personality instruments that themselves have substantial unreliability. This unreliability is confounded with the “stability” of self-control and results in misleading estimates of stability. In any event, recent research does not alter Farrington’s claim that “there is marked continuity in offending and antisocial behaviors from childhood to teenage years to adulthood [citations omitted]. This means there is relative stability of ordering of people on some measure of antisocial behavior over time, and that people who commit relatively many offenses during one age range have a high probability of also committing relatively many offenses during another age range”( 2003 , p. 223).

Measurement of self-control is an active and important area of research and commentary about self-control theory. Strong arguments can be made for behavioral measurement of self-control rather than measures based on self-reported characteristics. How self-control should be measured at different points in the life-course (childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, and so on) is a key issue for future research. (For discussions of other measurement issues in self-control theory, see Hirschi & Gottfredson, 1994 ; Marcus, 2000 , 2003 , 2004 ; Schulz, 2006 ; and Duckworth & Kern, 2011 .)

Research on Self-Control Selection Effects versus “Treatment” Effects

Self-control theory assumes that the individual characteristic of self-control affects decisions, associations, and affiliations to some degree throughout life. The selection of friends, partners, and institutional affiliations (e.g., continued schooling and jobs) will be influenced by differences in personal attributes like self-control. As a result, nonexperimental research without random assignment has difficulty sorting out the influence of affiliations (like peers or marriage partners or jobs) on individual crime rates as opposed to the influence of self-control (which may well have substantially caused the selection) or simply the effects of expected declines with age. Absent random allocation studies (difficult for obvious reasons), researchers look for various matching designs or noncontrol group methods to ascertain causal effects for such “treatments.” Presently, independent reviews argue that the results of this research regarding adult transitions (such as marriage effects) can be used to support both interpretations equally well (see, e.g., Skardhamar et al., 2015 ). The role of “peer groups” is similarly active and controversial in the empirical literature. Gottfredson and Hirschi ( 1990 , Ch. 7) point out several implications of self-control theory for the study of peer effects, ranging from inherent weaknesses with self-reported measures of peer delinquency to selection effects. The strongest contemporary research is consistent with their arguments (Matsueda & Anderson, 1998 ; Franken et al., 2016 ), but given the centrality of peer effects to various theories of delinquency, research on this topic will remain active.

The Importance of Self-Control Theory to Criminology

Since Gottfredson and Hirschi’s ( 1990 ) initial statement, self-control has developed as one of criminology’s central theoretical concepts. Virtually all texts in criminology and juvenile delinquency devote considerable attention to the claims of the general theory of crime, to the role of self-control in crime causation, and, more recently, to the policy implications of self-control theory. Self-control theory is heralded as parsimonious and clear, wide in scope, and provocative of research and commentary by others. On these grounds, self-control theory has behaved extremely well as a scientific theory for criminology. Control theories generally have been incorporated into a wide variety of “integrated” theories as a signal that much is to be gained by attending to the precepts of the theory.

Increasingly, in the social and behavioral sciences generally, the ideas of self-control or self-regulation have garnered both empirical support and support for their strong policy implications. The importance of early-childhood environments for life-long positive outcomes of great moment and for the accumulation of advantages for individuals in society command attention. As summarized by Moffitt et al. ( 2011 ), “The need to delay gratification, control impulses, and modulate emotional expression is the earliest and most ubiquitous demand that societies place on their children, and success at many life tasks depends critically on children’s mastery of such self-control” (p. 2693).

Further Reading

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6 Self Control, Social Control, Morality, and Opportunity in a Choice Theory of Crime

• Published: October 2019
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Control theory is consistent with the notion of situational crime prevention and many of the ideas that support it. This chapter discusses several contemporary issues in control theory, including the connection between self-control theory and social control theory, the connection between morality and crime, and the role and conception of the opportunity or situational factors in a choice theory of crime causation. It is concluded that self and social control are the same theory operating under common logic, assumptions, and terms. Efforts to show them as competing are misguided. How situational causes are integrated into control theory and the connections among belief, morality, and self control are explored.

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• The Social Bond Theory by Travis Hirschi Words: 1161
• Criminological Theory: Context and Consequences Words: 1157
• Rational Choice and Social Control Theories Comparison Words: 3587
• Contemporary Theories in Criminology Words: 3215
• Deviance and Social Control Words: 1130
• Criminology Discipline and Theories Words: 1168
• Social Change Theory and Social Media Words: 854
• Overview of the Theories of Criminology Words: 1503
• Social Role Theory and Its Cultural Aspect Words: 1024
• Social Relationships: Why Do We Need Them? Words: 2074

Criminology: The Social Control Theory

Most criminologists used to take conformity, or compliance with social rules, for granted deeming it as a natural part of what it is like to be a human. As shown by Freud, there is always a certain tension between the needs of an individual and the needs of society. Though belonging to different schools of thought, Freud, Skinner, and Piaget concur that children learn social rules through exchanges with authority figures and interactions with peers (Lilly et al., 2018). Complying with them also increases their chances of survival because this way, they are able to fit in the group. A later theory, the theory of social control, draws on their research and suggests that conformity stems from strong social bonds and integration into society.

Hirschi, a well-known social control theorist, puts forward the idea that people who commit crimes are not much different from those who do not. Rationally, any person is capable of seeing the risks and benefits of a criminal offense. What serves as a predisposition for nonconformity is the social context characterized by ineffectual social controls (Lilly et al., 2018). Therefore, a person can seize the opportunity to break the law if benefits outweigh risks. For criminologists, the social control theory means that an effective approach to reducing crime might be to change not individuals but their social contexts.

The question arises as to who decides what is moral or not in human society. Today, there are theistic and evolutionary theories of how morals and ethics have been formed (Film Media Group, 2002). Krebs (2011) opines that the origins of morality can be traced back to primitive human societies of hunters and gatherers. The first humans soon realized that cooperation was needed for survival while misbehavior and transgression jeopardized the survivability of the entire group. Today, moral norms originate from and are maintained by society.

In his social bonds theory, Hirschi assumes that humans are naturally drawn to delinquent behaviors. However, there are four kinds of bonds that can serve as protective factors against misbehavior. By social bonds, the scholar understands the elements of social cohesion that help individuals with social integration. Below is the list of social bonds developed by Hirschi:

• attachment refers to the strengths of bonds that exist in an individual’s social environment. For adolescents, the most important bonds are those with parents, though others play a significant role as well;
• commitment signifies how much a person is dedicated to pursuing conventional goals. It is implied that the more a person invested in their pursuit, the more he or she has to lose;
• involvement means that if an individual is engaged in conventional activities, he or she will have less time for delinquent ones;
• belief describes the degree to which an individual has faith in the validity of social norms and conventions (Hirschi, 1998).

If a person already shows strong delinquent leanings, he or she might still be able to benefit from strengthened social bonds. It is better to analyze such situations on a case-to-case basis to determine individual protective factors present in a person’s life. In case a person’s family is alive, its members could be encouraged to get involved and provide moral support. A person might have hobbies or interests, which may be the key to engaging them in conventional activities. There, they can find peer support as well as learn valuable skills.

Films Media Group. (2002). Morality: Judgments and action . Films On Demand. Web.

Hirschi, T. (1998). Social bond theory. Criminological theory: Past to present. Los Angeles: Roxbury .

Krebs, D. (2011). The origins of morality: An evolutionary account . Oxford University Press.

Lilly, J. R., Cullen, F. T., & Ball, R. A. (2018). Criminological theory: Context and consequences . Sage Publications.

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