The Social Control Theory Of Crime

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

A large body of criminological research inspired by social control theory has focused on how variations in the strength of individuals’ bonds to family, community, school, and other conventional groups and institutions relate to patterns of self-reported and officially recorded deviant behavior. Social control theory has origins in the early works of the moral and utilitarian philosophers, the nineteenth-century writings of Émile Durkheim, and the early twentieth-century research of the Chicago School of sociology (Morris 1975). It is now counted among the leading sociological perspectives on crime and juvenile delinquency, largely because of the influence of Travis Hirschi's formulation and evaluation of control theory. Rather than focusing on an individual’s personality as a source of criminality, he focused on social relationships which he termed social bonds. No motivational factors were necessary for one to commit delinquency; the only requirement was the absence of control that allowed an individual to become free to weigh the benefits of crime over the costs of those same delinquent acts. There are four variables as to why individuals conform; according to Hirschi lack of attachment, commitment, involvement and belief (Hirschi 1969).

Attachment refers to the extent to which a person is attached to others. The more attached an individual becomes to others the less likely he/she will become delinquent. Primary attachments include parents, peers, teachers, religious leaders and other members of the community. Commitment is the rational component in conformity in other words, people fear law breaking behavior. A person don’t want to lose all he/she has worked all their life to obtain, whether it’s a good reputation, valuable education, good relationship with family etc. A person will have a substantial lose by violating laws. Involvement, according to Hirschi would keep a person’s time occupied so they would not be able to indulge in criminal activities. Someone that’s involved in work, activities or other positive things would not have time to commit deviant acts. On the other hand, this serves as an area for criticism because critics want to know how involvement would explain white collar crime, since they are engaged in work. The last social bond Hirschi refer to is belief. Belief is the existence of a common value system within the society, in other words a person is more likely to conform to social norms when he/she believes in them (Hirschi 1969).

Problems with the theory and the four variables in particular, according to critics are that they are confusion. Attachment has been confused as the strength of an internal, emotional bond that perhaps may grow more intense without interaction, but this is not the case. By commitment, Hirschi did not mean a deep, internal dedication of the self to others. By involvement he was not referring to emotional entanglements. By belief he did not mean a significant inner faith or a deep belief in something or someone. The bond he intended was much less internalized. Other criticisms with social control theory in general say that they fail to be effective in explaining adult criminal behavior and serious instances of youth crime. One of the biggest weaknesses of the theory mentioned is the fact that it places to much importance on the bonds relative to an individual and society, without looking at bigger concepts like autonomy and impulsiveness (McGrath 2009).

Social control theory was Hirschi’s major sociological contribution to criminology; similar in importance to strain and differential association. These theories all explain deviance in terms of the individual’s social relationships (Orcutt 2010). Sutherland asserts that the excess of definitions favorable to deviance over definitions unfavorable to violation of law makes a person become a deviant while associating with other persons. Sutherland believes that criminal behavior is learnable and learned with the interaction of other deviant peers and through this association they not only learn techniques of certain crimes, but also the rational and motive behind them (Sutherland 1974). Strain theory, which was Merton’s sociological contribution to criminology, says that crime is the function of the conflict between the goals people have and the means they can use to legally obtain them. In social disorganized areas, strain occurs because legitimate avenues for success are closed. Merton’s strain theory begins with the observation that wealth is a widespread American goal, but society does not provide everyone sufficient opportunity to obtain or achieve their goal. While success is usually gained through education and hard work, success gained through illegitimate means would violate social norms (Merton 1938).

This theory could be modified to better capitalize on the strengths and address it’s limitations by 1) not placing so much emphasis on the social bonds and look at the individual without incorporating social bonds because there are other factors and variables that lead to deviance or criminal behavior 2) Explain adult criminal behavior and how it relate to that of juvenile delinquency 3) It should address all types of crime 4) The theory should be empirically tested 5) the theory talks about the attachment one should have with parents, but it does not take in consideration of a single parent and the amount of children in the home. To better modify this take that in consideration.

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Hirschi, Travis. Causes of Delinquency. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969.

McGrath, Jenifer. "Criticisms of the General Theory of Crime." Yahoo. May 21, 2009. http://voices.yahoo.com/criticisms-general-theory-crime-3191669.html?cat=17 (accessed November 1, 2012).

Merton, Robert. "Social Structure and Anomie." American Sociological Review, 1938: 672-682.

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