 Most theories assume that people naturally obey the law and that special forces drive people to commit crime  Biological  Psychological  Social  Control theories (there are more than one) are different  Assume that people would commit crimes if left alone  Crime caused by weaknesses in restraining forces  Crime NOT caused by driving forces ▪ Not by biology, not by psychology, not by social structure  Therefore, to prevent crime, must have, devise and apply “controls”  Need cops, judges, parents, social rules, law-abiding friends and groups...

 Reiss – personal and social controls  Personal controls thru ego and superego  Failure to submit to social controls ▪ Skipping school, disciplinary problems  Toby – control through “stake in conformity”  Students who do well in school have better prospects, thus have more to lose  Contagion through peer support  Nye – social control through family  Direct control through punishment  Internal control - conscience  Indirect control (ID with parents & others)  Control depends on availability of means to satisfy needs

 Most delinquents (D’s) not intrinsically different from non-delinquents  D’s engage in law-abiding behavior most of the time  Most D’s usually grow out of delinquency  Drift: Weakening of the moral bind of the law  D’s don’t reject conventional mores: they neutralize them with excuses and justifications  “Sense of irresponsibility” – commit crimes but think they’re guiltless  “Sense of injustice” – wrongly dealt with by the CJ system  Once bond is weakened, factors take over that cause juvenile to choose delinquency  D’s beset by hopelessness and lack of control over future  D’s gain a sense of power through acting  Concept may not apply to serious D’s  They may not be “drifters” – may be committed or compulsive

 Individuals tightly bonded to conventional social groups less likely to be delinquent  Family  School  Non-delinquent peers  There are four elements of the social bond  Attachment to conventional others (affection, sensitivity to their feelings and needs)  Commitment to conventional society  Involvement in conventional activities  Belief in following conventional rules

 Attachment to conventional others  Boys more attached to parents report less delinquency  Boys less attached to or less successful in school report more delinquency  Boys more attached to peers reported less delinquency ▪ Attachment to D peers can increase D if other controls not in place  Commitment to conventional society  D’s have low educational and occupational aspirations  The higher the aspiration, the lower the D  Involvement in conventional activities  Youths who spent more time working, dating, watching TV, reading, etc. had higher D (inconsistent with control theory)  But: youths who reported being bored, spent less time on homework, more time talking to friends & riding around in cars also had higher D  Belief in following conventional rules  Youths who thought it OK to break the law reported more delinquency  No support for a “lower-class culture” – Delinquent beliefs held by academically incompetent youths from all social strata

 Hirschi tested only for relatively trivial misconduct – few seriously delinquent youths in the sample  Are different causal processes at work for serious delinquency?  Hirschi’s delinquency takes little time – it is not an all-consuming lifestyle, such as an active criminal gang  Hirschi assumes that control applies to all D behavior, trivial and serious  Hirschi assumes that D behavior does not need a specific cause – it is “naturally motivated”, requires no explanation other than it is “fun” ▪ Are shootings “natural”? ▪ Do individual pathologies matter? Aggression?  Much support for Hirschi’s theory is tautological  “Youths who thought it OK to break the law...reported more delinquency”  What’s the difference between one group and the other? (It’s like saying that delinquency causes delinquency.)

 All types of crime can be explained by low self-control + opportunity to commit crime  Self-control is internal  Affected by external factors such as mentioned in Hirschi’s social control theory only to age 8  Ordinary crimes have similar characteristics  Immediate gratification, few long-term benefits  Exciting, risky, require little planning or skill  Heavy cost to victim  Ordinary criminals have “low self-control”  Impulsive, insensitive  Physical, non-verbal rather than mental  Risk taking, short-sighted  Above cause smoking, drinking, involvement in accidents

 Adequate child-rearing properly “socializes” a child by imposing controls  Monitoring and tracking child’s behavior  Recognizing deviance when it occurs  Consistently punishing the behavior when recognized  Controls are ultimately internalized  By age 8 self-control is essentially set  After age 8, change in rate of offending determined by opportunities  Low self-control explains many relationships  Delinquent peers  delinquency: Those with poor self-control seek each other out  School performance  delinquency: Those with poor self-control avoid school  Unemployment  crime: Those with poor self-control have trouble keeping jobs

 Tautological: “low self-control” defined by “low self-control” behavior  Can low self-control explain white collar crime?  Can low self-control explain variation (differences) in crime rates across time and place?  Difficulty testing causal connection between poor child-rearing and self-control  Is self-control really set by age 8?  How do opportunities interact with low self control to produce crime?  One test found a relationship between low-self control and opportunity for crimes of fraud, not for crimes of force  Another test found that low self-control and opportunity have an explanatory effect on crime, but it’s very small  Hirschi altered definition of self-control to be the “tendency to consider the full range of costs of a particular act”

 Support...  Curfew laws  After-school activities  Job programs  Head-Start & early-childhood education  Parental instruction  Assistance to struggling families  Oppose...  Adult offender programs (may be too late)  Police tactics that create opportunities to commit crime (e.g., decoys, undercover work)