How the Control Theory Works in Criminology

¶ … deviance and criminal behavior can result from people feeling disconnected from their school and home situation. This backs up the control theory, which posits that with less control -- or weak bonds -- behavior can and does become deviant and even criminal later in life.

Control Theory -- Narrative Explanations

In his narratives on delinquency, Travis Hirschi, one of the most prominent theorists when it comes to control theories, said there are four variables that help explain why people either conform to, or deviate from social norms. And this is important because delinquents are often caught up in criminal activities later in life. In the process of deviating from socially respectable behaviors -- and in the extreme, becoming involved in crime -- people are just reacting to four variables, Hirschi explains. The four are: a) attachment (with parents, peers, teachers, and others); b) commitment (this is what a person must consider prior to getting involved in criminal behavior; he risks "…losing the investment he has made in previous conventional behavior"); c) involvement (if a person is deeply involved in "conventional activities" he simply won't have time to be involved in "deviant behavior"); and d) belief (a person is far more apt to conform to proper behavior and observe society values if he believes in those rules and values (Welch, 1998).

Michael R. Gottfredson, writing an essay in the book, Taking Stock: The Status of Criminological Theory (authored by Professor Francis Cullen -- with the University of Cincinnati -- believes that there is a "large body of high quality empirical research about age and crime" that draws a fair link between "misconduct early in life and criminal behavior later in life" (Gottfredson, 2011). So Gottfredson basically agrees with Hirschi's theory in the sense that if some kind of restraint is not present in a person's life, he or she will "engage in deviance" at some point in the future (79). In social control theories, a restraint typically would be a "social bond," for example. And that social bond is "the glue connecting the individuals to society," Gottfredson continues (79). But for those with "weak social bonds" can be expected (under the social control theory) to engage in crime or at least delinquency," Gottfredson explains (79).

On the other hand, those with strong social bonds are not expected to become criminals, or at least that's the way the theory works. Bonds of course are "variable," which means they can be strong over a person's life, or they can be "extinguished at any point" and the individual that had been held steady and stable by those bonds may now not be in control of his actions the way he once was (Gottfredson, 79).

Meanwhile a study that was conducted in Canada, using 1,311 young people from across the nation, verified the assertions that are made in Hirschi's social control theory. Data were gathered from these 1,311 youths at the age of 10 and 11 (in 1994-95); again data was collected when the youths were 12 and 13 years of age (1996-1997); and once again in 1998-1999 data was gathered when the 1,311 young people were 14 and 15 years of age (Ontario Ministry of Children and Youth Services -- OMCYS).

The results show that "young people who behaved violently often came from classrooms that provided little emotional support"; and those students who were fortunate to have been in classrooms that had "stronger supportive and social interactions at the ages of 10 and 11, were less likely" to have shown violent tendencies when they turned 12 and 13 (OMCYS).