Social control theory and its applications

Social Control Theory

All control theories play on the theme that deviance is mainly a function of the kinds of constraints to which people are exposed. The most well-known specific theory of this genre is Travis Hirschi's revised theory of social control (1969). It contends that everybody is motivated toward deviance, but only those who are relatively free of the bonds of commitment to, and belief in, the conventional order, attachment to others, and involvement with conventional institutions of society actually manifest their deviant motivation in unacceptable behavior.

Following especially the work of Emile Durkheim, control theorists argue that individuals are freed to commit crime when their ties to the conventional social order are weak or broken. In the late 1800s, Durkheim concluded, "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." Building on Durkheim's conception of the social bond, the sociologist Travis Hirschi developed an influential social control theory that argues that delinquency and crime will be reduced for individuals with stronger attachments to others, greater commitment to conformity, and more involvement with and belief in law-abiding behavior.

Hirschi's (1969) book Causes of Delinquency is most often associated with recent social control theory, and his version of failed-to-bond theory has stimulated the most research. Like the early control theorists, Hirschi draws on an idea developed by Jackson Toby (1957), who argued that the key to forming commitment was developing an investment in convention, which he called a stake in conformity. Once invested, the cost of losing this stake serves as a barrier to law violation. The underlying assumption in Hirschi's argument is that all people would break the law if they did not fear the damage and consequences of getting caught. Ties or bonds to conventional parents, school, friends, employers, and so on make crime too much of a risk for most people.

For Hirschi, the "social bond" consists of several components: attachment, commitment, involvement, and belief. Attachment is defined as caring about others, including respecting their opinions and expectations. Commitment refers to the individual's investment in conventional behavior, including a willingness to do what is promised and respecting the expectations others have that it will be done. Commitment implies that "the interests of most persons would be endangered if they were to engage in criminal acts" (1969: 21). Involvement is participation in conventional activities. This can be interpreted as a simple ratio. Since time and energy are limited, the more time spent doing conventional activities, the less time is available for deviant acts. Finally, the bond is solidified by belief in the moral validity of conventional norms. This is a fundamental and explicit assumption of control theory, which "assumes the existence of a common value system within the society or group whose norms are being violated" (1969: 23).

By way of illustrating Hirschi's theory, let us consider the example of two college seniors, Trevor and Shantell, who have fallen in love, feel like soul mates, spend a lot of time together, respect each other, and plan to get married upon graduation. In a new criminology class, Trevor meets an attractive sophomore, Donna, who "just wants to have fun." The opportunity arises for a date during which Trevor would be tempted to cheat on his longtime girlfriend, Shantell. How do Hirschi's key concepts explain what might unfold? Strong attachment means that Trevor would not go on the date, because he knows it would be disrespectful toward Shantell, who would feel upset and betrayed. Strong commitment means that Trevor has led Shantell to trust in him. Such a date, especially given whom it was with, would be cheating on his relationship. This would undermine the trust between Trevor and Shantell and risk the breakup of the relationship and cancellation of their planned marriage. Strong involvement in the relationship with Shantell would mean that Trevor was so active with her that there literally would not be time for anyone else. Finally, strong belief in their relationship would include reference to certain values such as honesty, safety, monogamy, stability, security, and maybe even the belief that taking risks is unwise. In short, Hirschi's bonded conventional student, Trevor, would probably reject the date, recognizing that it threatened his valued relationship with Shantell. Of course, if he justified the act to himself with the arguments that the date with Donna would be a onetime kind of thing, that his steady would not know about it, and she would be working anyway, he would not be a Hirschi -bonded student, but a Matza-neutralizing drifter off on a moral holiday, free to date Donna, at least on this occasion! Hirschi's bonding theory, which still stands alone as a viable explanation for crime, raised the question of whether the reason some people failed to form connections with conventional others had to do with their capacity for self-control, itself affected by parental socialization practices.

Like learning theories, social control explanations of crime seem to have merit for explaining the crime trends presented earlier. Most notable, the common social control argument that juveniles and young adults with strong attachments to their families and schools are less likely to engage in delinquency is well supported. And there is certainty much evidence to suggest that families and schools underwent considerable change in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s. 49 When considered in the context of the crime trends presented earlier, however, social control theories also leave some important questions unanswered. Assuming for a moment that crime is the result of a weakening of social bonds between individuals and their families, neighborhoods, and schools, we must still explain what changes in society caused this decline and we must explain why social bonds were weaker in the 1990s than in the 1950s.

The social control argument also seems to have some promise for explaining postwar African-American crime trends. In fact, the argument that African-American crime rates are directly linked to weakened family structures has been common throughout the postwar period. Thus, in his 1960s analysis of the African-American family, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who was a congressional staff member at the time, argued that federal policy in the United States must increase the stability of African-American families. There is also much evidence to suggest that for African-Americans living in inner cities, other important informal social control mechanisms, including integration into neighborhoods, school, and work, deteriorated during the postwar period. Although these arguments are plausible, however, as with explanations aimed at the general population, social control explanations specific to African-Americans do not explain why the weakening of social attachment to the family, schools, and the community occurred when it did. One of the major contributions of both social learning and social control theories is their emphasis on families for controlling crime.

It is certainly plausible and consistent with common sense to assert, as this theory does, that people are more likely to violate conventional social rules when they are free of constraining social bonds. Most of us realize that our beliefs, commitments, attachments, and involvements have great influence on our behavior. In fact, a lot of us learned in Sunday school or from our parents that we would go wrong if we did not believe in God; develop strong moral principles; attach ourselves to conventional social groups like the family, church, and school; and involve ourselves in wholesome activities and useful work. We can recall examples of those who did go wrong, apparently because they did not follow these dictates. In addition, most of us have probably been separated at one time or another from families, friends, and neighbors for varied lengths of time and have experienced the initial exhilaration and sense of freedom to do things we usually would not do. Moreover, everybody is familiar with individuals lacking familial, interpersonal, or professional reputations who, as a result, seem to care little about the consequences of their behavior.

Hirschi's theory of social control is deliberately narrow, applying as it does only to "delinquency," although there is no necessity to limit its principles to the misbehavior of youth (a fact now recognized by Hirschi [1992]). Still, it is hard to know what adult deviances it should explain, and even though delinquency sometimes encompasses a broad range of different kinds of behavior, including crime, social and moral delicts, and a number of individualistic acts that adults think may damage a youth's health, mental condition, or future preparation for adult responsibility, the breadth of the theory is not clear. In addition, ostensibly it does not seem to apply to behaviors of the mentally ill, to white-collar or professional types of deviance, or to instances of over conformity as deviance.

This is unfortunate. Social control theory postulates that involvement in, acceptance by, and dependence on a given group renders a person susceptible to control by that group. Such notions have been used to explain many kinds of behavior, heroic as well as criminal. If integration with a conventional social group helps prevent suicide and "delinquency" (Hirschi 1969) and motivates people to fight, make sacrifices for a community, or commit deviant acts on behalf of a sub-cultural group, it should affect almost all forms of deviance. The absence of social integration with conventional groups should be influential in psychotic behavior (unless that specific behavior is organically determined and totally uncontrollable); without integration into nonbusiness groups, entrepreneurs, who are highly motivated to turn a profit, should be free to engage in price fixing; and strong social integration with any group should inspire some to excess zeal in fulfilling what they perceive as group expectations (over conformity), which may result in various forms of deviance. Since Hirschi's version, the best-known expression of the social control argument, does not convey this breadth, it must be regarded as shortsighted. Even the proliferation of separate theories of social integration for various deviant and conforming acts illustrates the inefficiency of theory building in the social sciences and dramatically underscores the importance of constructing theories with breadth.

Because of imprecision and shallowness, it is difficult to say exactly what kinds of deviance labeling theory presumably explains, particularly since it only attempts to account for those forms of deviance that are "secondary" in nature. It might apply to any form of deviance that can be publicly recognized through the imposition of a label by duly authorized officials. This would include any behavior officially prohibited in the criminal law of a given society (labeled by criminal justice agents), any "abnormal" behavior regarded as evidence of mental illness (labeled by medical personnel), and any form of institutional misbehavior (labeled by school officials, church authorities, and so on). It may also apply to any form of social misbehavior that can be magnified in a public "event" or "episode" to which a social audience can respond by collectively stigmatizing an individual. Presumably, it cannot explain private or secret acts undetected by authorities or unknown to the public, such as disloyalty to a friend or lack of sensitivity to a spouse or child, nor can it explain the many forms of primary deviance that escape stigma or even repetitious deviance that continues without the individual having been labeled deviant by a hostile audience (like habitual shoplifting). As it bears on secondary deviance, the labeling theory seems to have fairly broad coverage, but because it is extremely narrow otherwise, even if it were completely accurate in its account of secondary deviance, it would be inadequate as a general theory.

It is clear, however, that the desire to offend is, for some individuals, so strong that social controls pale; some deviance is committed because the groups to which offenders are bonded actually exercise social control to encourage deviance; and some unbonded individuals nevertheless conform, perhaps out of habit, lack of alternatives, or internalized moral commitments. Most people agree that deviance is to some extent dependent upon opportunities and skills, as well as other factors. For instance, individual variation in accuracy of perceptions about how particular behaviors would be viewed by conventional others, or about the deviant orientations of groups to which one might be bonded, could affect delinquency. Moreover, although this theory implies equal ability to explain all forms of crime/deviance (though it specifically addresses only "delinquency"), it is quite likely that the constraints of social bonds are differentially effective for various kinds of crime/deviance and are probably more effective at preventing acts strongly disapproved by general opinion than acts that are only slightly disapproved. However, none of these components are encompassed within social control theory, and it neglects to account for variations in social bonds themselves.

Therefore, as sensible as the main proposition appears, social control theory fulfills few of the criteria for adequacy as a general theory. Like the others, it is more incomplete than incorrect, excluding more than it includes, and only imprecisely accommodating the interactions of its main variables with other conditions. If one interprets Marxian conflict theory in terms of the deprivation and exploitation presumably inherent in capitalism (but also possible in a wide variety of social contexts and economic systems), rather than in terms of capitalism per se, it explains all forms of exploitation and insensitive or de-moralized acts by one person against another, what Travis Hirschi (1990) refers to as acts of force or fraud pursued for self-interest, acts of protest or retaliation by workers against exploiters or symbols of oppression, as well as acts reflecting adaptive techniques for economic survival (such as prostitution). Even with a direct focus on exploitation/deprivation rather than capitalism, the theory still does not explain individualized acts of deviance that victimize only the perpetrator, "social deviance" like failure to observe religious rituals, or those forms of deviance like drug abuse that are sometimes called "moralistic offenses." Hence it has a broader focus than labeling but is narrower than differential association.

Like labeling theory, however, this one does not need to be so limited. If deprivation or being a victim of exploitation can free individuals to take advantage of others, it can also affect their psychological well-being. Constant distrust, fear, and insecurity can have devastating consequences for an individual's psychic health; indeed, when those attitudes dominate, paranoia is often diagnosed. Therefore, it is not much of a stretch to imagine that these same forces can alienate people to the point where they want to escape by suicide, drug abuse, or catatonia. Alienation can also lead to "irrational" acts of property destruction, symbolic acts of defiance like flag burning, and refusal to participate in conventional patterns of behavior as expressed in unusual modes of dress, "hippieism," and "swinging." Skepticism about the prospects of unusual creativity, however, should not be taken as denial of the cleverness of some scholars or the outstanding contributions that inventive efforts have produced. In fact, the main advocate of theoretical invention, Travis Hirschi, is, in my opinion, a genius, as is Jack Katz, the premier practitioner of that art. The theory of self-control that Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990) have formulated is extraordinary and admirable. On close inspection, however, it turns out to be another instance of old wine in a new bottle, and it does not fully meet our theoretical needs. It illustrates what I believe to be an inherent, counterproductive tendency toward defensiveness by those who purport to invent theory. Katz's work also shows amazing insight and incredible depth, but in the end it constitutes a collection of inchoate interpretations that do not add up to a general theory.

Hirschi's theory of social control makes no attempt to spell out the circumstances within which social bonds will have more or less effect in restraining deviance. Individuals vary in how accurately they perceive the likely responses of others to particular behaviors, so strong social bonds may sometimes fail to restrain deviance. Moreover, the constraints of social bonds are probably more effective for some kinds of crime/deviance, perhaps more so for acts strongly disapproved by general opinion than acts that are only slightly disapproved. In addition, adults may be restrained more by social bonds than young people because maturation in modern societies requires a transition period of ambivalent status that makes affiliations with conventional groups become less important. No doubt other contingencies could be identified, but the theory itself makes no effort to do so. As a result, those who apply this theory must assume universality, which leads to disappointing results.

In 1990, with his colleague Michael Gottfredson, Hirschi moved away from the four-component version of social bonding theory to focus on self-control. In their book A General Theory of Crime, Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990) identify juvenile delinquency as just one of a wide range of crimes, including embezzlement and fraud, that can be explained not so much by the absence of bonds as by a lack of self-control on the part of the offender. Criminals lack self-control, according to Gottfredson and Hirschi, because they have been poorly trained. This explains "the differential tendency of people to avoid criminal acts whatever the circumstances" (Gottfredson and Hirschi, 1990: 87).

The underlying assumption about human nature here is the same as in control theory: All people are motivated to break rules and make a rational choice decision whether or not to do so. The difference is in people's ability to suppress or restrain such urges and drives and in their needs for excitement, risk taking, and immediate gratification. Most people do not engage in criminal acts because they have been effectively socialized by parents to exercise self-control over their behavior. For some, however, the socialization process is defective, providing little protection against committing crime. Their socialization is defective not because of something biological or psychological within the individual but because the parents have failed to use adequate child-rearing practices.