Social Control Theory
Social Control Theory
• Everyone is motivated to break the law
• So, the question is NOT: Why do we break
rules? But, Why don’t we?
• Deviance results from weak social
constraints
• A theory of conformity
• Constraints originate in our social experience
Social Sources of Control
• We connect to society via social groups
• Family, neighborhood, school, work, etc.
• “We are moral beings only to the extent that we are
social beings” Emile Durkheim (1925)
• Social rewards are contingent on staying
out of trouble
• We develop stakes in conformity
• “When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose” Bob Dylan
Hirschi’s Social Bond Theory
• People violate social norms because they lack
social bonds to conventional others (family,
school, work)
• Social bonds do not reduce criminal motivation,
they simply enable us to resist temptation
• A theory of informal social control
Hirschi’s Social Bonds
• Emotional Attachment to conventional others
(parents, teachers, friends), avoid their disapproval
• Material Commitment = deviance places
investments in conventional relationships at risk
• Temporal Involvement = limits criminal
opportunity – “idle hands are devil’s workshop”
• Moral Belief in the “rightness” of rules and laws,
internalization, personal standards
The Life-Course Perspective
Sampson and Laub (1993)
• Trajectories = long-term pathways through
life
• Turning Points = short-term events that
affect life trajectories
Age-Graded Theory
of Informal Social Control
• Turning points increase or decrease
informal social control
• Create or destroy connections to society
• School, employment, marriage, family
• Tend to be age-graded, but vary by person
Braithwaite’s Shaming Theory
• Effectiveness of punishment
• Rooted in social bonds
• Disintegrative shaming
• Stigmatization, outcast status, social bond destroyed
• Reintegrative shaming
• Disapproval followed by reacceptance, preserves bonds
Implications of Informal Social
Control Theory for Inmates
• Preserve social bonds to work and family
• Less reliance on incarceration
• Job training and family counseling
• Use of community based corrections
The Origins of Self-Control
Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990)
• Young children naturally break rules
• By age 8-10, kids most kids learn to control
their behavior
• Parenting is the key
• Monitoring, detection, punishment
• Poor parenting leads to low self-control in children
Empirical Patterns that Fit
• Offenders tend to be generalists (not
specialists)
• Smoking, drinking, drug use, speeding, unprotected sex
• Most offending requires no special skill, tend to
be impulsive
• Opportunity is key
• Offending usually brings immediate benefit,
despite potential for long-term costs
Hirschi’s Informal Social
Control Theory
Bad relationships/
Weak social bonds
Deviance
Low Self-Control Theory
Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990)
Bad relationships/ spurious
Weak social bonds
Deviance
Low self-control
Implications of
Low Self-Control Theory
• Focus on early family-based intervention
• CJ sanctions can play only a minor role
• Parents must monitor and punish the
behavior of their children
• For those with weak families, government
supports are needed
Review of Control Theories
• Informal social control (social bond)
• Hirschi’s social bond theory
• Sampson and Laub’s age graded theory of
informal social control
• Self-control
• Gottfredson and Hirschi’s theory of low self
control