Control Theories Notes

Announcements

  • Next week there will be no face-to-face lecture, but there will be an online lecture. The reason for this is to allow students to enjoy the upcoming public holiday without travel pressure.

  • Next Friday is Good Friday, so there will be no tutorials next week.

Introduction: Why Don't More People Engage in Crime?

  • The lecture shifts focus from asking why individuals engage in crime to why more people don't engage in crime.

The Story of Matthew Mellat

  • In 2012, Matthew Mellat was found guilty and sentenced to death for the murder of his friend and sentenced for 43 years in prison. His accomplice, Cohen Cleen, was sentenced to 32 years in prison for his role.

  • The victim was 17-year-old David Ortoloni.

  • Excerpt from Mellat's writings:
    > Hear the crunch of the leaves and feet, feel your heart skip a beat, are you gonna get away? No hope kid, this is your day. The day you won't be found six feet underneath the ground.

  • Matthew Mullat is Ivan Mullat's nephew (Australia's well-known serial killer).

  • Matthew and his friend Cohen murdered David with a double-sided axe in the same Balangolo State Forest.

  • The judge noted Matthew's gloating and lack of remorse & stated:
    > You know me, you know my family, you know the last name Mellat, I did what they do.

  • Matthew was raised by his mother (Ivan Mullat's sister) and stepfather. He spent more time with the Mellat side of the family.

  • The Mullat family had a history of run-ins with the law, disadvantage, and poverty.

Influence of Family and Institutions

  • The case highlights the influence of family and institutions (family, school, employment) on behavior.

  • It's easier to explain why Matthew Mellat engaged in crime given his background. Criminology rests on the assumption that all are potential criminals.

  • The more challenging question is: Why do we not engage in more crime? Why aren't more of us engaging in criminal behavior?

Control Theories

  • Today's focus is on control theories, specifically social bonding theory and self-control theory.

  • Control theories try to address why individuals don't engage in crime.

Informal vs. Formal Social Control

  • Informal social control is more effective than formal social control (police, courts, parole officers) in influencing behavior.

  • Control theories explain why informal social control is effective.

Socialization

  • Informal social control is part of our socialization, learning values, norms, and morals through interactions with parents and others.

  • Internalized norms and expectations influence behavior; control theorists believe these internalizations can pull us away from or push us towards crime.

Propensity for Crime

  • Control theorists assume everyone has the potential to engage in crime.

  • The question is what pulls individuals away from criminal opportunities.

Social Disorganization Theory Revisited

  • Week four's discussion of social disorganization theory: poverty, ethnic heterogeneity, and residential instability are correlated with crime.

  • Shaw and McKay believed weak social control within these neighborhoods was the link.

  • The lecture contrasts macro causes (disorganization, low collective efficacy, limited social capital) with micro causes (individual factors influencing weak social control).

  • Micro causes are addressed by social bonding and self-control theories.

Focus of Control Theories

  • Control theories examine the interaction between external (social environment) and internal (psychological/personality) factors to prevent criminal behavior.

  • These theories assume everyone can be delinquent and seek to explain why people do not offend.

Institutional and Psychological Constraints

  • Institutional constraints include parents, peers, churches, and schools.

  • Psychological constraints include individual personality and self-control.

  • The combination of these constraints influences behavior.

Popularity of Crime Shows

  • The popularity of crime shows resonates with the control theorists' argument about our underlying drives and propensity for crime.

Social Control and Early Research

  • Social disorganization theorists recognized the role of parents and schools in juvenile delinquency.

  • Parental control and community supervision are responsible for what's happening in crime in neighborhoods.

Stakes in Conformity

  • Jackson Toby introduced the term "stakes in conformity," suggesting people engage in crime when they have nothing to lose.

  • Criminal behavior becomes more attractive when we're willing to risk our reputation, jobs, and education.

Parental Control

  • Ivan Nye's work emphasized parental control as a core component.

  • Children who are closer to law-abiding parents are less likely to be criminal.

  • Parents who are involved in their children's lives are less likely to have children who engage in criminal behavior or delinquency.

Social Bonding Theory (Travis Hirschi)

  • Social Bonding Theory explains why informal social control is so important and influential.

Context of Hirschi's Research

  • During Hirschi's time, criminal justice policies based on learning theories, social disorganization, and strain theory weren't effective.

  • Self-report surveys showed crime was more prominent than initially thought, and not just among the poor.

Core Idea of Social Bonding Theory

  • Criminal behavior occurs when an individual's bond to conventional society is weakened or broken.

  • Conventional institutions are law abiding and considered normal and moral as a society.

Four Elements of Social Bonds

  • Each bond contributes equally to conforming behavior (behavior that is not criminal).

Attachment

  • Connection to friends, family, and community; caring about what others think.

  • Those not attached to meaningful others don't care about the impact of their behavior and don't respect authority.

  • For most of us, this is our immediate family, parents, siblings.

  • When we are attached to other individuals, we care about the impact of that behavior on them.

Commitment

  • Investments in the future; what you would lose if caught in criminal behavior.

  • Conventional activities include school, work, and other important activities.

  • Similar to Jackson Toby's stakes in conformity: criminal behavior endangers investments in a better future (job, education).

Involvement

  • Time spent in conventional activities.

  • The more time spent on conventional activities, the less time available for crime.

Belief

  • Internalized norms and morals against criminality (honesty, fairness, truth, loyalty).

  • Values go against criminality.

  • These values come from parents, friends, teachers, mentors, and employers.

  • Meaningful attachments give us access to internalizing anti-criminal values and beliefs.

Visual Representation of Social Bonding Theory

  • All four bonds (attachment, commitment, involvement, belief) equally contribute to decreasing the likelihood of engaging in crime.

Measuring Social Bonds Exercise

  • The measure for each indicator is: attachment, commitment, involvement and belief.

Attachment - Ability to Share Thoughts and Feelings

  • The class displays good parental attachments.

Commitment - Importance Of Getting Good Grades

  • The class demonstrates a commitment to getting good grades.

Commitment - How much time per week do you spend studying outside of class time?

  • Most students spend at least some additional time studying.

Belief - To get ahead you have to do some things that are not right.

  • Most of the students disagree with this statement.

Research on Hirschi's Theory

  • Youth strongly attached to parents are less likely to engage in criminal behavior.

  • Commitment to conventional modes of behavior (achieving goals through saving, studying) reduces criminal behavior.

  • Strong belief in religious tenets lessens the likelihood of criminality.

Critiques of Hirschi's Approach

  • The importance of attachment depends on who you are attached to.

  • Delinquent peers can increase the likelihood of criminal behavior.

  • Not all social bonds should be considered equal.

  • Involvement may not be a good predictor of conformity or criminality.

  • What is the direction of the causal effect?

  • Weak bonds may be a result of criminal behavior, not just a cause.

  • The theory is better at explaining minor offending, not serious violent offending.

  • Bonds change over the life course.

  • Adolescence is a chaotic time where attachment to parents changes.

Link Between Unemployment, Unstable Work, and Crime

  • Unemployment and unstable work are correlated with crime.

  • The commitment bond helps explain why individuals are more protective of stable jobs than unstable ones.

Self-Control Theory (Gottfredson and Hirschi)

  • Crime results from stable, unstable behavior in individuals.

  • Low self-control + criminal opportunity = crime.

  • The Most individual attribute that we've talked about so far in our course.

Characteristics of Offenders and Crime

  • Most crimes provide an immediate gratification of a need or want.

  • Crime is often exciting and doesn't need planning or skill.

  • Crimes can be painful and immediate for the victim.

  • Criminals tend to be impulsive, insensitive, risk-seeking, and shortsighted.

  • Criminals seek quick, immediate gratification and have a short-term view.

Limitations of Self-Control Theory

  • The theory may not fit all kinds of crime, such as white-collar crime that requires planning and skill.

Correlation with Other Risky Behaviors

  • Low self-control is correlated with other risky behaviors like alcohol use, risky sexual behavior, and smoking.

Stability of Self-Control

  • Gottfredson and Hirschi believe low self-control remains stable over the life course from about eight years old onward.

Origins of Low Self-Control

  • Low self-control is related to genetic predispositions and ineffective parenting.

Effective Parenting

  • Effective parents teach children to delay gratification and care about others.

Social Class and Parenting

  • Social class, community characteristics, and family composition influence the ability to engage in effective parenting.

  • Those characteristics include a two parent household or a single parent household. (Family composition, other ways the family can come together.)

  • Effective parenting is less common in areas with high poverty or single-parent households.

Behavior Change and Self-Control

  • If low self-control stays constant, why does criminal activity peak in adolescence and decline with age (age-crime curve)?

  • Theorists argue that opportunities to engage in crime change as we get older.

  • During adolescence, parental controls loosen, and individuals have less investment in social institutions (school, work, family).

Delay of Gratification

  • The ability to delay gratification is central to self-control.

  • Parents should teach children this ability during childhood.

  • Children demonstrate different stages relating to an ability to be able to demonstrate or obtain delayed gratification.

Support for Low Self-Control Theory

  • Stability in offending is high; prior behavior is a good predictor of future behavior.

  • Indicators of risky behavior and insensitivity are predictors of criminality for children.

  • Most criminals do not specialize in one type of crime; they engage in a variety of activities.

Criticisms of Self-Control Theory

  • It doesn't explain how or why behavior changes over time.

  • It doesn't explain the differences in gender and race in criminality.

  • It doesn't account for the influence of the environment, socialization, and structural inequality.

  • It doesn't work for crimes that require substantial planning, like white-collar crime.

Gottfredson and Hirschi's Response

  • Gottfredson and Hirschi argue that males and minorities are associated with ineffective parenting, which increases the likelihood of low self-control.

  • There is no evidence to support that this is true.

Combining Control Theories

  • Both theories assume we are all antisocial in nature.

Socialization and Social Bonds

  • The socialization process determines the strength of social bonds (attachment, commitment, involvement, belief).

  • Strong social bonds create a stake in conformity, leading to conforming behavior.

Ineffective Parenting and Low Self-Control

  • Ineffective parenting leads to low self-control, making individuals free to deviate given the opportunity.

  • At the top part of this graph we've got social bonds. Social bonds are the things that are pulling us away from behavior.

Outcome

  • At the bottom part of that graph, our socialization processes when we are not taught to delay gratification when presented with the opportunity to engage in crime, we're much more likely to take it, which is going to produce criminal behavior overall.

Matthew Mellat Revisited

  • Matthew Mellat may have been headed down a criminal path because he wasn't bonded to conventional norms or people.

  • Week 11 will explore the influence of power, labeling, and his uncle Ivan's reputation.