Lecture 6 - Social Control + Deviant Careers

Question 1

Nye (1958) - Social Control Theory

Answer 1

Says that most deviant behaviour is the result of insufficient social control.

4 clusters of social control:
* Internalized control
* Parents and indirect control
* Direct control imposed by restriction and punishment (textbok talks abt social media)
* Reasons not to engage in deviant behaviour

Question 2

Travis Hirschi (1969) - Social Bonding Theory

Answer 2

Theory focuses on indirect controls of behaviour:
* Suggests deviance is not a response to learned behaviour, stimuli, or strains surrounding people. Instead, social bonding theory assumes that deviant activity is a given and that it is the absence of deviance that needs to be explained.

Reasons we do not engage in deviance or crime:
Social bonds:

• Attachment
  Commitment - to conventional society (weigh costs/benefits)
  Conventional society Ex. Education, Sports, Occupation)
  *Involvement** - Gives less time for deviant behaviour
  Belief - Awareness, understanding, and agreement with the rules/norms of society

Question 3

Power-control theory (Hagan et. al) - (Hagan, Gillis, Simpson)

Answer 3

Argued that parental positions in the workforce affect parental attitudes (e.g. strictness) in the household resulting in different levels of control placed on boys and girls.

• Different levels of control affect the likelihood of the children taking risks and ultimately engaging in deviance (boys more delinquent than girls)
• Theory says mothers constitute primary agents of socialization in the family
• In less patriarchal (father dominant) households, sons have more controls placed on them, decreasing their level of deviance

Question 4

Gottfredson and Hirschi’s Self-Control theory (aka General theory of crime) (1990)

Answer 4

Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990) define crime (and deviance) as “acts of force or fraud undertaken in pursuit of self-interest”.
* there is no difference between trivial and serious crime, between expressive and instrumental crime, between status offenses and delinquency, between victimizing and victimless crimes—the difference
lies not in the behaviors but, to some extent, in the individual.

Argue that self-control is a stable construct that
develops early in the socialization process (or lack thereof) of an individual. Most
likely, low self-control develops from an “absence of nurturance, discipline, or
training”.

6 elements that construct low self-control. Criminal acts:

1. Provide Immediate gratification
2. Provide easy or simple gratification
3. Are Exciting, risky, or thrilling
4. Provide few or meager long-term benefits
5. Require little skill or planning
6. Often result in pain or discomfort for victim

Question 5

Age-graded theory of informal social control (Sampson & Laub) (1993)

Answer 5

Gottfredson & Hirshi: Argue that life events do not have an effect on deviant behaviour because levels of self-control are set at a early age.

Sampson & Laub: Argue that over the course of their life, individuals are likely to go through stages that present them with social bonding opportunities and that while we may be able to see trajectories toward crime
throughout the life course, these trajectories can change with changes in life events.
* A trajectory: a pathway or line of development over a life span, that refers to long-term patterns of behavior and
is marked by a sequence of transitions
* A transition: a shorter or
specific life event that is embedded in a trajectory.
Ex. Go from working-class job, to marrying a rich man

Argue that there are social bonds between:
1. Members of society
2. Wider social institutions (family, work, school)

Question 6

Critiques of Social Control Theories

Answer 6

Some argue that traditional social control theory is better at predicting minor forms of deviance of crime rather than serious forms.
* Agnew argues that the 4 bonds do not really predict future deviance with any success at all