Social Control Theory

Question 1

What are the three theories of social disorganization?

Answer 1

1. Durkheim and Social Disorganization: The suicide guy! He says that social bonds are so important, and without them we get anomie and crime, due to a lack of a clear moral system!
2. Thasher and the Gang: Gangs show up in breaks in the structure of organization (geographical and social), where social control is lowest
3. Shaw and McKay, Ecological analysis:
   - Deviance comes from disorganization within a community. This means that kids have a hard time integrating into community, which can lead to crime!
   - Ecological fallacy: high crime and high poverty in an area does not necessarily mean that the poor are committing the crimes. People often come into poor areas where they won’t get caught to commit crime

Question 2

What are the three early social control theories

Answer 2

1. Reiss: He was the first researcher to compare social controls with personal controls. Lack of either/both results in crime.
   - Social controls: Ties to primary groups, maybe family, who’ll keep you in line
   - Personal controls: Your internalized values
2. Ivan Nye: He expanded on Reiss, and measured his stuff through self-report!
   - He said that crime is PREVENTED by social and personal controls. The most important group here is the family. They get the kid alone for the longest amount the time, and that’s when they gotta hammer in values
3. Hirschi: 4 points of social bonds
   a) Attachment: How much do you care about the opinion of your primary group? Causes you to care less about the way you affect others
   b) Commitment: How much do you care about conventional goals, and achieving them in a conventional way? Conventional methods take a lot of investment, and crime would be a big roadblock for that. Delinquents don’t have as much to lose
   c) Involvement: If people are too busy to commit to crime, they won’t bother
   d) Belief: In conventional values and the law. We all have the same values, and varying beliefs on how to play those out. Deviance comes when we don’t forbid certain things

Question 3

What is the general theory of crime?

Answer 3

Self-control! Low self-control, high crime! Some people lack it due to bad parenting

Family Relationships:
1. Strength of family ties: If you care what your parents think, you won’t commit crime
2. Parental supervision and discipline: Know what your kids are up to! It’s the strongest link to crime prevention! Also, never spank your kids. It won’t work. You also need to be fair. Don’t be overly strict, or overly lax
Parental role models: There is a higher crime likelihood for kids who have criminal parents, partially modelling and partially because they are more lax with their kids based on what they’ve done

Schooling: the biggest thing in socialization

• You learn a lot of your identity in school, and are learning how to be an adult with other kids. If you don’t do well in school, you will most likely feel rejected by both adult and youth worlds. Overall though, 2 ways school affects delinquency:
  1. School does a lot of what family was originally meant to do, and shapes the kids future a lot
  2. The more impactful one is the day-to-day interactions in school that affect the kids self-esteem and social skills

Religion:
- This CAN be related to delinquency, based on whether the kid was raised in a community where religion was very important. If they were, then it has less to do with personal fear of eternal damnation, and more to do with fear of societal shunning

Question 4

What are some questions regarding Social Control Theory?

Answer 4

1. What about upper-class crime? It seems to be different because upper class people have a lot more to lose, so technically they should be under more social controls. But based on situations such as watergate, it could be that our society has yet to fully define what is and isn’t taboo in the upper world. Especially given that those committing the crimes are typically the ones creating the taboos!
2. Does everyone deviate for the same reasons? Nope!
   a) Role of delinquent peers: Criminality is such a social behaviour. Ya gotta integrate interactionist theory with social control theory, the importance of the interactions that you usually have, as well as the one you lack!
3. Is control theory a conservative theory of crime? It’s more conservative than Marx theory because it has no class warfare, but that just means that it can be incorporated into more radical theories

Question 5

What are the policy implications of Social control theory?

Answer 5

1. the Family! You gotta crack down on your kids in a fair and loving way! It makes all the difference!
2. School and social policies
   a) They don’t account for handicaps like minority status and poverty
   b) They don’t maintain values and good class sizes (although some do!) Student teacher relationship is everything!