Psychosocial Control Characteristics of Delinquents and Nondelinquents

1991 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 287-303 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANITA S. MAK
Keyword(s):  
Control Theory ◽  
Social Control ◽  
Impulse Control ◽  
Social Background ◽  
Personal Control ◽  
Young Offenders ◽  
Social Control Theory ◽  
Control Approach ◽  
Occupational Expectations ◽  
The Law

Previous research into control theory has primarily employed self-reported delinquency data and recruited students rather than young offenders as subjects. It has been uncertain if the control approach is useful in understanding the behavior of truly delinquent young offenders. The present study examined the psychosocial control characteristics of 103 pairs of official delinquents and nondelinquents matched on social background. Delinquents were found to have lower levels of personal and social control than nondelinquents. Delinquents were more impulsive, were less attached to their parents, liked school less, and had lower educational and occupational expectations and weaker beliefs in the moral validity of the law. These findings provide further evidence of the utility of extending Hirschi's (1969) social control theory to include personal control characteristics, particularly impulse control.

scholarly journals The Relevance of the Social Control Theory in Explaining Crime among African American Families

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Ayodeji Daramola ◽  
Gbolahan S Osho
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Control Theory ◽  
Social Control ◽  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Justice System ◽  
African American Families ◽  
Social Control Theory ◽  
The Church

Today, criminologists, especially, Black criminologists, are thoroughly perplexed by the same problem of disproportionate minority confinement (DMC) most especially of Blacks in both the juvenile and criminal justice systems. Are African Americans more criminally minded than other races or ethnic groups? Do African Americans actually commit more crimes than others? These are the questions that the different deviant theories have tried to answer. The concept of social bonding arose from social control theory, which suggests that attachment to family and school, commitment to conventional pathways of achievements and beliefs in the legitimacy of social order are primary and important elements of establishing a social bond (Hirschi, 1969). In expounding his social control theory, Hirschi listed the elements of the bond as attachment, commitment, involvement, and belief. Does it mean that African Americans commit more crimes than other racial and ethnic groups? Or are African Americans genetically wired to be criminogenic? Is the society or the environment to blame for the perceived higher rate of crime among African Americans? Or are the criminal justice system, the judicial system, and the juvenile justice system, all together racially biased against Blacks, especially, Black males? Even though Hirschi (1969) did not mention attachment to religious beliefs as part of social control, but for the African American families, the church could play a significant role in helping to cement the bond of adolescents to their families. Any study of the African American family is not complete without the church. According to Work (1900), in all social study of the Negro, the church must be considered, for it is one of the greatest factors in his social life.

Social Control Theory

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert J. Helfenbein ◽  
Jamie Buffington
Keyword(s):  
Control Theory ◽  
Social Control ◽  
Social Control Theory
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