Control Theories

Control theories start from the idea that all normal people are capable of crimes because all are able to see the benefits of crime and all are capable of committing them. Because crimes can be invented by every-one, no special motivation and little or no learning are required for their performance. Given the obvious advantages of criminal and deviant acts and the ease with which they may be committed, the question control theorists ask is, Why do people refrain from committing them? There are many answers to this question, all of which may be considered forms of control theory.

To say that anyone is capable of crime is not to say that everyone is a criminal. Most people obey the law most of the time. Many are so nearly free of crime and deviance that at one time psychologists refused to believe such people existed. Early “lie scales” were actually counts of the petty delinquencies people said they had not committed. The more honest respondents were, the more likely they were thought to be liars. Crimes have benefits; they require little in the way of skill or effort. Yet most of people avoid them most of the time. The question for control theory is why.

The general answer is that people refrain from crimes because they fear their negative consequences, their costs or penalties. These costs or penalties are sometimes called sanctions. Sanctions come in many forms and degrees of severity. Control theorists are interested in how and to what degree particular sanctions affect the likelihood that people will commit particular criminal acts. Does the death penalty reduce the murder rate? Do increased fines reduce parking violations? Obviously, sanctions do not have the same effect on all individuals. Facing the same legal consequences, some commit crimes that others would not consider. Control theorists are also interested in the sources and consequences of these individual differences.

As defined, control theory is relevant to a broad range of criminological issues. It is probably fair to say that its many variants were present at the beginning of criminology (the classical period) and are now the most influential theories of crime. One reason for their dominance is that they appear to be directly relevant to issues of social policy, suggesting ways to modify the criminal justice system in order to reduce crime. More generally, control theories draw support from their reliance on two ideas much appreciated by the general public and found to some extent in all social science disciplines. First, people require socialization to be social. Second, human behavior is a function of its consequences.

In the middle years, between the classical period and the present, control theories did not fare well in the social and behavioral sciences, especially sociology, which was the primary source of theories of crime. Sociologists rejected the idea that differences in criminal [Page 312]behavior are a result of differences in the degree of socialization or training. Rather, they argued, differences in such behavior are a result of differences in the content of what is learned. Ideas of right and wrong, good and evil, vary from group to group. What some see as deviant or criminal, others accept as normal or law abiding. As one sociologist put it, “The mores can make anything right!” Social scientists also rejected the idea that people choose to act as they do and are thus responsible for their behavior. This, they thought, was contrary to the basic idea of science that behavior is determined or caused by events in the past.

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