Social Control Theories

Social control theories ask why people do not commit delinquent and criminal acts. Their answer is that we are prevented from doing so by bonds to conventional people or institutions—by ties to parents, teachers, employers, families, schools, and jobs. People refrain from crime because such behavior would damage their relations with others or undermine their accomplishments and aspirations. When a person's relations with others are weak, when accomplishments are few and aspirations limited, that person is free to deviate. Social control theories assume that crime results when a person's bond to society is weak or broken. Although not always seen for what they are, such explanations have occupied an important position in the history of social science. Today, they are among the most popular and influential theories of crime.

Social control theories assume that crimes satisfy ordinary desires for such things as love and money, and that unusual drives or motives, such as frustration, are not required to explain them. They assume that concern for the good opinion of others is the primary check on antisocial behavior. Another of their assumptions is that the strength of this concern varies from one person to another. Some people care more than others about the social consequences of deviant acts. Those who care less are as a result more likely to engage in them. The assumption of ordinary motivation is common to all control theories; social control theory is unique in that it stresses the importance of social penalties in the production of conforming behavior.

Social control theories pay little attention to legal definitions of crime or to the workings of the criminal justice system. They ignore the legal system because they assume that potential offenders also ignore it—paying little heed to the risks of legal punishment. Because they are concerned mainly with ties between individuals and institutions that have no formal crime control function, they are sometimes called “social bond theories” or “theories of informal social control.”