Containment Theory

Containment theory is a control theory that attempts to explain why one individual may commit deviant or criminal acts while another will not, even under what appear to be similar circumstances. Originally, [Page 134]containment theory was developed by Walter Reckless in the United States during the 1950s and 1960s to explain delinquency among boys. The theory's name is derived from Reckless's argument that inner containment and outer containment prevent individuals from crossing the line into deviance. Also important to containment theory is the idea of pushes and pulls into deviance or criminal activities, which are consistent with strain and learning theories of deviance that understand that some people have greater pressures leading them to violate norms and that we may learn deviance from others. This entry includes an explanation of the development of the containment theory and a more in-depth explanation of the theory, including definitions of pushes and pulls and inner and outer containment as developed by Reckless.

In the early 1950s, along with his colleagues, Simon Dinitz and various others, Reckless studied young nondelinquent boys who lived in areas with high concentrations of delinquency. Reckless and colleagues were curious to answer the question of how some boys could avoid becoming delinquents even though there were certainly opportunities for them to engage in delinquency. Studying boys whom they found to be “insulated” against delinquency, Reckless and colleagues found that the “good boys” had positive self-images, which seemed to keep them from being deviant or delinquent. Looking further into the lives of these “good boys” to see how the “good” and delinquent boys differed, Reckless and colleagues found that there were some differences in their familial relationships. For example, the mothers of the delinquent boys were less likely to be aware of their sons' whereabouts than the mothers of the “good boys.” These findings no doubt helped lead to the development of containment theory.

Reckless published several editions of a textbook titled The Crime Problem. While he discussed containment theory in various editions of this textbook as he worked on developing the theory, in the 1967 edition of The Crime Problem, one can see what stands as his final version of containment theory. In the 1967 edition, he argued that many sociological theories failed to account for individual responses or what he called a “self-factor” or internal explanation for explaining differential responses of individuals to almost anything. However, Reckless also emphasized the need for external explanations that sociologists often consider such as the structure of society or a neighborhood and cultural factors in explaining why people behave as they do. Thus, he developed containment theory with both external and internal factors to explain why some individuals become delinquent or violate social norms and why others do not.

First, in understanding containment theory, it is important to recognize that Reckless did not focus on what caused crime, per se, and instead he allowed for many possible causes that he separated into two general types: pulls and pushes. According to the containment theory, there are “pulls” and “pushes” into deviance, and everyone likely experiences these pushes and pulls to some extent. Pulls into deviance are external factors that may help make it possible, or more likely, for someone to engage in deviant or delinquent behavior. It could be that someone lives in a high-crime area, which makes it more likely that the culture is supportive of committing crimes or that one has more delinquent peers and thus more opportunity to commit crimes. Likewise, one could be living in poverty or suffering from family problems leading to greater pressure to be deviant.

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