Social Bonds

Assumptions

Although there are many contemporary extensions of the classic control perspective, all versions of the theory (both early and contemporary) share a common underlying assumption. That is, control theories all assume to some extent that people are alike in the sense that they will always prioritize and, at the same time, seek self-interests by perpetually trying to increase pleasure, while minimizing pain and effort. It has been argued that because most criminal and deviant behavior can address such basic human desires, the motivation to offend is assumed to be evenly distributed among the population. More important, all versions of the theory also assume that people will commit crime or deviance if social controls are absent or weak. According to this line of reasoning then, variations in crime and deviance are the outcome of failure of different social controls acting to restrain individuals from engaging in socially undesired behavior. What makes the control perspective unique from other criminological theories is that it seeks to address the reasons people do not commit crime and not as much to emphasize the reasons that make individuals engage in crime.

The Principal Elements of Social Bonds

Even in light of numerous predecessors, Hirschi's social bond theory is widely considered to be the most efficacious to the prominence of the control perspective. The concept of social bonds features a particularly sociological dimension due to its specific emphasis on a given person's ties and relations to others in society and how these connections, in turn, may affect that individual's criminal and deviant behavior. Consistent with early versions of control theory, social bonds theory posits that crime and deviance are the outcome when a person's ties to his or her community are weakened or absent. As a [Page 649]result, the crux of social bonds theory can be summarized by its proposed inverse relationship to crime as well as its four principal elements of attachment, commitment, involvement, and beliefs. What drives the theory is a thorough exploration of the extent to which these different social bonds exert control over individuals and their behaviors. This section elaborates on each of the stated elements.

The first element, attachment, is primarily concerned with the quality of relationships that a person has with his or her immediate social environment. For instance, relationships with parents are often cited as being of high importance with respect to this element of social bonds. According to Hirschi, these intimate connections are important to a person's behavior due to the fact that they are a measure of how much a person cares about others' expectations of him or her. More specifically, this element of social bond theory suggests that the less a person cares about others' expectations, the less he or she may be restrained by the norms that they all share, and as a result, the more likely he or she may disregard said norms. For example, when the opportunity to commit crime or deviance is presented, a person who is more worried about disappointing others, such as family and friends, is more likely to refrain than a person who is not concerned about disappointing those around him or her.

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