Fifty Years of Causes of Delinquency, Volume 25 by James C. Oleson Barbara J. Costello

Author:James C. Oleson, Barbara J. Costello [James C. Oleson, Barbara J. Costello]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780367529406
Google: 4ut7zQEACAAJ
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2021-05-29T01:34:46+00:00

Part II

Looking Forward― New Directions and Applications

7

A Theory of Commitment and Delinquency

Francis T. Cullen, Heejin Lee, and Leah C. Butler

Causes of Delinquency is a criminological classic. Since its inception, Hirschi’s (1969) social control theory—the term he preferred to social bond theory—has been subjected to extensive empirical tests, now totaling more than 275 (Cullen, 2011; Kempf, 1993). According to Google Scholar, the book has been cited 13,657 times (as of September 15, 2019). With the growth of life-course theory, his concept of the social bond has been incorporated into integrated-developmental theories and employed as a central factor in explaining desistance (see, e.g., Hawkins et al., 2003; Sampson & Laub, 1993; Thornberry, 1987). For decades, every theory textbook has included an assessment of Hirschi’s perspective (see, e.g., Akers & Sellers, 2004; Lilly, Cullen, & Ball, 2019; Kubrin, Stucky, & Krohn, 2009; Pfohl, 1985). Writing at the ten-year anniversary of the publication of Causes of Delinquency, Gibbons (1979, p. 121) proved prescient when he predicted that “Hirschi’s theory is likely to be one of the more enduring contributions to criminology.” Some three decades later, Gottfredson (2011, p. 334) could claim, with little dispute, that “it is easily argued that Causes of Delinquency is the major work of modern criminology” (see also Cullen, 2011).

Despite the numerous empirical studies generated by Hirschi’s perspective, our thesis is that its potential to spur theoretical innovation has not been fully realized. Again, scholars have used the concept of the social bond as a key causal variable within their life-course models (see Farrington, 2005). And, to be sure, different varieties of control theory have appeared at the macro and micro levels (for summaries, see Lilly et al., 2019; Wilcox, Cullen, & Feldmeyer, 2018), and control theory arguably has come to dominate criminology (Britt & Costello, 2015; Britt & Gottfredson, 2003; Gottfredson, 2006; Paternoster & Bachman, 2010). Still, in the past half century, relatively little attention has been given to elaborating Hirschi’s social control theory, specifically as it relates to the four elements of the social bond—attachment, commitment, involvement, and belief (for an exception, see Bernard, 1987). As will be noted, the purpose of this chapter is to illustrate what such a theoretical enterprise might entail by offering a theory of commitment.

In all likelihood, this relative lack of theoretical development of the social bond paradigm is because Hirschi never encouraged this enterprise—or engaged in it much himself (see, however, Hirschi, 2004). First, he presented his social control theory as a fait accompli—as a finished product. Ever the positivist, Hirschi (2002) was always open to adjusting a theory to fit the known facts about crime, but, by and large, he thought that Causes of Delinquency and social control theory did that pretty well. As Hirschi (2002, p. xiii) asserted, “the facts about crime and delinquency should take priority over all other considerations.” He simply did not invite theoretical speculation.

Second and, relatedly, Hirschi believed that once his theory was presented, the task was to test it versus rival theories so as to adjudicate which perspective survived the empirical contest.

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