Social Control and Self-Control Theories of Crime and Deviance by L Edward Wells

Author:L Edward Wells [Wells, L Edward]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, General, Social Science, Criminology
ISBN: 9781351548502
Google: eS4rDwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 35635777
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2017-07-05T00:00:00+00:00

CRIMES

As noted previously, Gottfredson and Hirschi define crime as “acts of force or fraud undertaken in pursuit of self-interest” (1990, p. 15). The definition intentionally avoids equating criminal behavior with illegal behavior. We directly implement their definition in this research. Respondents were asked how many times in the past 5 years they had (a) “distorted the truth or falsely represented something to get something you couldn’t otherwise obtain” (fraud), and (b) “used or threatened to use force against an adult to accomplish your goals” (force). The mean is 1.44 for fraud and .64 for force. For both crimes, the distributions are strongly positively skewed, and the overwhelming majority of respondents are in the category 0 (87% for fraud and 91% for force).

Two issues become readily apparent. First is the problem of causal order. Low self-control is measured as a present trait of respondents, but criminal behavior is measured with self-reports over the past 5 years. In most theories of crime, this would be a serious problem. But, in Gottfredson and Hirschi’s formulation, low self-control is a personality trait established early in life, which remains relatively stable over the life course. In particular, the rank order of a group of people in terms of their levels of self-control is not expected to change with increased age. Thug the present level of self-control, or at least the present rank order of respondents in terms of self-control, according to the theory, can reasonably be expected to reflect the respondents’ relative levels of self-control during the past 5 years. Although critics of the theory might question the invariance of self-control over the life course, our task is not to be critical, but rather to accept some of Gottfredson and Hirschi’s claims in order to test others. With this strategy, temporal order is not an issue, and cross-sectional analysis is appropriate (see Gottfredson and Hirschi 1990, pp. 223–40). Gottfredson and Hirschi’s argument that, because levels of self-control remain stable during the life course, panel designs would provide results identical to cross-sectional designs is one that must be tested in future research. Such research is essential for the theory and must involve a panel that begins with children at a very young age, younger than those included in typical panel studies. Age appropriate measures of low self-control and of force and fraud will have to be developed.

Second, the distributions of the crime variables pose problems for analysis. The overwhelming majority of respondents are in the 0 category. Because those who are not in the 0 category express a wide range of answers, a few extremes produce a high positive skewness for each offense. Our analysis strategies are adapted to these distributions.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.