National Domestic Violence Awareness Month

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National Domestic Violence Awareness Month

• Washington State University students affiliated
  with Green Dot are providing campus-wide
  education
• Oct. 20 and 27, full-length training, 10 a.m. to
  4 p.m., Washington Building G40 register online
  at http//greendot.wsu.edu

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National Domestic Violence Awareness Month

• http//www.youtube.com/watch?voqGVzYA5Zmg

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National Domestic Violence Awareness Month

• Testimony of a young woman
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vNJ8fz2ID5lQfeature
  related

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Control theories

• Social Bond Theory
• Self-Control Theory

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Control Theories

• Instead of asking what drives people to commit
  crime, they ask why do most people not commit
  crime
• All of us, beginning at birth, possess the
  hedonistic drive to act in the kinds of selfish
  and aggressive ways that lead to criminal
  behavior.

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The main question of control theories

• Temptation is before us all but why do only some
  of us give in to temptation?

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Comparison

• Strain/learning theories

• Control theories

Strain
Social learning of crime
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What are controls/restrains?

• My parents raised me to respect the law
• I do not want to upset my parents
• I know what is right and what is wrong
• I am afraid of being caught
• I worry about my reputation

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Control Theories Main focus

• Focus on restraining or "controlling" factors
  that are broken or missing
• Control theories investigate the ways in which
  our behavior is regulated by influences of
  family, school, morals, values, beliefs, etc.

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Types of Control

• Direct control
• Indirect control
• Belief
• Self-control (Internal control)

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Direct Control

• Setting rules
• Monitoring behavior
• Sanctioning delinquency
• Reinforcing conventional behavior

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Setting rules

• Mostly done by parents, teachers, and schools

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Monitoring behavior

• Someone is watching and sanctioning

Very high levels of monitoring and over strict
parents may be ineffective and sometimes, they
may even increase delinquency (perhaps for
reasons related to strain theory)
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Sanctioning delinquency

• Parents, teachers, police, courts, correctional
  agencies

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Teen Arrested For Texting In Class

• WAUWATOSA- A 14-year old girl was arrested for
  texting in class.
• The teacher told to stop, but the teen kept at
  it. The teacher called the school's police
  officer.
• The officer demanded the phone, and the teen hid
  it down in her pants and denied having a cell
  phone.
• She was arrested for disorderly conduct for
  disrupting class, disobeying the teacher, and
  lying to the officer about having a phone.
• Not only was she arrested and forced to appear in
  court, she ended up with a 300 bail and she was
  suspended for a week

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James Davis, 19 arrested for wrapping cat in duct
tape (Philadelphia)

• A teenager wrapped a cat in duct tape and left it
  in a neighbor's backyard
• A teen was arrested on animal cruelty charges
• He faces up to two years in prison and a minimum
  1,000 fine if convicted.

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Teen arrested in rape and murder of 8-month-old
(New Orleans)

• A 17-year-old Arnold T. Ross was arrested on
  charges of aggravated rape and first-degree
  murder of an 8-month-old child
• The death was initially unclassified, but the
  coroner's office later reported it as a homicide
  after an autopsy of the child's body revealed
  multiple fractures consistent with a beating and
  tears in the anus

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Social Bond TheoryTravis Hirschi

• Social Control Theory
• Causes of Delinquency (1969)
• Social Bond Theory- Delinquent acts result when
  an individual's bonds to society are weak or
  broken
• Attachment
• Commitment
• Involvement
• Belief

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Social Bond TheoryTravis Hirschi

• Attachment refers to the level of psychological
  affection one has for prosocial others and
  institutions.
• For Hirschi, parents and schools were of critical
  importance in this regard.

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Social Bond TheoryTravis Hirschi

• Commitment involves the time, energy, and effort
  expended in conventional lines of action, such as
  getting an education and saving money for the
  future.
• In essence, Hirschi noted that people are less
  likely to misbehave when they know that they have
  something to lose.

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Social Bond TheoryTravis Hirschi

• Heavy involvement in conventional activities
  leaves little time for illegal behavior

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Social Bond TheoryTravis Hirschi

• Belief refers to the degree to which one adheres
  to the values associated with behaviors that
  conform to the law
• Youths who, for example, share the belief that
  using illegal narcotics is wrong are less likely
  to participate in such behavior.

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Social Bond TheoryTravis Hirschi

• Perhaps the most significant element of Hirschis
  theory is that, taken together, these social
  bonds coalesce in a way that controls our
  behavior indirectlythat is, we do not need to
  have these bonds directly present in our lives to
  keep our behavior in check.

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(No Transcript)
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Empirical validity of the theory

• Theory suggests that attachment to parents (even
  delinquent ones) and friends (even delinquent
  ones) would decrease delinquency
• Research has shown the opposite

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Self-control theory

• Hirschi collaborated with Gottfredson (1990) to
  develop the theory with the only one type of
  control self-control
• They did not clarify how their self-control
  theory relates to Hirschis social bond theory

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Self-control theory

• Theory states that individuals with high
  self-control will be less likely at all periods
  of life to engage in criminal acts, while
  individuals with low self-control are likely to
  commit crimes

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Elements of low self-control

• People with low self-control have a here and
  now orientation and are unable or unwilling to
  delay gratification
• Criminal acts are exciting, risky, and thrilling
• People lacking self-control tend to be
  adventuresome, active, and physical
• Those with high levels of self-control tend to be
  cautious, cognitive, and verbal

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Determinants of Low Self-Control

• Low self-control is produced in families
• 1) where there is little attachment between
  parent and child
• 2) where parents fail to recognize deviant
  behavior (for example, in cases where parents are
  also deviant),
• 3) where parents recognize deviant behavior but
  fail to correct it

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Self-control

• Once formed in childhood, the amount of
  self-control remain relatively stable throughout
  life
• Family is the most important agent
• Peer groups are relatively unimportant in the
  development of self-control

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Crime Rate Variations?

• Why do people commit less crime as they age?
• Why are some regions are more crime prone than
  others?
• Why are some groups are more crime prone than
  others?
• Does that mean there are between-group
  differences in self-control?

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Age-crime relationship
8-9 years
15-24 years
45-55 years