The Empirical Status of Control Theory in Criminology

Abstract

Modern control theories in criminology have their roots in systematic efforts to discover and to explain the facts about crime. A review of the empirical status of control theory in criminology reminds that criminology, as a behavioral science, allows only indirect measures of the most critical theoretical concepts. Control theory focuses on explaining individual and group differences in crime and delinquency via bonds produced primarily by intimates the perspective has been referred to as social or self-control theory. Self-control theory developed because of people interest in reconciling the assumptions of control theory with an additional set of empirical findings generated by a large number of studies. Empirical literature provides a very broad, empirical consensus about self-control as a general cause of crime, delinquency and problem behaviors. The competition between control and social learning theories regarding peer effects can be briefly stated—for control theory, the variable "friends' delinquency" reflects selection effects and measurement error.

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