Social Control Theory of Crime

The Social Control Theory was developed by Travis Hirschi in 1969.

It states that an individual’s behavior is bonded by society, and the extent to which an individual feels the bond or commitment to society determines their deviance from conventional societal norms.

The theory is commonly used in criminology and aims to explore why an individual chooses not to engage (or engage) in criminal activity (Hirschi, 1969).

How Social Bonds Work

Usually, an individual in society would be involved in many social networks starting from childhood, such as school, work, and family.

From early on in life, an individual is bonded to society, so their behavior conforms to what is expected in society.

Macro institutions matter too. Religion, law, and education work together to maintain order.

The common view is simple. When individuals feel a strong bond with society, they are less likely to commit a crime.

As the social bonds become stronger, the costs of committing a crime also increase, and when the individual’s bond to society weakens, delinquent behaviors surface (Schreck et al., 2009). 

Most offenders still agree that laws should be followed. The Social Control Theory also looks into why this is the case.

Ideas of social control date back centuries. The theory only became a focus for crime researchers in the mid-1900s, when it was known as the “Social Bond Theory.” The term names the social bond: the combination of attachment, commitment, involvement, and belief that ties a person to conventional society.

Hirschi: Bonds of Attachment

Travis Hirschi focused on factors stopping people from committing crimes.

These factors would influence the bond that an individual feels toward society. In the end, four elements – attachment, commitment, involvement, and beliefs – were identified as helpful in explaining and summarizing relevant research. 

A. Attachment

Hirschi identified attachment as the first social bond, which refers to the level of psychological affection one has for prosocial others and institutions (Hirschi, 1969).

Attachment is prosocial in its role in stopping people from committing a crime.

The impulse to commit a crime can be resisted because of the costs of crime associated with delinquent behaviors. One major cost is the disapproval of people whom the potential offender cares about.

This brings in the concept of sensitivity.

Psychologists argue that some people are more sensitive to the opinion of others, and the extent to which one is sensitive to others’ views will predict rates of criminal activity. Attachment is used to capture the emotions associated with committing a crime.

If a person feels no attachment or emotion to anyone in society, they are theoretically free to commit crimes. Nothing holds them back.

Hirschi gave a concrete example. A teenager offered stolen goods at a bargain price by a classmate might decline the offer. They do this not because they weigh the odds of getting caught, but because they picture a parent’s disappointment.

B. Commitment

Hirschi noted that people are less likely to commit crimes when they know that they have something to lose. A potential offender would calculate the benefits and costs of crime.

If a person has invested a lot of time and energy into achieving certain goals, they have a lot to lose by committing a crime. The crime becomes less worth the risk.

For example, a person could lose property, life, liberty, and money if they commit a crime.

In the case of juveniles, achievement shows up mainly in academic performance. Researchers have found that a student’s grade point average explains why IQ test scores correlate with delinquency (Schreck & Hirschi, 2009).

Higher grades meant less crime.

Explaining using commitment, this is because the student has higher achievement and would lose more if he or she commits a crime.

The same logic applies beyond school. Consider a student close to finishing a demanding degree who is offered the chance to cheat on a minor assignment. They usually refuse, not out of loyalty to one person, but because years of accumulated academic investment would be jeopardised by getting caught.

C. Involvement

The third type of social bond is known as involvement, which relates to the opportunity costs associated with how a person spends their time.

Involvement in conventional activities includes things such as reading, playing sports, doing homework, listening to music, watching TV, and doing housework.

If a person is heavily involved in these activities, then they have less time and energy to think about committing delinquent acts.

They would also be heavily involved in social networks and hesitate to engage in criminal activity.

On the other hand, some people may spend less time doing conventional activities, experience detachment from society, and thus be more likely to commit a crime.

 D. Beliefs

The fourth and last type of social bond is belief: how far someone accepts society’s values and rules as legitimate. The stronger this belief, the less important the risk of breaking the law. Weak believers offend more easily.

Theorists have long disputed this factor (Schreck & Hirschi, 2009).

It states that some beliefs allow delinquent behaviors while other beliefs prevent delinquency. If an individual believes in following social norms and rules, then he or she would be less likely to commit actions that violate the rules.

On the other hand, an individual who doesn’t believe in the importance or necessity of societal rules would be involved in activities that go against societal norms.

An example makes this concrete. Someone who has internalised care for the environment as a core value might pick up litter in an empty park where nobody is watching. They do this simply because leaving it would violate a rule they believe is right.

Social Control Theory Examples

1.  Adolescents and minor crimes

Social Control Theory also helps explain adolescent drug use. Krohn and Massey (1980) tested whether the theory’s four elements predicted alcohol, marijuana, and other delinquent behaviour among teenagers.

They surveyed 3,065 adolescents in grades 7 through 12 across midwestern states. Attachment came from questions about parents and peers.

Commitment and involvement were measured through an activity index and grade point average. Belief was measured as agreement with social norms.

Researchers then tested whether these four factors correlated with drug use and delinquency. The theory explained a moderate amount of the variance, working best for minor offences and drug use rather than serious crime.

One finding stood out. Commitment and belief predicted crime more strongly for females, while attachment mattered more for males.

2.  Occupational misconduct

Donner and colleagues tested whether Social Control Theory could explain occupational misconduct. They defined this as delinquent behaviour that would trigger formal punishment by an employer or under the law.

Researchers surveyed 101 first-line police supervisors. They asked about the likelihood of future misconduct.

The most severe misconduct was linked to weak commitment to the job. Supervisors with stronger job commitment and social connectedness were less likely to risk their careers by misbehaving.

3.  Cheating

Academic cheating has been a significant issue in schools for a long time.

Researchers from China conducted a study in an attempt to use the Social Control Theory to partially explain exam cheating (Zheng & Gao, 2018).

Seven hundred and one students from universities were recruited and given questionnaires assessing parental, school, and peer attachments as well as commitments and beliefs about rules.

Questions such as “How much do you feel that your friends care about you” were asked.

The theory held here too. Results of the study indicated that positive, strong ties to the educational institution predicted lower odds of cheating. Involvement in school-related activities had the same protective effect.

This is aligned with the Social Control Theory.

Factors Influencing Social Control 

Family

Family is the first society that a child will enter. Everyone enters the world in a state of low self-control as a toddler.

However, family is an “institution” where children learn from caretakers about right and wrong and how to behave. Parents also pass down educational choices, religious beliefs, and how to treat others.

It could influence the beliefs of a child. Bonds within a family would also be a prosocial attachment because children could be afraid of disappointing their family.

Decades of research on parenting and delinquent behavior have also found that parenting type will influence a child’s likelihood of conducting future crimes.

More specifically, Diana Baumrind found that authoritarian parents who are high on responsiveness and demandingness to their child are the best for a child’s development.

These parents have a stronger bond with their child, who needs support and control.

This type of parenting is positively related to social adjustment and negatively related to misconduct and delinquency (Baumrind, 1971).

Community

The community and neighborhood that a person lives in could influence rates of delinquency.

It acts as a prosocial attachment bond in stopping people from committing crimes. For example, suppose the person is in a close-knit community where everyone knows one another.

In that case, committing a crime could mean disappointing or hurting people from the community. Thus, someone with a strong bond with their community would suffer more from committing a crime than someone who doesn’t care and feel no attachment to their community.

Media

Nowadays, people are often bombarded with tons of information from the internet through modes like phone apps, television, and radio.

The way the media portrays crime influences public opinion on crime and whether or not one would indulge in criminal activities.

The fear of the consequences of crime would act as a protective factor and stop potential offenders from committing a crime. Crimes are portrayed negatively in the media, which helps shape audiences’ beliefs that crime is a “bad” thing.

Public criticisms of crime seen on television or in the newspaper would make a person think twice before engaging in criminal activities.

Criticisms of Social Control Theory

Social Control Theory has drawn several criticisms. The biggest is that it only considers external bonds, such as ties to social institutions or family.

It ignores factors like autonomy, impulsiveness, or personal choice. Biology may matter too: a person’s serotonin and dopamine pathways could make them more prone to impulsive, even violent, choices.

The MAOA gene, for instance, has been linked to aggressive behaviour (Paul, 2020).

The theory also struggles to explain white-collar crime. This includes offences like money laundering or healthcare fraud, committed by people who abuse a position of power for financial gain.

These offenders often have strong job commitments and bonds, yet still choose to offend.

Finally, the theory’s bonds are hard to measure precisely. Most research relies on self-report questionnaires, which can be biased or misleading.

Contemporary Research

A 2022 meta-analysis put the theory to its toughest test yet: a head-to-head comparison with its biggest rival, self-control theory. Tehrani and Yamini (2022) pooled 32 studies and more than 107,000 participants using structural equation modelling, a technique built to weigh competing explanations against each other.

The analysis focused on school-based social bonds. Did they still predict deviant behaviour once self-control was accounted for?

School bonds retained a significant effect on deviant behaviour even after self-control was factored in. Self-control mattered too, partly through its own link to school bonds.

Neither theory explained the other away.

Tehrani and Yamini concluded the two mechanisms are genuinely separate, only partly overlapping. The field, they argued, should integrate both into one model rather than treating them as rivals.

By focusing on inherent individual traits and the stability of self-control, the self-control theory of crime can be seen as a critique of the social control theory’s emphasis on the external societal factors in understanding crime.

1. Individual Agency vs. Societal Bonds: Self-control theory highlights intrinsic personality traits as the primary predictors of criminal behavior, emphasizing individual agency. This can be seen as a criticism of social control theory’s emphasis on external societal bonds, suggesting that even in the presence of strong societal ties, individuals with low self-control might still engage in criminal activities.
2. Stability of Self-Control: Self-control theory posits that levels of self-control are established early in life and remain relatively stable. This challenges the idea that strengthening societal bonds in later life, as social control theory might advocate, would significantly reduce criminal tendencies in those with established low self-control.
3. Universality of Low Self-Control: The characteristics of low self-control, such as impulsivity and preference for simple tasks, are seen as universal predictors of crime across different cultures and societies. This counters social control theory’s focus on the variability of societal norms and institutions as major determinants of criminal behavior.

How Social Control Theory Compares to Other Theories

Social Control Theory sits alongside several other theories of crime. Each asks a different question, or explains conformity and deviance through a different mechanism.

Containment Theory: Hirschi’s Predecessor

Hirschi’s theory built on Reckless’s (1961) containment theory. Reckless argued that people face constant social and psychological “pushes” and “pulls” toward crime, such as poverty or delinquent friends.

He proposed two kinds of restraint. An “inner containment” of self-concept and self-control. An “outer containment” of family supervision and belonging.

Together, these decided whether someone actually offended.

Hirschi’s four bonds refined this same basic idea into a more precise, measurable model, one that could be surveyed and scored rather than judged impressionistically. The groundwork for this came earlier still.

Glueck and Glueck’s (1950) landmark study compared 500 delinquent boys with 500 non-delinquent boys over many years. That dataset resurfaces decades later, in research tracing how adult bonds can redirect an already-delinquent life.

Strain Theory: A Rival Explanation

Strain theory, associated with Merton (1938), asks a structural question instead.

It explains crime as a mismatch. Culturally valued goals, like material success, sit beyond legitimate reach for some people. Offending becomes a rational response to that blocked opportunity, not a symptom of weak bonding as such.

Social Control Theory asks a different question: what holds most people back from crime? Strain theory asks something different. Why is crime so unevenly distributed by social class?

The two are not strict rivals.

A person can face structural strain and also hold a weak social bond, with both mechanisms combining to shape the eventual outcome. Someone blocked from legitimate success and poorly bonded to family or school faces the highest risk of all, on either theory’s account.

Differential Association Theory: Crime as Learned Behaviour

Edwin Sutherland’s differential association theory offers a different mechanism again. People learn to commit crime through close association with others who model and endorse it. This works much like learning any other skill or attitude from the people around you.

This challenges Social Control Theory’s focus on restraint.

It explains why someone comes to value criminal behaviour in the first place. Control theory never really answers that question. It only explains what holds the value in check once it exists, not where the value came from to begin with.

Elliott, Ageton, and Canter (1979) suggested the two ideas work together rather than compete. Weak bonds make delinquent friendships more likely.

Those friendships then supply the specific values and skills for offending, one mechanism feeding directly into the next.

Key Studies Testing the Social Bond

Hirschi’s claim has been tested more than almost any other idea in criminology. Two studies stand out.

Hindelang (1973): Testing Beyond Urban Males

Aim: Hirschi’s original study surveyed only urban American males. Hindelang tested something different. Would the bond model hold up in a mixed-sex, rural sample?

Method: Hindelang surveyed boys and girls in grades six through twelve at a single rural school. The survey closely modelled Hirschi’s own measures of attachment, commitment, involvement, and belief.

Results: The results matched Hirschi’s original findings closely. Attachment and belief showed particularly consistent links to lower delinquency.

Conclusion: The bond-delinquency link generalised beyond Hirschi’s original sample. It answered an early, obvious objection to the theory.

Evaluation: This study did important early work. It showed the theory was not just an artefact of studying urban men. Its limitation is that it remains a single-site, cross-sectional survey. Correlation is not causation.

Hoeve et al. (2012): A Meta-Analysis of Parental Attachment

Aim: To pool the many individual studies on parental attachment and delinquency. A single combined estimate beats relying on any one sample.

Method: A meta-analysis combining effect sizes from a large number of primary studies. These related parent-child attachment to delinquent and antisocial outcomes, across different ages and measures.

Results: Attachment to parents showed a consistent link. Lower attachment, more delinquency. The effect was modest, but statistically reliable across the pooled studies.

Conclusion: Pooling dozens of studies confirmed it. The attachment bond specifically is a genuine, replicable correlate of youth offending, not an artefact of any one sample.

Evaluation: As a meta-analysis, this sits above any single study in the evidence hierarchy. Its limitation is inherent to the method: pooling correlational studies cannot, by itself, prove that weak attachment causes delinquency rather than the reverse.

References

Baumrind, D. (1971). Types of adolescent life-styles. Developmental Psychology Monographs, 4(1, Pt. 2).

Cretacci, Zheng, L., & Gao, Y. (2018). Young Pandas Cheat and Smoke: A Social Control Theory Explanation of Chinese University Student’s Exam Cheating and Smoking. International Journal of Criminal Justice Sciences, 13(2), 264–282. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2654315 

Donner, Maskaly, J., & Fridell, L. (2016). Social bonds and police misconduct An examination of social control theory and its relationship to workplace deviance among police supervisors. Policing : an International Journal of Police Strategies & Management, 39(2), 416–431. https://doi.org/10.1108/PIJPSM-10-2015-0109

Hirschi, T. (1969). Causes of delinquency. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Hirschi. (2002). A Control Theory of Delinquency. In Causes of Delinquency (1st ed., pp. 16–34). Taylor & Francis. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315081649-2 

Hobbes, Thomas. 1957. Leviathan, or, The matter, forme and power of a commonwealth, ecclesiastical and civil. Edited by Michael Oakeshott. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. 

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Krohn, M. D., & Massey, J. L. (1980). Social Control and Delinquent Behavior: An Examination of the Elements of the Social Bond. The Sociological Quarterly, 21(4), 529–544. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1533-8525.1980.tb00634.x

Paul, S. (2020, November 19). The criminal behavior of genes – science repository. Science Repository. from https://www.sciencerepository.org/the-criminal-behavior-of-genes 

Pratt, T. C., & Cullen, F. T. (2000). The empirical status of Gottfredson and Hirschi’s general theory of crime: A meta-analysis. Criminology, 38(3), 931–964.

Schreck, & Hirschi, T. (2009). Social Control Theory. In 21st Century Criminology: A Reference Handbook (Vol. 1, pp. 305–311). SAGE Publications, Inc. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781412971997.n35

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