Control theories are limited in their explanations of criminality as they are only able to address juvenile street crime. Critically analyse this statement.

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Control theories are limited in their explanations of criminality as they are only able to address juvenile street crime. Critically analyse this statement.

This essay aims to define control theories and to point out the main theorists arguments around control. It will delve into how these theories try to explain criminality and how it goes about trying to explain it. It will examine whether control theories are in fact limited when seeking to explain crime and criminality and whether this limitation concerns only being able to address juvenile street crime. It will seek to define juvenile delinquency whilst endeavouring to uncover links between juveniles and criminality. It will also look at how other theories view youths and criminality. Ultimately concluding as to whether control theories are limited in their explanations of criminality and whether or not it only addresses juvenile street crime.

Social control theories of crime and criminal behaviour attribute law breaking to the weakness, breakdown, or absence of those social bonds or socialisation processes that are presumed to encourage law-abiding conduct. Such theories focus on the relationships, commitments, values, norms and beliefs that are alleged to explain why people do not break laws as compared to theories that focus on the motivating forces thought to explain why people do break laws. When taken to the extreme, social control theory dismisses or ignores motivational issues.

Travis Hirschi viewed the motivations as so natural to human beings that no special forces were necessary to explain law breaking. He stated that;

 

“Law- breaking is often the most immediate source of gratification or conflict resolution, and no special motivation is required to explain such behaviour.” (Hirschi, 1969)

He also advocated that human beings are active, flexible individuals who will engage in a range of activities, unless the range is limited by processes of socialisation and social learning. However, many control-oriented theorists do introduce motivating forces, pressures and pulls into their explanations. Hirschi viewed motivations as sufficiently common, diverse, transitory and situational, and suggested that more explanatory power is to be gained from focusing on the barriers or constraints that reduce criminality.

A Juvenile Delinquent is an individual who repeatedly commits crime within society. Youth crime is an aspect of crime of which receives great attention from the . Especially with reference to Anti-social Behaviour Orders. Designed to tackle behaviour that is viewed as socially unacceptable, aimed at controlling the behaviours of youths and other people of whom step away from the ‘normal’, acceptable rules of society (Ashworth, 2004). Juvenile delinquency is the focus of many theories such as differential association, strain theory, labelling theories and subcultural theories, all of which concentrate on explaining why crime takes place.

Albert J. Reiss (1951: 196) proposed that delinquency was “behaviour consequent to the failure of personal and social controls.” Personal control was defined as ‘the ability of the individual to refrain from meeting needs in ways which conflict with the norms and rules of the community’ while social control was ‘the ability of social groups or institutions to make norms or rules effective.’  

Reiss’s identified the failure of reinforcement for non-delinquent roles and values were crucial to the explanation of delinquency. In simple terms poor personal control was an indicator of criminality.

        Walter Reckless (1956) developed a “containment” theory by focusing on a youth’s self-conception as an “insulator” against delinquency. He proposed that a wide range of characteristics of individuals could operate as internal control mechanisms, but applied significance to “self-concepts” or “self images.” Suggesting that even in environments where crime is high, youths who held images of themselves as ‘good students’ or ‘good kids’ could be insulated from pressures and pulls that promote delinquency. He stated that formation of such self-images was a reflection of strong social relationships with parents, teachers and other sources of socialisation. Therefore it is important to point out that even in areas where crime is of the norm, those social controls create a barrier for people who view themselves as worthy that prevent them leading into delinquency.

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        Jackson Toby (1957), argued that ‘the uncommitted adolescent is a candidate for gang socialization.’ Toby acknowledged youths who had few stakes or investments in conformity were more likely to be drawn into gang activity than youths who had a lot to lose. A variety of conventional social relationships and commitments could be jeopardized by involvement in delinquency, however youths without such stakes were free to be recruited into crime. Toby’s theory focused on explaining criminality, however it was limited in that it only really addressed juvenile street crime, thus neglecting to consider criminals that committed other types of crime.

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