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Social Controls and Committing Crime

13 Pages 3140 Words June 2015

Control theories are different to other criminological theories. Most theories suggest that people naturally obey the law and they argue that there are certain factors that influence whether they will commit crime or not. Control theories take the stance that if we are left to our own devices we would all commit crime and that it is down to certain controls whether internal to the person or enforced by others externally which prevent us from doing so (Paternoster and Bachman, in McLaughlin & Newburn, 2010). These theories therefore assume that all people are capable of crime and individuals commit crime due to the weakness of controls restraining them from doing not because of forces driving them to do so (Vold 2002). This is described by Lilly et al (2011), "Non-conformity such as crime and delinquency is to be expected when social controls are less than completely effective". This therefore leads us to believe that these theories are not explaining deviance rather conformity. In addition, Downes and Rock, 2011 claim that “control theories do not explain conformity and whether it is as complicated as deviance. They make far too little of both deviance and conformity”. This essay will look at the different types of control theories in relation to social control and the prevention of crime.
One of the early control theorist’s Reiss (1951) outlined the main argument of control theorists by stating that delinquency is due to the failure of restraint. (Paternoster and Bachman, in McLaughlin & Newburn, 2010) He looked at two different types of control; personal control and social control. Personal control is the ability to avoid meeting needs in ways which go against the norms of society and social control is the ability of society and institutions to make norms effective (Lilly et al, 2011). He continued to say that conformity may result from the acceptance of these norms or the mere submission to them. This means that the norms of...

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