NCJ Number
174523
Journal
Theoretical Criminology Volume: 1 Issue: 4 Dated: November 1997 Pages: 429-452
Date Published
1997
Length
24 pages
Annotation
This article discusses several interpretations of control theories and differential association theory of crime.
Abstract
The article takes issue with earlier interpretations of differential association theory as a "cultural deviance theory." It argues that the important distinction between control theories and differential association theory is whether motivation to crime is constant across persons, whether criminal organization and subcultures are irrelevant to criminality, and whether crime can never be learned or transmitted across individuals. Control theories distinguish themselves from other theories of crime by answering "yes" to each of these questions, differential association theory answers "no." An interpretation of models of delinquency that developed a framework for comparing causal theories of delinquency and developed the control perspective was seriously flawed by its reduction of differential association theory to the assumptions of cultural deviance theory. One specification and empirical examination of a social control theory was a brilliant example of theory construction and a creative use of quantitative data to adjudicate among hypotheses from competing theories. Figures, notes, references