Social Control Theory Essay

The theory also accounts for crime and delinquency in adolescence. Sampson and Laub (2001) differentiated the life course of individuals based on age and argued that the important formal and informal social controls that would restrict deviant behavior varied across the life span. In childhood and adolescence, the dominant sources of informal social controls consisted mainly of parenting styles, such as discipline, supervision, emotional attachment, and on school attachment and peers. As such, when the bonds to these processes weakened, adolescents were more likely to commit deviant acts that extends throughout the life course of the individual (Piquero et al., 2001).

However, the most notable difference between age-graded informal social

For instance, Tim and Lionel have never felt attached to anyone else and believed that they did not belong to conventional society. These feelings were only exacerbated by the influence of the youth’s families. The importance of family and socialization practices (e.g., monitoring and supervision, formation of close bonds, etc.) for explaining crime and delinquency has been well established (Salvatore & Taniguchi, 2012). Studies show that youth who are closely supervised are less likely to associate with delinquent peers. Parents who have strong bonds to their children are more likely to supervise and monitor their children, decreasing the likelihood of their children’s associated with delinquent peers (Piquero et al., 2001). However, in the case of Tim and Lionel, both of their parents only considered them as burdens and through their actions essentially pushed the youth out of the family and into a context that promoted crime. The frequent beatings combined with the blatant disregard for their wellbeing created a lack of attachment in the youth. This lack of parental attachment did not directly affect delinquency. Instead, it lead the youth to distance themselves from society and become involved with other deviant peers, which in turn, led to

According to them, school bonds act as a protective factor against violent and nonviolent offending (Laub et al., 2001) . For Tim and Lionel, harsh parental discipline and witnessing domestic violence disrupted the youth’s educational trajectories and weakened their attachment to school. As a consequence, they routinely misbehaved in school, subsequently led to the rejection of the youth by their teachers and peers. This rejection weakens the attachment of the youth to the school, and ultimately, lowers their performance in school. Thus, lack of attachment and low commitment to school, loosens social control exerted by school and led Tim and Lionel to delinquency (Salvatore & Taniguchi, 2012). Since Tim and Lionel were not accepted by others in school, they were not ‘bound’ by the school rules and felt that it was acceptable to commit deviant acts like