Family Control Theory Essay

What is the relationship between family dynamics and juvenile delinquency? Can the family environment really affect the delinquency of a juvenile? A broken home is one of the first factors that will be looked at. Do single parents have more juveniles involved in delinquency than families with two parents? Do families with just a mother present have more delinquency than a family with just a father? The second factor that will be looked at is drugs and alcohol in the home. How does drugs and alcohol relate to violence in the home? When parents get in trouble for their drug and alcohol use and get locked up, how is the family affected by this? The third factor that will be looked at is bad parenting. Is bad parenting caused simply by being too strict or not strict enough? Or could it be that parents lack the proper supervision of their children and allow them to do things that they shouldn’t? All of these factors will be looked at and discussed within this paper.

Travis, C.P; Michael, G.T; & Alex, R.P (2004), Parental Socialization and Community Context: A Longitudinal Analysis of the Structural Sources of Low Self-Control. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 41(3), 219-243

This is about the result of delinquent acts due to a juvenile’s bond to society being weak or broken. Travis Hirschi was the theorist that looked into this theory and found many links to delinquent behavior. One of them is that the quality of bond an individual has with society reflects on whether they have behaviors toward crime or not. Commitment to social bond, the attachment that a juvenile has to conventional institutions and activities, has four elements that help describe the strong or weak bond a person may have to society which are attachment, commitment, involvement, and beliefs. An insight with these elements is that if an individual does not have beliefs, is not involved, have commitment or attachment, they are more likely to turn to crime because they won’t have positive bonds to desist them from it. This seems to be more likely with children from broken families because they are missing one or more of the four elements in their life and especially in this day and age with politics dividing society so much. Parents play a big role when it comes to respecting the legal system. An example from this in Voices of Delinquency is that some of the kids didn’t have good relationships with their parents which lead to them not being taught the respect the legal system requires to work smoothly. Overall, social control is happening everywhere in one way or

Individuals who commit deviant crimes such as smoking, excessive drinking, and gambling, and unprotected sex are viewed as analogous to crime because those activities are gratifying (Pratt & Cullen, 2000). Hirschi argued that there were four important social bonds that decreased delinquent behavior. The four social bonds were attachment, commitment, involvement, and belief (Connolly, 2014). Hirschi and Gottfredson assumed that high self-control results from adequate child rearing. When a child’s behavior is monitored and any deviant behavior is immediately recognized and punished, high self-control will be developed (Bernard & Vold, 2010). Children who have high levels of social bonds would be less likely to offend (Connolly, 2014). There are many research studies that have been conducted in order to gain an understanding of crime and deviance with Hirschi and Gottfredson’s theory. Their theory has been tested in sexual illicit behaviors, race, delinquency, SES, and peer influence. Hirschi and Gottfredson’s theory of self-control has had a powerful impact in

Social control theory suggest that crime occurs when such bonds are weakened or are not well established. Self-control theory argue that without such bonds, crime is an inevitable outcome. Hence, criminality is considered as a possibility for all individuals within society, bypassed only by those who seek to maintain family and social bonds. These bonds are based on attachment to those within and outside of the family, including friends, teachers, and co-workers, commitment to activities which individuals has invested time and energy in, such as educational, being involved in activities that serve to further bond an individual to others and leave limited time to become involved in deviant activities, and belief in wider social values.

A control theory of delinquency Hirschi argues that there are four social bonds that serve to inhibit or prevent involvement in delinquency and crime. The four social bonds that Hirschi talks about include the theories of attachment, involvement, and belief Attachment The first element of the social bond theory is the attachment theory. The attachment theory speaks to an individual’s sensitivity to other people’s opinions.

This paper will discuss the effects that families and parents have on their children and parental criminal history in particular. Data suggests that family relations have a substantial impact on juveniles and their criminal paths (Agnew and Brezina 2012). Children who are raised by parents with a criminal history and/or have a parent missing due to criminal involvement are usually more prone to become involved in juvenile delinquency themselves. This paper will discuss and site studies conducted to prove this point and will discuss the four major sociological theories: social learning theory, control theory, strain theory, and labeling theory, to support these findings. This paper will ask the question the effect of parental involvement to a juvenile’s future and ask the question, are juveniles with distance or incarcerated parents more prone to delinquency themselves? If so, how do the four major sociological theories support this statement?

In today’s world people use many words to describe different situations; some words are lovely, and some are horrifying. The thing about this world’s vocabulary, is that we choose which words best describe each situation and we are fully aware of the definitions behind them. In the Community people use their words with great precision, making sure not to confuse anyone or cause any feelings that might be bad. All citizens of the Community use the words that they are told to use without realizing that sometimes there are deep dark secrets behind what they are saying. Assignment, Elsewhere, and Family Unit are everyday words to the Community, but what they do not understand is the restriction behind them.

I also like the systems theory and how the family is viewed as a whole and not as a sum of its members. It is important to get the behavior's from everyone in the family as a disease of a loved one can be very hard to handle and deal with. We can more effectively understand patient's when we consider the whole picture to look at.

According the Travis Hirschi in his social control theory which states that strong and weak ties to family/community affect the behaviors of juvenile. The theory discusses 4 elements of social bonds which are attachment, commitment, involvement, and belief (Lilly, Cullen, & Ball, 2011). Attachment is persons close affectionate ties to others (i.e. parents, siblings, teachers etc.) (Lilly et al., 2011). Commitment is fear of law-breaking behavior. Involvement is participating in conventional acts to keep one out of trouble (i.e. extracurricular activities) (Lilly et al., 2011). Belief is making an impression that is highly dependent upon social reinforcement (Lilly et al., 2011). For a long time, it has been said that children who live in broken homes increases the likelihood of participating in criminal acts. They will go out and find comfort in the streets by hanging out with gang members and other neighborhood

(2008), reviewed elements from the family stress model, which can help explain the effects of living in a disadvantaged neighborhood. They did incorporate neighborhood SES, social organization and family processes. Although this study has significant information as to socioeconomic status, the study was completed on young children and research needs to be initiated with juveniles to see if there are connections to delinquency as well. In Gault-Sherman (2013), they attempt to study three key variables related to delinquency which are school achievement, parental attachment, and delinquent peers. They examine delinquency with the measure of SES by looking at the parent’s education level. This study only looks at parent’s educational level to measure SES, but alternative measures such as neighborhood SES, like used in Kohen et al. (2008), should be examined to determine other elements that may contribute to the success of MST. Although this study was looking at the gender gap differences and similarities among SES groups, there is significant knowledge to obtain from the study about variables that may affect juvenile delinquency and treatment

In the article, Which Bond Matters More? Assessing the Differential Strengths of Parental Bonding Measures on Adolescent Delinquency Over Time, author Jessica Craig refers to Travis Hirschi’s social bond theory regarding attachment when researching her questions of whether parental bonding correlates to lower delinquency, and whether a maternal bond is more strongly linked with lower delinquency as opposed to a stronger paternal bond (2015). It was found in Craig’s follow up responses from the longitudinal study on the public-use files from the data set available with the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health on 132 schools, more specifically, American children who were in middle and high school grades between 1994 to 1995, “that maternal bonding may have a greater controlling effect when compared to the paternal bond” (2015:235). It was evident that as the maternal bond increased, “the protective effect it has on delinquency was stronger than that of the paternal bond” (Craig 2015:235). However, it was also found in the cross-sectional analyses, apart from how the familial bonds were carried out, “whether it be the maternal bond, the paternal bond, or the overall parental bond, youth who reported feeling closer to their parents” were less likely to be involved in delinquent behavior, which backs Coster’s findings of

The modern working woman is struggling to balance work and family. The Second Wave of feminism has pushed her into the workforce, promising its ideals of equality in wages and in the home. However, many women find themselves in a world that devalues their work in home and in the workplace. Our society has not yet caught up to the Third Wave of feminism, which attempts to break down the traditional gender roles our constructions of work and family are based on. Many are hoping that government intervention through work policies that reflect the demands of an egalitarian family will be able to propel men and women out of the "stalled revolution".

This paper is going to highlight the social bonding theory. Control theorist Travis Hirsch i’s believes the cause of delinquency is based on the idea that people have innate desire to commit crime ( Griswold, and , Roberts, Wiatrowski 1981) .basically no matter how much one prevent crime, someone is bound to commit crime. According to social bond there are four factors that can determine rather an individual is going to deviate from societal norm; Attachment, Commitment, Involvement, and Belief (Grisworld et. al 1981). Example of the social bonds Attachment- family, commitment- school councils and the goals to pursue higher education. Involvement- dance, afterschool programs, and camps the involvement in different activities to keep busy. Belief – Religiosity, active in church groups, attends church frequently

The final theory to be discussed will be ‘control theory’ first thought of by Hirschi et al in 1969. They sought to explain delinquency by the “failure of social bonding processes” (Maguire et al, 2002: 521). The argument for and against parent orders will be examined as single mothers and mothers in general are being drawn into the criminal justice system and whether they are truly to blame needs to be looked at.