Much empirical support of self-control theory is based on the 24-item scale conceptualized by Grasmick and his colleagues. This study examined the dimensionality of the scale. Exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analyses, and a structural equation model (SEM) produced results that are discordant with much prior research. The Grasmick et al. scale was not unidimensional, more complex theoretical iterations failed to meet most goodness-of-fit statistics, and considerable refinement via modification indices was needed before a measurement model that fit the data could be found. Further refinement is required to justify it as the quintessential measure of self-control. ARTICLEMuch empirical support of self-control theory is based on the 24-item scale conceptualized by Grasmick and his colleagues. This study examined the dimensionality of the scale. Exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analyses, and a structural equation model (SEM) produced results that are discordant with much prior research. The Grasmick et al. scale was not unidimensional, more complex theoretical iterations failed to meet most goodness-of-fit statistics, and considerable refinement via modification indices was needed before a measurement model that fit the data could be found. Further refinement is required to justify it as the quintessential measure of self-control.Gottfredson and Hirschi's A General Theory of Crime (1990) galvanized the criminological community with its assertion that self-control is the main individual-level predictor of delinquency and related deviant behaviors. According to Pratt and Cullen (2000, p. 931), the popularity, controversy, and accuracy of self-control theory are some of the reasons why its authors are among the most cited criminologists in the world. Since 1990, dozens of scholars have devised ways to operationalize self-control and to examine its predictive power empirically.

Street offenders more often than not are co-offenders. The theoretical importance of understanding how co-offending shapes conduct has been recognized for decades but is often ignored by investigators. Drawing from interviews with 50 male robbers and burglars who committed their crimes with others, this paper examines how interactional dynamics modify both the perception of criminal opportunities and criminal decision making. Offenders construct opportunity by irnprovising situational interpretations, communicating expectations and negotiating shared meanings. As opposed to many prevailing notions of criminal decision making, decisions in groups are incremental, contextually situated, and affected significantly by variation in members' influence. The findings, therefore, highlight shortcomings of decisionmaking investigations that obscure marked variation in choice by focusing narrowly on individual assessments of risks and utilities.

The importation model posits that inmate behavior is primarily an extension of the assorted antisocial behaviors that criminal offenders develop in the community. Persons involved in gangs are viewed as especially at-risk for prison misconduct. Using the official infraction records of 831 male inmates sampled from the southwestern USA, this study explored the prison violence records of inmates involved in street gangs, prison gangs and both types of gangs vis-à-vis chronic offenders. Negative binomial regression models indicated that gang variables were significantly predictive of prison violence only in the full model when various types of gang membership (e.g. street, prison or both) were considered. Overall, the effects of gang membership were smaller than some of the risk factors related to chronic offending, such as history of violence and prior confinement, and other controls such as race. Although investigations of prison violence and misconduct are rightfully and importantly moving toward explanations that integrate importation, deprivation, and situational effects, we conclude that further specification of the importation model is needed.

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We investigate how participants in the street economy of crack cocaine construct a "hustler" identity by contrasting their social behaviors and styles with a dialectically contrastive crackhead identity. For those who are proximate to, or involved in, the crack cocaine economy, effort is required to avoid being labeled a crackhead. Would-be hustlers construct boundaries that separate them from others on the street through talk and behavior. We draw on interviews conducted with 28 men convicted of committing violent street crimes to explore how they distance themselves from those exhibiting distasteful symptoms of crack addiction. By examining the boundaries between these two street-based identities we increase sociological understanding of the significance of offenders' identity work for shaping their conceptions of self and other, as well as their interactions in everyday street life.