The Subculture of Violence

Wolfgang, Marvin E.; Ferracuti, Franco

doi:10.4324/9781315013442

Cited by 67 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…Instead of a passive object of social stratification or an empty vessel to be filled with one or another set of cultural values requiring crime, people in control theories respond to the opportunities, limitations and sanctions in the situations in which they find themselves (as they see them) -and which their prior decisions and actions have created for themselves. The role of moral values was at the heart of this dispute in sociology: where many sociologists saw different values conflicting as a cause of crime (Sellin, 1938;Sutherland, 1939;Wolfgang and Ferracuti, 1967), control theorists saw variable adherence to a common morality as a factor affecting decisions to offend (Kornhauser, 1974). Hirschi (1969) called this element of the social bond 'belief.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sanctions, situations, and agency in control theories of crime

Gottfredson¹

2011

European Journal of Criminology

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Control theory remains a prominent explanation for crime and delinquency, generating a considerable body of empirical studies and frequent theoretical discussion. Although much of this scholarship lends support to the perspective, important issues have been raised as the perspective is extended, modified, and refined; among these are that the theory places too much emphasis on compulsion and too little on choice in the causation of crime, that it neglects the role of morality in decisions about crime, and that the theory needs to be reconciled with results of research about criminal deterrence. This paper considers each of these issues. A framework is presented to describe essential elements of all control theories and finds no inconsistency between some types of control theory and evidence about situational effects, evidence of moral elements of decisionmaking, and the lack of severity effects in the deterrence literature for the criminal law.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%