ABSTRACT
One theoretical tradition looks to threats emanating from the state to discourage predation. The effectiveness of state law enforcement in deterring crime continues to attract much criminological attention and debate. This chapter presents tests the generality of their “general theory.” Michael Gottfredson and Travis Hirschi argue that self-control is highly stable over time, largely uninfluenced by social experience occurring after childhood. Similar ideas can be found in writings about crime from Jacksonian America and in the writings of criminological control theorists. Self-control is a continuous variable; people have self-control, and exercise it, to varying degrees. Interactions between low self-control and opportunity contributed to property offenses, violent offenses and drug offenses. Walter Reckless identified legal opportunities, pressures from delinquent associates, and the influences of the mass media as social pressures that pull or push people into crime. These social pressures influence involvement in crime in a manner that is, to a degree, independent of control factors.
