ABSTRACT
Despite its impressive empirical support, Hirschi’s original formulation of control theory has not escaped criticism. He himself conceded that it overestimated the significance of involvement in conventional activities and underestimated the importance of delinquent friends. Moreover, both of these problems appeared to have stemmed from the same conceptual source, the taken-for-granted assumption of a natural motivation towards offending behaviour (Box, 1981; Downes and Rock, 1998). There have been other criticisms. First, the theory cannot account for the specific form or content of deviant behaviour, or ‘why some uncontrolled individuals become heroin users, some become hit men, and others price fixing conspirators’ (Braithwaite, 1989: 13). Second, there is a failure to consider the underlying structural and historical context in which criminal behaviour takes place (Elliot, Ageton and Canter, 1979; Box, 1981, 1987). Third, while it plainly considers primary deviance among adolescents, habitual ‘secondary deviance’ appears to be outside its conceptual boundaries (Box, 1981). Subsequently, other researchers have sought a remedy for these various identified defects by integrating control theory with other theoretical perspectives.
