ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes a large body of data on delinquency collected in Western Contra Costa County, California, contrasting throughout the assumptions of the strain, control, and cultural deviance theories. It begins by outlining the assumptions of the theories and discussing the logical and empirical difficulties attributed to each of them. Cultural deviance theory has been heavily criticized, yet it remains one of the most widely used perspectives in research and theory on crime and delinquency. The chapter draws many sources for an outline of social control theory, the theory that informs the subsequent analysis and which is advocated here. Control theory merely assumes variation in morality: for some men, considerations of morality are important; for others, they are not. The strain theorist must provide motivation to delinquency sufficient to account for the neutralization of moral constraints. All strain theories generate pressure to delinquency from a discrepancy between aspirations and expectations.
