SOC205H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Travis Hirschi, Differential Association, Crime Time
Document Summary
Context - turmoil of the 1960s/70s make controls seem to weaken/disappear. Content - crime happens because of a lack of (social, personal) controls; more a theory of conformity than of deviance/criminality. Key theorists - matza, hirschi (also reiss, sykes, gottfredson) Problems - assumes we agree on right/wrong/norms; selective focus on certain crimes; operationalization issues. U. s. civil rights movement (1950s) - segregation, sit-ins, Spin-off student, workers, and feminist movements (e. g. france) Seemed to signal collapse of personal and social controls. Ex. family (father"s authority), white authority, traditional norms under attack . Many conservatives believed these efforts caused crime (e. g. protests = riots, sit-ins = selective law abidence) Perfect timing for theorizing that crime stems from breakdown of control structures. You must learn how or be pushed to commit crime. Something must prevent you from doing it, normal to desire to commit crime. Crime is what you would do but something is stopping you. Personal control: our individual ability to resist temptations.
