Control Balance

Toward A General Theory Of Deviance

Charles R Tittle

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780429980954
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

A major contribution to the field of crime/deviance, this volume by noted criminologist Charles R. Tittle puts forth an integrated theory of deviance—control balance. Its central premise is that the total amount of control people are subjected to, relative to the control they can exercise, will affect the probability and type of their deviant behavior. In developing control balance, Tittle critically reviews other general theories such as anomie, Marxian conflict, social control, differential association/social learning, labelling, and routine activities and offers reasons why those theories are insufficient. Using real-world examples to illustrate his argument, he contends that deviance results from the convergence of four variables, each of which represents an interactive nexus of several inputs, including most prominently a control imbalance. The variables are predisposition, motivation, opportunity, and constraint. Control balance theory also explains six basic types of deviance, ranging from predation, defiance, and submissiveness on one end of a control ratio continuum to exploitation, plunder, and decadence on the other. Tittle conceives of control balance as a continuation, or temporary culmination, of the collective efforts of crime/deviance scholars who have gone before, presenting it as a vehicle for trying to achieve a fully adequate general theory of deviance.

1
The Problem with Simple Theories

Most theories of deviant and criminal behavior are straightforward and uncomplicated, usually setting forth one or two explanatory principles involving only a few variables that are assumed to apply to all instances of the particular form of deviance being explained. These can be called simple theories. Conventionally, simple theories are classified into six or seven major categories, with sublistings of variations on themes. The most popular categorical schemes identify strain, learning, labeling, control, opportunity, psychodynamic, and biological categories as the major divisions, but according to Pearson and Weiner (1985), the most important specific simple theories are differential association (Sutherland and Cressey 1978), anomie (Merton 1957a), Marxian conflict (Bonger 1916; Quinney 1970), social control (Hirschi 1969), labeling (Becker 1963; Gove 1975, 1980; Schur 1971), utilitarian/deterrence (Andenaes 1974; Becker 1968; Cornish and Clarke 1986; Gibbs 1975; Tunnell 1992; Zimring and Hawkins 1973), and routine activities (Cohen and Felson 1979). Each of these leading theories has followers, enjoys some empirical support, and seems sensible, at least in prescribed usage and in application to particular kinds of deviance or crime. No simple theory in the crime/deviance area, however, has proven to be more than minimally satisfactory in overall explanatory ability, in applicability to a wide range of types of deviance, or in empirical support for its tenets. All are plausible, yet they fail as general theories. This is easily illustrated.

Simple General Theories

Differential Association

Consider first simple cultural learning theories, the prime example of which is Edwin Sutherland's differential association theory (Sutherland and Cressey 1978, chapter 4; see also Tittle et al. 1986; Jackson et al. 1986). These theories explain deviance as a product of the individual's having learned devio-genic (deviance-causing) attitudes and behaviors through extensive exposure to specific kinds of social messages or as a result of the individual's efforts to fulfill normative expectations in a devio-genic subculture (Miller 1958; Wolfgang and Ferricuti 1967). Sutherland's theory specifically postulates that the likelihood of criminal behavior (or by extension, deviance) varies with the individual's criminal attitudes, values, motivations, and skills, learned from "excess" exposure to crime-favorable messages or "definitions." Cultural messages can be supportive, neutral, or contradictory to crime, and they will have various degrees of influence depending upon their source, priority, intensity, and frequency. Thus, the ratio of "weighted" crime-relevant definitions can vary widely from person to person. Some will have ratios less than 1, others will have ratios above 1, and still others will have ratios that are far greater than 1. Presumably, the more the ratio of weighted crime-favorable messages to weighted noncrime messages exceeds unity, the greater are an individual's chances of learning criminal orientations and of committing crime.

Cultural learning theories have a commonsense, experiential character, especially when applied to things like gang fighting, drug abuse, or corporate price-fixing. Successful practice of these forms of deviance requires some learning of norms, techniques, and attitudes. In addition, they are activities requiring the cooperation of other people, and they are usually undertaken in company. Hence, it is reasonable to imagine that individuals do these things because they have been in situations where these, or similar, activities have been socially defined as appropriate and have been practiced by people who were known to, and perhaps admired by, the individual. Further, since they are group activities, it is logical to think that individual practitioners feel some pressure to meet group (normative) expectations and that if they do participate in deviant activities condoned by the group or culture they will be recognized, supported, accepted, and perhaps honored by those with whom they are associated.

A cultural learning theory, however, can hardly be used to explain criminal or deviant acts that are individualized in character. If there are no social contexts in which a given behavior is normative and if there are few social definitions of the behavior as acceptable, or fun, or indicative of some desired trait or status, then cultural learning can scarcely play an important part in its production. Extremely unconventional, bizarre behaviors, usually thought to be evidence of mental illness, for instance, do not seem to be products of cultural learning. Consider the eating of feces, an activity sometimes practiced by psychotic people. In the United States, and probably in all other places in the contemporary world, this is highly unacceptable. However, to explain it by Sutherland's differential association theory we would have to assume that the feces eater had been exposed to more social definitions favorable to feces eating than to messages unfavorable to the act. In any case, where would an individual encounter any social messages favorable to feces eating, much less an excess of such definitions? Similarly, in the United States, suicide, except for the altruistic type, is not normatively acceptable, and there are few social definitions of nonaltruistic suicide as appropriate behavior in any circumstances (however, it may be becoming acceptable to end one's life if one is suffering from an incurable, expensive-to-treat disease). It is difficult, therefore, to maintain that U.S. citizens who commit suicide have been exposed to an excess of suicide-favorable messages. In short, feces eating and suicide, and other individualized forms of deviance or crime, simply do not lend themselves to a cultural learning explanation.

Furthermore, differential association theory is not fully adequate to explain even those social acts to which it seemingly applies most directly. For one thing, it takes no account of opportunity for deviance. Even if individuals are confronted with "excess" social messages that produce devio-genic attitudes, skills, and desires propelling them toward deviant behavior, they cannot actually commit acts of crime or deviance without the opportunity to do so. Even if earlier interaction with a particular group has generated a strong desire to steal cars, and the individual has become extremely skilled at it, if there are no cars in or near the particular locale where that person ends up residing, then there is little likelihood that individual will commit auto theft. Similarly, some deviantly inclined individuals will, nevertheless, refrain from actual misbehavior when the chances of getting caught and punished are high. However, differential association theory takes little account of ongoing constraints on individual behavior that exist in the behavioral environment, recognizing only their influence as messages unfavorable to deviance that affect the presence or strength, or both, of internal motivations. Consequently, the theory's explanations must necessarily be incomplete.

In a similar way, Sutherland's formulation overlooks variations in learning ability among individuals, as well as differences in the degree of exposure to deviance-favorable messages required to produce various kinds of criminal or deviant behavior. Because some learn better and more quickly than others (Eysenck and Gudjonsson 1989; Wilson and Herrnstein 1985), individuals will differ in their deviant behavior, even with similar degrees of excess exposure to crime/deviance-favorable messages. In addition, it might take much greater exposure to homicide-favorable messages to produce murderous behavior than it takes of excessive definitions favorable to marijuana use to persuade individuals to smoke it. Finally, despite passing reference to differential social organization, Sutherland's theory does not explain why individuals have the associations they have or why the ratio of messages favorable to crime/deviance varies from one social context to another.

This brief overview shows that differential association, and other cultural learning theories, probably identify an important cause of crime, but it also shows that the theory is limited and incomplete.

Anomie

Robert Merton's (1957a) anomie theory of deviance is somewhat ambiguous because its author shifted explanations from one statement of the theory to another (see Chapter 3) and because it mixes macroexplanatory (structural conditions bearing on rates of crime/deviance) with microexplanatory (situational variables bearing on behavior of individuals) elements without fully explicating how the variables mesh. However, the theory is usually interpreted to explain individual criminal/deviant behavior as an adaptive response to the strain of incongruence between a person's internalization of culturally defined success goals and his or her possession of culturally approved means for achieving those goals. For example, U.S. society is said to prescribe financial success as the primary goal for all to achieve. However, not everybody has the means to achieve financial success. Those who embrace the goal of financial success and have access to the means to achieve that goal can be said to exhibit goals-means congruence, which leads to conformity. Others lacking such congruence, because they do not embrace the culturally prescribed goal of financial success or do not possess the appropriate means for achievement, are likely to engage in various kinds of deviance as adaptive responses.

One form of deviance—"innovation" (finding a new way to get to the goal, such as theft)—typically is manifested by those who internalize the success goals but lack either the means to achieve them or the moral inhibitions, or both, that might prevent them from innovating. "Ritualism" (going through the motions of conformity but lacking the emotional commitment—such as slavish or compulsive obedience to minute conduct standards) characterizes those who have internalized the goals but lack the means of achievement and are constrained from innovation by their moral inhibitions. Those who originally internalize the goals but repeatedly fail to achieve them "retreat" (withdraw from participation in the larger cultural system, for example, by becoming alcoholics or skid-row bums) by psychologically rejecting the goals and the means. Finally, some either fail to internalize the culturally dominant goals altogether, or later reject them because of the lack of means to achieve them, in favor of other goals and other means. This adaptation is called "rebellion" and is typical of revolutionaries.

Since everyone has been frustrated at one time or another by being required to do something they were not prepared to do, it is not hard to relate to the situations that Merton describes. It is easy to imagine conformity as being simple for those who inherit large financial resources and who have high intelligence, effective interpersonal skills, lucrative occupational or professional training, and good looks. In addition, the thought of cutting corners (innovation) will probably occur to most people when they feel an urgent need for money they cannot get or when they contemplate providing better for their families, selling more of a product, or rising to the top of their occupations but realize they probably can never achieve these things because of circumstances over which they have little control. Most people have personally observed individuals who upheld the virtues of work, saving, and self-discipline but who seemed indifferent to the goals for which the rest of us strive (ritualism). It is not rare to encounter people who seem so disoriented, perhaps by the recognition that things are hopeless, that they become inattentive to the goals and the culturally approved means (retreatism). In fact, much everyday conversation involves marveling at instances that come to light of people who adapt in these various ways.

Yet, even laypeople see the fallacy of the theoretical argument because most of the people they know conform despite their lacking the means necessary for financial success, and as often as not, those who "innovate" are high-status people who ostensibly have the means. So it is clear that the relationship between culturally defined goals and approved means is not all that is going on, and in fact, may not even be among the most important factors in explaining deviant behavior. On the one hand, many who, according to the theory, are prone to innovate actually refrain because of fear of legal punishment or reluctance to risk shaming their families, or because they have more important competing goals. On the other hand, some conform because they get few opportunities to innovate or because they lack the skills or intelligence to do so in effective ways. Finally, human behavior seems to depend, at least to some extent, upon people's personalities, the things they have learned, the kinds of social groups with which they are affiliated, and unusual provoking or activating circumstances, regardless of objective goals and means. Whether people conform or not seems to depend, particularly, on the accuracy with which they perceive reality, since relative deprivation (of the means) seems to be as potent as objective deprivation. However, none of this is built into anomie theory, and as a result, the best that it can claim is that a goals-means strain is one thing that may, under some circumstances, lead to deviance. Yet even this proposition is weak because the theory does not indicate who will experience various configurations of goals and means, nor does it detail the immediate provocative conditions under which those with various goals-means relationships are most likely to manifest their strain in actual deviance.

Nevertheless, since it can be construed to apply to almost any form of deviance, even that usually regarded as evidence of mental illness, anomie theory is more adequate as a general theory than differential association, at least in one sense. Yet it ultimately seems to do no more than identify one important factor possibly contributing to deviant behavior. Overall, it falls far short of being an adequate general theory because it leaves out too much and is too imprecise to specify which things it does include (see Agnew 1992).

Marxian Conflict

There are many versions of Marxian, or conflict, theory (Bohm 1982; Bonger 1916; Quinney 1970; Taylor et al. 1973) and most are designed to explain why crime rates vary among societies, not why individuals commit deviance. Nevertheless, a common theme—that exploitation (usually associated with a capitalist economic system) and its accompanying deprivation lead to inhumane relationships (deviance, crime) among societal members—can also be used to explain individual deviance. Wilhelm Bonger (1916) probably articulates this theory best. According to his version, the profit motive that drives capitalism forces both capitalists and workers to become "de-moralized," that is, they lose moral feeling and sympathy for others.

Capitalist competition, according to Bonger, de-moralizes owners of the means of production toward each other because one owner's success may be bought at the expense of another owner's failure. In addition, to compete effectively, capitalists must pay workers the lowest wage possible. To get employees to accept such wages, they must create societal conditions of scarcity requiring workers to compete among themselves for survival. Doing this successfully depends on the capitalist's ability to squelch his or her own potential human sympathy for those being exploited. At the same time, workers become de-moralized toward capitalists, who they know are exploiting them, and since they are forced by competitive conditions to struggle among themselves for survival, they become "de-humanized" toward each other as well. The result is an entirely inhumane society, where owners of the means of production feel no moral obligation to their competitors or employees, and where workers forfeit human feelings toward their exploiters and fellow workers. Because all members of capitalist societies are motivated to use or defeat others and are freed from the constraining hold of sentiment, crime and deviance abound.

Following the logic of this argument, rates of crime and deviance should vary directly with the degree of capitalism characterizing societies, or more specifically, rates of crime should vary directly with overall deprivation and competition. By extending these arguments to the individual level, we would explain criminal/deviant behavior among those who do not own the means of production as a product of the degree of personal deprivation they experience: the greater the personal deprivation, the greater the probability of deviance. Among those who do own the means of production, crime stems from the strain of competition. Logically, those capitalists most committed to the ideal of success or those least successful in fulfilling it will feel the greatest strain and have the greatest probability of engaging in deviance.

This theory also has much to offer. It is easy to see that deprivation and struggle for survival or economic dominance can motivate much uncaring behavior, especially when people can compare themselves with others who may be faring better. Hence, the Marxian conflict formulation probably identifies an important component of crime causation, and it has the virtue of accounting for the degree of its prevalence from society to society. As a general theory of criminal behavior, however, the conflict argument is quite deficient. Like other theories being discussed here, it focuses almost totally on motivation for deviance while ignoring these other variables: variations in the constraining effects of potential sanctions; internalized moral commitments that some people, even in capitalist societies, have; influences of interpersonal social groups; and opportunities for crime/deviance. All of these may interact with deprivation or strain to affect the likelihood of crime/deviance. In addition, there is nothing in the theory that explains the conditions under which one type of crime/deviance is more likely to occur than another. Why, for instance, would one deprived worker or noncapitalist assault a comrade, whereas another would rob a bank? Why would one failing capitalist commit suicide, whereas another would murder a competitor? Moreover, the theory does not explain how individuals come to have various relationships to the means of production or why the degree of deprivation or strain varies from individual to individual within either the capitalist or the noncapitalist group. Finally, the theory does not recognize that strain stemming from competition or deprivation may result from things other than the conditions of capitalism, particularly if varied perceptions of reality are taken into account.

The Marxian conflict theory, then, probably has much validity, and it provides considerable insight about the potential consequences of unrestrained capitalism. It is not, however, a satisfactory general theory of deviance.

Social Control

All control theories play on the theme that deviance is mainly a function of the kinds of constraints to which people are exposed (Durkheim [1897] 1951; Hirschi 1969; Reckless 1967; Reiss 1951). The most well-known specific theory of this genre is Travis Hirschi's theory of social control (1969). It contends that everybody is motivated toward deviance, but only those who are relatively free of the bonds of commitment to, and belief in, the conventional order, attachment to others, and involvement with conventional institutions of society actually manifest their deviant motivation in unacceptable behavior.

It is certainly plausible and consistent with common sense to assert, as this theory does, that people are more likely to violate conventional social rules when they are free of constraining social bonds. Most of us realize that our beliefs, commitments, attachments, and involvements have great influence on our behavior. In fact as one of my colleagues phrased it, a lot of us learned in Sunday school or from our parents that we would go wrong if we did not believe in God; develop strong moral principles; attach ourselves to conventional social groups like the family, church, and school; and involve ourselves in wholesome activities and useful work. We can recall examples of those who did go wrong, apparently because they did not follow these dictates. In addition, most of us have probably been separated at one time or another from families, friends, and neighbors for varied lengths of time and have experienced the initial exhilaration and sense of freedom to do things we usually would not do. Moreover, everybody is familiar with individuals lacking familial, interpersonal, or professional reputations who, as a result, seem to care little about the consequences of their behavior.

It is clear, however, that the desire to offend is, for some individuals, so strong that social controls pale; some deviance is committed because the groups to which offenders are bonded actually exercise social control to encourage deviance; and some unbonded individuals nevertheless conform, perhaps out of habit, lack of alternatives, or int...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Acknowledgments
• 1 The Problem with Simple Theories
• 2 Features of Adequate Theory
• 3 Conventional Methods of Theory Building
• 4 Theoretical Integration
• 5 What Is to Be Explained
• 6 The Concepts of Control Balance Theory
• 7 The Causal Process of Control Balance Theory
• 8 Contingencies for the Central Causal Process
• 9 Compatibility of the Theory with Evidence
• 10 Integration and Critique
• References
• About the Book and Author
• Index