Robert Merton and the functionalist and social control theorists maintain that most people obey the laws, rules and regulations of mainstream society because they have been trained and socialized to do so, while those who are more likely to become criminals and delinquents have weak social and community bonds. They are unable to obtain the money and material things that American culture values the most, so they turn to illegal methods to obtain them. Travis Hirshi wrote the classic work on social control theory, Causes of Delinquency in 1969. Numerous studies of juvenile delinquents over the last forty years have confirmed Hirschi’s views that such youths do feel detached from society and conventional morality, and have a weak attachment to family, friends and school. Poverty, segregation and racism are the main causes of social and community breakdown that have led to high rates of crime, violence and delinquency in the inner cities. Law enforcement bias is more evident in poor and minority communities with high levels of social breakdown and pathology.
Like Merton, social control theorists maintain that most people obey the laws, rules and regulations of mainstream society because they have been trained and socialized to do so, and have also developed an internal moral sense. If they break the law, they fear that the consequences will hurt their families, result in the loss of status, employment and job opportunities, and damage their standing in the community. Their behavior is controlled by “attachment and commitment to conventional institutions”, while those who lack this will not be deterred from deviance by threats of punishment because “they have little to lose” (Siegel, 2012, p. 244). Early social control theories like those of Albert Reiss and Scott Blair in the 1950s emphasized that juvenile delinquents have weak egos and failed to develop self-esteem in childhood, and that those less concerned about social standing were more likely to break the law.
In his classic work Causes of Delinquency (1969), Travis Hirshi expanded on these ideas, arguing that considerations of morality were important for some people, but not for others. Like all social control theorists, he assumed that criminal behavior was amoral or immoral rather than culturally determined, and that criminals are cut off from society and communities. People with strong social and community ties were less likely to be criminals, who were amoral and purely self-interested. Crime and delinquency occurred “when an individuals’ bond to society is weak or broken” (Hirschi, 2002, pp. 15-16). Regardless of color, religion or social class, those who lacked such ties “may fall prey to criminological behavior” (Siegel, p. 246). Sociopaths and psychopaths have exceptionally weak links to family, friends, neighbors and society, while those who build up these attachments they would be less likely to be involved in any behavior that would endanger their social position. Numerous studies of juvenile delinquents over the last forty years have confirmed Hirschi’s insight that such youths do feel detached from society and conventional morality, and have a weak attachment to family, friends and school. Research also shows that youths with strong religious attachments are less likely to use drugs or become involved in criminal behavior, as are those with a commitment to “future success and achievement” (Siegel, p. 247). On the other hand, delinquents and criminals are not always socially isolated, since they often “maintain relationships with deviant peers and are influenced by members of their deviant peer group”, especially gangs (Siegel, p. 248).
Functionalist and social control theories can account for the realities of the crime problem in the U.S. since racism, social and economic problems, poverty, police brutality, social class and lack of economic and educational opportunities are also important factors. Indeed, these are probably the main causes of social and community breakdown that have led to high rates of crime, violence and delinquency in the inner cities. From the early-1970s, poverty and inequality in wealth and incomes have also increased, and this affected blacks more than any other group. By 2000, 1% of the population had almost half of the wealth in the United States. Police abuse and violence in the segregated ghettos increased and was “disproportionately used against poor communities of color” (West, 1993, p. viii). Nearly 10% of young black men were in prison and 40% of black children lived in poverty, but this was hardly part of the national political agenda (West, p. 4). Blacks consumed about 12% of the drugs in the U.S. but were 70% of those convicted on drug charges (West, p. xii). They were also imprisoned all out of proportion to their actual numbers in the population.
In the United States over 75% of blacks still live in segregated neighborhoods that are often crowded, dangerous, lacking in social services, employment and educational opportunities. In fact, these segregated areas are racially profiled and redlined, not only by law enforcement but by banks, insurance companies and other businesses and government agencies. Police do not enforce civil rights and open housing laws in this country, nor do they protect blacks from violence and discrimination if they attempt to move into white areas. Segregation in residential and economic life “makes it difficult to solve other problems connected to poor communities, such as crime, violence, poor health, high mortality, and abandonment of houses”, all of which have worsen greatly in the current recession (Ihewulezi, 2008, p. 47).
Blacks are 12% of the general population but over 40% of the prison population because of biased enforcement of the drug laws and the fact that they are at least forty times more likely to be stopped and searched than whites. Black children are over nine times more likely to have a parent in prison than whites, and three times more likely to live in single-parent families, and the high number of these is one of the major reasons about half of them live in poverty (Ihewulezi, p. 43). Of the minority women in prison, over 80% are mothers, and their children often end up in foster care. Less than half of black single mothers receive child support “due to unemployment or the incarceration of the father of their children”, and this also means that a shortage of marriageable black males exists (Ihewulezi, p. 44). All of these factors together lead to higher levels of poverty among blacks, and a higher likelihood of being racially profiled by to police, and thus the cycle of poverty and crime continues.
Merton found that modern American society was profoundly dysfunctional in the sense that it upheld a rather thin and empty set of values by which money was the main measure of success, while its claims that all individuals had an equal opportunity in life to obtain this were also hollow. Even at a young age, children from poor and minority families, especially in segregated ghetto areas, know this is a myth. For them, adherence to dominant social norms is a dead end, while deviance is actually a highly functional way of obtaining the money and material things are so highly valued. At the same time, the dominant groups in society use this deviance as a political wedge issue to manipulate voters into supporting ‘law and order’ policies of more prisons and police, and to unite society against the deviant groups. This is a highly cynical maneuver, but also a very effective one, although in the current economic recession, when opportunities have evaporated for the majority of the population, it might not be as effective as it was twenty or thirty years ago.
REFERENCES
Appelrouth, S. and L.D. Edles (2011). Classical and Contemporary Sociological Theory: Text and Readings, 3nd Edition. SAGE Publications.
Hirschi, T. (2002). Causes of Delinquency. Transaction Publishers.
Ihewulezi, C.N. (2008). The History of Poverty in a Rich and Blessed America. Bloomington, IN: Author House.
Siegel, L. (2012). Criminology, 11th Edition. Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
West, C. (1993, 2001). Race Matters. Boston: Beacon Press.
