Micro and Macro Structures of Delinquency Causation and a Power-Control Theory of Gender and Delinquency (From Theoretical Integration in the Study of Deviance and Crime: Problems and Prospects, P 213-227, 1989, Steven F Messner, et al, eds. -- See NCJ-118940)

• NCJ Number: 118949
• Author(s): J Hagan
• Date Published: 1989
• Length: 15 pages
• Sale Source: California Correctional Peace Officers Assoc
• Publication Type: Research (Theoretical)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: *This document is currently unavailable from NCJRS.

Annotation

This paper considers the ways in which micro and macro structures of delinquency causation are linked in power-control theory.

Abstract

The discussion begins with a brief consideration of the historical background of modern theories of crime and delinquency. This review notes that feminist scholarship assigns renewed importance to the family and to variations in its structure in explaining delinquency, particularly the role of patriarchal family relations in developing, perpetuating, and reproducing gender differences in behavior involving power and control. In presenting the outlines of a power-control theory, three levels are defined, in order of abstraction; social-psychological processes involving the adolescents whose behaviors are to be explained, social positions consisting of the gender and delinquency roles in which these adolescents are located, and the class structures by which families are socially organized. Five kinds of links bring together the social positions and social-psychological processes that are the core of power-control theory. The links involve gender, parental controls, risk preferences, delinquent behavior, and delinquent designations. The stated power-control theory deals primarily with links between work and the family and with the connection of these experiences to the reproduction of gender relations that are expressed, in part, in gender differences in common forms of juvenile delinquency.