Explain Control Theory and Identify Major Theorists

Control Theory
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Abstract
The paper explains the control theory in relation to the occurrence of criminal incidents in the society from the perspectives of major theorists in this field. These are the likes of: Emile Durkheim, who pioneered the anomie theory; Albert Reiss, whose work offer insights on personal and social controls; F.Ivan Nye, who worked on the family-focused theory of social controls and Walter Reckless, who came up with an influential containment theory that explored the various sources of control and why some youths in disorganized areas did not become delinquent among others. These controls fall in four categories: firstly, the direct controls involve giving rewards or punishments to parties that behave well or misbehaved respectively; secondly, the indirect controls also exist whereby the individuals are influenced by their identification with and affection for their parents who impose rules at home; thirdly, for the internal controls, the person’s conscience and superego play a role in one’s refrain from misbehavior; finally, the other control is as a result of satisfaction of one’s needs, whereby with all needs met, one does not have to commit a criminal act.
Keywords: Control Theory
Introduction
Right from a tender age people learn and communicate in a given language, follow rules, respect others and their property and avoid use of abusive language. Everything one does as an individual that is expected of him/her in the society, i.e. considered the norm, has actually been claimed not to be a natural occurrence (Lilly, Cullen & Ball, 2015). Thus, from this angle of observation, this kind of common behavior needs a reason for its occurrence as lack thereof would mean random ways of approaching things hence different rules for each person i.e. misbehavior. Hence, this nonconformity is to be experienced as a result of short of effective social controls.
Therefore, this implies that control theory is actually par se a theory of conformity because it mainly focuses on the notion that inadequacy of individuals to act as the ‘norm’ i.e. as expected by others in the society, would lead to deviance and criminal activities and goes ahead to determine why people actually conform. This stems from the fact that most misbehavi...