Читать книгу The Invisible Woman - Joanne Belknap - Страница 39

In his 1969 book Causes of Delinquency, Hirschi describes social bond or control theory (SCT) as focusing on what motivates people to obey laws. Given that girls are more law-abiding than boys, it seems an ideal question to include them (Naffine, 1987). Additionally, where delinquent boys were often celebrated and revered in prior theory that focused on why some people (boys and men) commit crimes, in Hirschi’s approach, the conforming (law-abiding) boy becomes ennobled and lauded as responsible, while the image of law-abiding girls in research testing the other theories are depicted as lifeless, boring, and dependent. In the prior studies asking, “Why do people offend?” the criminal boy is portrayed as exciting, instrumental, and masculine. In fact, Schur (1984) points out that men who conform are labeled “successful,” whereas there is little or no reward for conforming women. “What all this seems to indicate is a profound criminological tendency to devalue the female and value the male even when they are doing precisely the same things” (Naffine, 1987, p. 67).

Hirschi’s SCT examines four categories of “social bonds” that prevent youths from acting on their criminal desires: attachment, commitment, involvement, and belief. Specifically, youths’ offending likelihood is related to their ties to (1) conventional people (especially parents), (2) conventional institutions and behaviors in employment and recreation, and (3) the rules of society. Although Hirschi contended that “social controls are gender neutral” (Chui & Chan, 2012, p. 372) and he included girls in his sample, oddly, he only analyzed data from boys, and only white boys, with whom he confirmed the social bond hypothesis that, indeed, the (white) boys with stronger conventional ties were less likely to report delinquency. Like Sutherland and Cressey, then, Hirschi (1) promised a non-sex-specific theory, (2) started with girls and boys in the study, and (3) for no apparent reason left out the girls (Naffine, 1987). Or, as one of the first gender-race criminology scholars, Mann (1984), points out:

Travis Hirschi stratified his samples by race, sex, school, and grade. He included 1,076 black girls and 846 nonblack girls; but in the analysis of his data Hirschi admits “the girls disappear,” and he adds, “Since girls have been neglected for too long by students of delinquency, the exclusion of them is difficult to justify. I hope I return to them soon.” He didn’t. (p. 263)

Numerous studies have tested SBT, or individuals’ (usually youths’) ties to conventional people. Although a few SBT studies find no gender differences in the impact of social bonds deterring offending (Figueira-McDonough, Barton, & Sarri, 1981; Ford, 2009; Loukas, Ripperger-Suhler, & Horton, 2009), far more studies report gendered SBT relationships, likely because they conducted higher-level statistical modeling. Starting with the 1970s, one study found that although attachment to conventional people greatly decreased the gender differences in reported delinquency rates, these social ties did not completely eliminate or explain boys’ higher offending rates (G. J. Jensen & Eve, 1976). Another 1970s study found that although conventional ties predicted both girls’ and boys’ offending, this relationship was stronger for boys (Hindelang, 1973).

SBT studies published in the 1980s found heroin addiction weakened women’s ties to conventional people and jobs and propelled them into lives made up of criminal people and activities (Rosenbaum 1981); a dysfunctional family of origin places girls at increased risk of proceeding from youthful status offending to adult criminal offending (Rosenbaum 1989); and some parental behaviors impact daughters’ more than sons’ delinquency likelihood, and other parental behaviors predict sons’ more than daughters’ delinquency (Cernkovich & Giordano, 1987). Turning to 1990s SBT research, Bottcher’s (1995) substantial study of the siblings of incarcerated boys reported that social structure of gender is a major form of social control, specifically through activities and definitions of the youths. Bottcher (1995) and others found boys likely have more delinquent peers than girls due to their greater freedom to associate with delinquent peers; this result was confirmed by two studies in the 2000s (Church, Wharton, & Taylor, 2009; Rankin & Quane, 2002). Other 1990s studies found girls’ lower offending levels (relative to boys’ levels) were not due to weaker parental controls and supervision (Heimer & De Coster, 1999) and that the number of sisters youths have exerts no impact on their delinquency rate, whereas having more brothers increases boys’ and decreases girls’ likelihood of becoming delinquent (Lauritsen, 1993). Torstensson (1990) only included girls in her study and found social bonds to school had a significant but small role in deterring their delinquency.

As for SBT studies published since 2000, a longitudinal study of youths found that while stressful events increased both girls’ and boys’ depression as well as their offending, girls were more likely than boys to respond to stressful events by being upset or distressed, and boys were more likely than girls to respond by breaking the law (De Coster & Heimer, 2001). A study of Asian American youth subgroups’ drug and alcohol use found some support for social control variables but showed that peer influence was a better predictor (Nagasawa, Qian, & Wong, 2000). After controlling for age, social control, and peer influence variables, there were no gender differences regarding drug and alcohol use among Japanese-, Chinese-, Korean-, Asian-, Indian-, and Pacific Islander American youths. However, even after controlling for these variables, among Filipino Americans, girls were more likely than boys to use drugs and alcohol, and among Southeast Asian Americans, boys were more likely than girls to use drugs and alcohol (Nagasawa et al., 2000). A longitudinal study of youths found boys were more violent than girls even after controlling for social control and bonding variables (Huang, Kosterman, Catalano, Hawkins, & Abbott, 2001).

One study of young people found that while both positive attachment bonds (e.g., to family and friends) and involvement bonds (e.g., studying, clubs, chores, etc.) resulted in less delinquency for both girls and boys, attachment bonds had a greater impact on girls (than boys) and involvement bonds had a greater impact on boys (than girls) (Huebner & Betts, 2002). Another study found that parental attachment was only related to deterring boys’, not girls’, serious delinquency, and activity involvement beyond sports was a protective factor against serious delinquency for boys but not girls (J. A. Booth, Farrell, & Varano, 2008). This same study found that sports involvement alone decreased girls’ serious delinquency but not boys’ (J. A. Booth et al., 2008). Chapple, McQuillan, and Berdahl’s (2005) study found that while girls as a group tend to have higher social bonds than boys, these bonds do not impact in a gendered manner for self-reported delinquency or theft; however, peer attachment was related to boys’, but not girls’, violent offending. Payne’s (2009) study assessed various bonds across the crimes “delinquency” and “drug use,” finding no gender differences in bonding variables’ impacts on drug use or delinquency, except that commitment and belief bonds had a stronger protective effect for boys than girls on delinquency. This finding may be because there are fewer gender differences in drug use than in delinquency overall (Payne, 2009). An SBT study solely on girls found family bonding had no protective impact on their offending (Cernkovich et al., 2008).

Barnes, Hoffman, Welte, Farrell, and Dintcheff (2007) found that time spent with one’s family increased the likelihood that both girls and boys would obey the laws (thus no gender differences), yet time spent with peers resulted in greater delinquency for boys but not girls. A study on in-school delinquency and attachments found support for SBT with a few gender differences (Hart & Mueller, 2013). Two bonds, “beliefs in commonly held social norms” and “commitment to sports activities” impacted only boys’ school delinquency, but the “commitment to sports activities” was in the opposite direction than hypothesized: It increased boys’ school delinquency (Hart & Mueller, 2013). Most SBT studies are on youths, but one on adult probationers found social bonds and drug use facilitated women’s criminal behavior, whereas social bonds inhibited men’s criminal behavior (and drugs moderated it) (De Li & MacKenzie, 2003).