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A review by planarlost
A General Theory of Crime by Michael R. Gottfredson, Travis Hirschi
2.0
The book is decently written, and while self-control theory is useful in everyday criminological research (as a criminologist who has used it in published work), the emphasis the authors place on attempting to make this theory universal overextends its application and viability as a theory. For instance, Gottfredson and Hirschi largely dismiss the very existence of white-collar crime because their argument hinges on the fact that all crime is impulsive and therefore cannot be pre-planned or calculating; and, white-collar crime, as complex financial crime, must often necessarily involve these attributes. They essentially equate white-collar money laundering to a low-level cashier stealing from her or his register.
The authors could not comment on any crime such as terrorism, which often necessitates both extensive pre-planning and complex sociopolitical and/or religious motivations. This, along with a variety of other crimes, would defy their universal theory as they attempt to present it in this book. The work would've been much better had they not endeavored too boldly to make this theory universal, thereby forcing themselves to struggle to cram every sort of crime into one model, where many do not fit.
Again, while self-control theory as it is used commonly is incredibly useful, the universal version presented in this text is not, and does not represent the application that most criminologists employ in day-to-day research. When comparing the universal theory of self-control presented here to Hirschi's social bonds theory, I would argue that Hirschi would have been better off further developing social bonds theory. His argumentation was far better reasoned, there.
As a final aside, as someone who found it bizarre that Hirschi would go from making a compelling case on social bonds to the overextended and fallacious theoretical framework in this book, I'm told by someone familiar with the two that Gottfredson may have taken advantage of Hirschi to some extent in the working of this text, for the sake of drawing attention to the book by tacking Hirschi's name on. When this book came out, Hirschi was already somewhat advanced in age, and so probably not at his best.
Hearsay, of course.
The authors could not comment on any crime such as terrorism, which often necessitates both extensive pre-planning and complex sociopolitical and/or religious motivations. This, along with a variety of other crimes, would defy their universal theory as they attempt to present it in this book. The work would've been much better had they not endeavored too boldly to make this theory universal, thereby forcing themselves to struggle to cram every sort of crime into one model, where many do not fit.
Again, while self-control theory as it is used commonly is incredibly useful, the universal version presented in this text is not, and does not represent the application that most criminologists employ in day-to-day research. When comparing the universal theory of self-control presented here to Hirschi's social bonds theory, I would argue that Hirschi would have been better off further developing social bonds theory. His argumentation was far better reasoned, there.
As a final aside, as someone who found it bizarre that Hirschi would go from making a compelling case on social bonds to the overextended and fallacious theoretical framework in this book, I'm told by someone familiar with the two that Gottfredson may have taken advantage of Hirschi to some extent in the working of this text, for the sake of drawing attention to the book by tacking Hirschi's name on. When this book came out, Hirschi was already somewhat advanced in age, and so probably not at his best.
Hearsay, of course.