Out of Control ─ Assessing the General Theory of Crime

Goode (sociology, State U. of New York at Stony Brook) presents 15 contributions expounding on, discussing the applications of, and critiquing Gottfredson and Hirchi's general theory of crime which argued that behaviors such as crime, delinquency, violence, illicit drug use, smoking and alcohol abuse, sexual irresponsibility, reckless driving, school performance, and laziness are brought about in large part by poor parenting. The issue of self-control also plays a large role in the discussion topics, which include: age, sex, and racial distributions of crime; the undeveloped concept of opportunity; parenting and self-control; self-control, anomie, and social institutions; a feminist consideration of gender and crime; low self-control and high organization control in white-collar crime; violent crime; and property crimes. The final article is a response by Hirschi and Gottfredson to the rest of the text. Annotation c2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)