THE STRUCTURAL SIMILARITY OF PROCESSES GENERATING CRIMINAL AND ANALOGOUS BEHAVIORS

It is possible to distinguish between broad-domain theories that offer an explanation for all phenomena of interest to a discipline and narr ow-domain theories that attempt to explain a subset of those phenomena . In criminology, this distinction has prompted theorists and research ers to confront the question of whether the same etiological process c an explain variation in all types of criminal offending behavior or wh ether it will be necessary to adopt different theories to explain vari ation in different kinds of criminal behavior. One broad-domain theory , advanced by Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990), contends that a variable called ''self-control'' can account for variation in all kinds of cri minal conduct as well as variation in many acts that are ''analogous'' to crime in some ways bur are not actually criminal. Analogous behavi ors include, among other things, smoking, drinking, involvement in acc idents, gambling, and loitering. Using data from the Cambridge Study i n Delinquent Development (N = 369 males), we attempt to define operati onally the concept of self-control with a set of variables measured at ages 8-9. We then examine the empirical association between this self -control measure and self-reported involvement in a variety of crimina l and analogous acts during adolescence. In support of Gottfredson and Hirschi's position, our results indicate that self-control is associa ted with both outcomes and that the strength of the association is app roximately equal. Contrary to the expectations of their theory, howeve r, was our finding that the covariance between criminal and analogous behaviors could Mot be explained entirely by variations in self-contro l. This finding suggests that factors other than time-stable differenc es in criminal propensity do matter for criminal and legal, but, risky behaviors.