Low self-control, social bonds, and crime: Social causation, social selection, or both?

This article examines the social-selection and social-causation processes t hat generate criminal behavior. We describe these processes with three theo retical models: a social-causation model that links crime to contemporaneou s social relationships; a social-selection model that links crime to person al characteristics formed in childhood; and a mixed selection-causation mod el that links crime to social relationships and childhood characteristics. We tested these models with a longitudinal study in Dunedin, New Zealand, o f individuals followed from birth through age 21. We analyzed measures of c hildhood and adolescent low self-control as well as adolescent and adult so cial bonds and criminal behavior. In support of social selection, we found that low self-control in childhood predicted disrupted social bonds and cri minal offending later in life. In support of social causation, we found tha t social bonds and adolescent delinquency predicted later adult crime and, further, that the effect of self-control on crime was largely mediated by s ocial bonds. In support of both selection and causation, we found that the social-causation effects remained significant even when controlling for pre existing levels of self-control, but that their effects diminished. Taken t ogether, these findings support theoretical models that incorporate social- selection and social-causation processes.