Self-control, accidents, and crime

According to self-control theory, crime and accident involvement are positi vely related. Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990) argued that this relation is s purious and results from the fact that both accidents and crime are the res ult of a lack of self-control. In particular, they argued that a positive r elation is supportive of their theory and cannot be explained by competing theories, such as strain or cultural deviance theory. This study explored t wo questions: (a) Is there a relation between crime and accidents? (b) Is t here support for the spuriousness thesis, that is, can the relation between crime and accident involvement be accounted for by a measure of self-contr ol or by a measure of social control? The answer to both questions was larg ely affirmative. There was a relatively strong positive relation between cr ime and accidents, with delinquents more involved than nondelinquents in ac cidents. The analysis also showed that, although measures of self-control a nd social control were related to delinquency and to accident involvement, the relation between crime and accidents became weaker when these measures were taken into account, but it did not disappear. Thus, the spuriousness t hesis was partially supported.