Self-Control as a General Theory of Crime 203 The cause of low self-control is ineffective or incomplete socialization, especially ineffective child-rearing. The present article outlines the view that virtually every empirical test of the theory is based on serious misinterpretations of its core construct, self-control. If low self-control is defined as a lack of ability to resist the temptation to deviant behavior and then the same lack of self-control is seen as the cause of crime, then the theory is indeed tautological. Other articles where A General Theory of Crime is discussed: Travis Hirschi: Gottfredson resulted in A General Theory of Crime (1990), which defined crime as “acts of force or fraud undertaken in pursuit of self-interest.” Arguing that all crime can be explained as a combination of criminal opportunity and low self-control, Gottfredson and Hirschi hypothesized that a child’s level of… Gottfredson and Hirschi's (1990) general theory of crime is appealing because of its versatility and simplicity: in the general theory, criminal behavior is a function of low or absent individual self-control. Weak institutions such as certain types of families, the breakdown of local communities, and the breakdown of trust in the government and the police are all linked to higher crime rates. In this review, I assess the current state of self-control knowledge and encourage the field to move beyond SCT, as its peculiar conceptualization of self-control and the causal model present challenges for integrative scholarship. The theory of low self-control retains the focus on restraints from engaging in crime but argues that those restraints are primarily internal. Proposes a series of testable hypotheses on the nature of self-control, the generality of the effects associated with low self-control, the stability over time of low self-control, and the origins of self-control. A general theory of crime. Social disorganization theory: A person’s physical and social environments are primarily responsible for the behavioral choices that person makes. Gottfredson and Hirschi define the concept of self-control only in the context of crime. Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. They use the terms “low self-control” and “high self-control” as labels for this differential propensity to commit crime … Another major criticism is that self‐control theory is an untestable tautology, treating low self‐control and the propensity to commit crime as the same thing (Akers 1991). Press. Other aspects of the self-control theory examined are the tautology problem, its stability, and its ability to explain the influence of the peer group. In order to avoid this tautological concern, operational measures of self‐control need to be developed that differ from criminal behavior measures. Overall, the authors conclude that empirical research has supported their self-control theory as a general explanation of criminal behavior. The theory hypothesizes that low self-control is the cause of the propensity toward criminal behavior, yet Gottfredson and Hirschi do not define self-control separately from this propensity. 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