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The Self-control theory of crime, often referred to as the General Theory of Crime, is a criminological theory about the lack of individual self-control as the main factor behind criminal behavior. The self-control theory of crime suggests that individuals who were ineffectually parented before the age of ten develop less self-control than individuals of approximately the same age who were raised with better parenting. Research has also found that low levels of self-control are correlated with criminal and impulsive conduct.

The theory was originally developed by criminologists Travis Hirschi and Michael Gottfredson, but has since been subject to a great deal of theoretical debate as well as a large and growing empirical literature.

History
Beginning in 1911 psychologist Freud(1911, 1959) developed the concept of self-control with his "pleasure-principle" and "reality-principle," Respectively, these principles refer to the desire for immediate gratification and the delay of gratification. The pleasure principle drives an individual to look for pleasure and to avoid pain. However, the individual must withstand the pain and delay gratification because of the obstacles of reality. Building from this, recent studies refer to self-control as an individual's decision or ability to delay immediate gratification of desires in order to reach larger goals.

Hirschi—in co-operation with Gottfredson— developed the "General Theory of Crime" or self-control theory from 1990 onwards. Gottfredson and Hirschi wanted to establish self-control theory as an important part in understanding deviant behavior because they believed the expansions they made could fill in the gaps which classical theory left behind. They tried to emphasize that some individuals are more vulnerable to lose self-control than others to when faced with the temptations of the current environment.

Theory
As defined by Gottfredson and Hirschi, self-control is a person’s ability to consider the consequences of their act. In the context of crime and criminality, self-control is a persons ability to obey the laws in a designated county, state, or country. Those that have no self control lack inhibition resistors that allow them to consider the consequences of their act. More specifically, people who lack self-control most frequently are “impulsive, insensitive, physical (as compared to mental), risk-taking, short-sighted, and nonverbal”. As a result, those that lack self-control seek immediate gratification of desires. In some cases, but not all, this can lead someone to commit a criminal offense. .

Individual self-control improves with age as a result of many factors: changing biology through hormonal development, socialization and increasing opportunity costs of losing control. Based on the empirical observation of the strong, consistent connection between criminal behavior and age, Hirschi and Gottfredson theorized the single most important factor behind crime is individual lack of self-control.

The Self Control Theory of Crime also shares similar fundamental traits as the Ego depletion. They both state that the humans are more motivated to purse their immediate desires and that the satisfaction of their pleasures is universal.

Empirical Support
The research community contests the General Theory of Crime for its sustainability but there is emerging confirmation that some of its predictions are true(e.g. LaGrange & Silverman: 1999). A number of empirical studies - including meta-analysis - have confirmed that individual self-control is in fact one of the strongest predictors of crime, when compared to a range of factors at various levels of analysis.

Fictitious Drug Use and Untruthfulness
In 2014, self-control theory was used to predict why participants respond untruthfully in survey studies. It was believed that individuals who have low self-control will be less likely to provide truthful responses on surveys. Underpinning the research is the idea that self-control theory is flexible and can apply to any sample of individuals. The results indicated that twenty percent of the respondents falsely claimed that they had used a fictitious drug in the past 30 days, confirming that self-control is a predictor of untruthful behavior. These researchers reconfirmed that less self-control one has the more likely they are to succumb to impulsive (and possibly illogical) behavior.

Gangs and Violence
Self-control theory also helps researchers to understand the relationship between gang membership and gang violence. The theory proposed that when one gang member acts loses self-control, there is no one to punish the act because other group members also lack self-control. Furthermore, the consequences get diffused among the group so that the lack of self-control is perpetuated. Though future research needs to be done, this research suggests that self-control theory is very relevant in understanding gangs and gang violence, in hopes of ultimately preventing it.

White Collar and Conventional Crime
Self-control theory can also be used to predict White-Collar crime and conventional crime, though it may not be the only explanatory theory. With White-collar and conventional crimes, both self-control and desire-for-control play a role. Whereas self-control emphasizes the amount that a person can consider consequences in determining their actions, desire-for-control emphasizes the amount of agency that a person has in their life to determine and influence outcomes. The self-control model can only be used to explain crimes such as shoplifting rather than white collar crimes like embezzlement where the desire-for-control factor may be playing a larger role.

Criticisms
Akers (1991) argued that a major weakness of this new theory was that Gottfredson and Hirschi did not define self-control and the tendency toward criminal behavior separately. By not deliberately operationalixing self-control traits and criminal behavior or criminal acts individually, it suggests that the concepts of low self-control and propensity for criminal behavior are one and the same. Hirschi and Gottfredson (1993) replied to Akers argument by suggesting it was actually an indication of the consistency of the General Theory. That is, the theory is internally consistent by conceptualizing crime and deriving from that a concept of the offender's traits.

Delinquent Peer Association
Self-control theory fails to completely explain delinquent peer association. Instead there is a move towards an integrated theoretical approach including self-control theory and social learning theory. Self-control theory posits that stability in the level of self-control is important after age 10 but at the same time social learning theory posits that change is constantly occurring. The fact that self-control is seen as constant is a pitfall of self-control theory which can be accounted for in social learning theory. Moving forward social learning and self-control theory can be combined to fully develop an understanding of how deviant peer groups are formed and managed.

Steroid Use
Both social learning theory and self-control theory, combined, shed light on individual steroid use. Self-control theory focuses on how individuals are at risk due to their limited amount of self-control which translates to persons committing crimes or analogous acts. Social learning theory posits that steroid use occurs because of the learned habits in social groups where a majority use steroids. Ultimately, self-control has little to do with steroid use. Social learning theory, however, accounts for the instabilities in peer association that self-control cannot.

Future Research
The results are rather across the board in terms of whether or not self-control can be used to understand crimes. Whereas some crimes can be understood using self-control theory other crimes necessitate both self-control theory and social learning theory. Even the most recent studies have little consensus on how to theorize about crimes.

Moving forward, the biggest concern is figuring out how to measure self-control. Jennings et al. (2013) used a behavioral measure of self-control, whereas Meldrum, Piquero and Clark (2013) use an eight-item measure drawn from the Grasmick scale. These differing scales could very well lead to different results in how self-control plays a role in committing a crime. Jennings et. al. (2013) suggest that the only way to prove that self-control is properly measured in the future is to “evaluate whether these findings can be replicated using an alternative measure of self-control”. Replication of any study is important in determining whether or not a study is valid.