Class in the Household: A Power-Control Theory of Gender and Delinquency

This paper extends a power-control theory of common delinquent behavior developed by Hagan, Gillis, and Simpson in 1985. It does so by bringing the class analysis of delinquency into the household, using a new model of class relations based on the relative positions of husbands and wives in the workplace. In patriarchal families, wives have little power relative to husbands, daughters have little freedom relative to sons, and daughters are less delinquent than sons. These differences are diminished in egalitarian families. Power-control theory explains this variation in terms of (1) gender divisions in domestic social control and (2) the resulting attitudes toward risk taking. Power-control theory thereby accoutns for class-specific declines in gender-delinquency relationships that previously required separate deprivation and liberation theories of gender and delinquency. The new theory calls for major changes in the study of class, gender, and delinquency, as well as for a new appreciation of the importance of gender and structures of patriarchi in many other social processes.