7. An Examination of the General Theory of Crime in Kano

Salisu Abdullahi, Sadiq Isah Radda, and Teresa LaGrange

A substantial amount of empirical research on the causes and correlates of deviant and delinquent behavior among Western youths has been amassed over the last 50 years. Significantly less is known, however, about whether or not Western-based theories of causation apply in non-Western societies. The vast majority of self-report studies have been conducted in the U.S., documenting the misbehavior of American young people. A somewhat smaller number of studies have surveyed youths in Canada, Australia, and other Western industrialized countries (Vazsonyi, Pickering, Junger, & Hessing, 2001; Wright, Caspi, Moffitt, & Paternoster, 2004); only a handful, however, have examined deviance and delinquency among non-Western teens. These latter include a small number of studies conducted among Asian youths (Axenroth, 1983; Hwang & Akers 2003; Shoemaker, 1994; Wang & Jensen 2003; Zhang & Messner 1995). Virtually no empirical research using self-report methodology to date, however, has examined the causes and correlates of deviance among African teens. The research reported in this chapter addresses that gap, summarizing some preliminary findings from a self-report survey completed by 265 youths enrolled in a large university in Kano, Nigeria. What we report here are descriptive statistics of the sample, the types and frequencies of misbehavior they reported, and bivariate relationships between some predictors and low self-control. These findings lead us to conclude that a multivariate analysis may provide a unique statistical test of General Theory, which will aid in understanding patterns of deviance in Nigeria, as well as adding to the criminological literature

Theory and Background

Over the last twenty years contemporary sociologists and criminologists have proposed a number of “grand theories” of deviance that attribute rule-breaking and misconduct to general principles and universal laws that arise in any social context. One of the most widely tested of these perspectives is Gottfredson and Hirschi’s general theory. General Theory of Crime (1990) proposed a modification of classical control theory, explaining all deviance, delinquency, and crime as stemming from a fundamental failure of early socialization. According to the theory, people who were inadequately socialized in childhood would fail to develop self-discipline and impulse control and, hence, would be unable to restrain themselves from misconduct and rule-breaking whenever such conduct was a possibility. These propensities, once established, would lead to a variety of deviant behaviours throughout the lifespan. The actual temptations encountered, however, would depend on external circumstances, including the social and cultural context.

General theory attributes delinquency, deviance, and a host of analogous behaviors, including smoking, drinking, and sexual promiscuity, to the basic desire to maximize immediate benefits while minimizing immediate personal costs. The theory proposes that all humans have natural inclinations toward satisfying their wants and desires in the easiest, simplest ways possible.  These inclinations, however, lead to conflict with societal expectations that require people to control their impulses for the community good, to respect the rights of others, and to delay gratification of desires—sometimes for long periods of time.  Restraint of these innate impulses is seen as being the product of effective early socialization. Without appropriate socialization, people will persist in the tendency to act in hedonistic, self-centered ways that have negative personal consequences and that violate both the rights of others and the standards of community.

This explanation has been subjected to an extensive amount of both theoretical debate and empirical research; enough so that several years later both the authors of General Theory of Crime ranked as the most cited in the top American journals in criminology and criminal justice (Cohn & Farrington, 1998).  The theory’s key premise, that persons with low self-control are prone to commit a wide variety of law-breaking and norm-violating acts, has been consistently supported (see Pratt & Cullen, 2000, for a meta-analysis of 17 studies).  A few empirical tests of the theory have used behavioral measures to assess self-control (as advocated by its authors); the majority, however, have relied in whole or in part on a 24-item self-report scale of traits and characteristics first employed by Grasmick, Tittle, Bursik, Jr., & Arneklev (1993).

The general nature of this explanation for crime and deviance means that its principles should apply anywhere, in any cultural or legal context.  The idea that the theory is general in a fundamental way that transcends culture is explicitly explored in Gottfredson & Hirschi’s 1990 book. Most of the research on it, however, has been conducted using American or other Western populations as subjects. Of the published studies linking low self-control and various measures of delinquency and deviance, two have used European adolescent samples (Vazsonyi et al., 2001; a partial test of some elements of the theory was also carried out by Killias & Rabasa, 1997). Three others used Asian samples, with only one attempting a full theoretical model (Vazsonyi, Wittekind, Belliston, & Van Loh, 2004, using Japanese late adolescents), while the other two included a limited number of measures of low self-control (Wang, Qiao, Hong, & Zhang, 2002, based on Chinese adolescents; and Hwang & Akers, 2003, using Korean adolescents).  All of these studies, in spite of the marked cultural differences that can be assumed to exist in non-Western social relations, found some support for predictions derived from the theory.

Youth Deviance and Delinquency in Northern Nigeria

Nigeria has been subject to several periods of political unrest and upheaval, including periods of civil war, since gaining its independence from British colonial administration in 1960 (Opolot, 2001; Peters, 2003). These factors have tended to exacerbate social divisions marked by regions, ethnicity, religion, education, and social class. Further disparities arise from economic conditions. Although the country as a whole has benefited from foreign resources associated with oil production, subsistence agriculture still plays a significant role. At the same time, like most African societies Nigeria has undergone rapid social change and increasing integration into the world economy, thus broadening exposure to Western ideas.  The combination of these factors has led to the development of massive and visible differences in wealth and lifestyles as well as clear class distinctions. These differences apply not only to individuals, but also to family groups and relationships.

The impact of these factors is likely to be especially marked among those with more formal education and younger people. It might be predicted that some Nigerian young people would be strongly influenced by secular, Western attitudes; these youths might also be more likely to engage in the types of experimentation common in Western societies. The extent to which Nigerian youths engage in prohibited yet fairly benign behaviors, such as drinking alcohol, using tobacco, and engaging in sexual relations, is not well-documented. Nor is the degree to which Nigerian youths commit somewhat more serious but, nevertheless, minor offenses, such as theft or damage of other people’s property.

Although there has been no research on general theory as an explanation for deviance among Nigerian youths, a number of predictions may be made, based on its principles. General theory argues that basic human nature is hedonistic and drives the individual to self-gratification, often at the expense of others. It is socialization, particularly from parents, that instills restraint of these basic impulses and teaches the individual to think of others, think of the consequences of their behavior, restrain their desire for immediate gratification, and so forth. In empirical tests of this basic proposition, evidence of ineffective, incomplete, or inadequate socialization is generally assessed by surveying the extent to which respondents report present-orientation, a tendency to be impulsive and engage in risky behaviors, and an inability to restrain temper.  Those who display these characteristics are also predicted to be more likely to engage in norm-violating behaviors including deviance and delinquency.

This relationship can be predicted to apply in any social context. The agents, process, and content of socialization may vary. Yet if successful socialization is required in order to restrain the “beast within,” as general theory argues, then how it is accomplished, and by whom, is not significant. Similarly, the degree to which a culture or social group as a whole values restraint, for example, or planning ahead may vary; but general theory would predict that the more prone individuals are to acting on the impulse of the moment, the more likely they are to violate standards of conformity and commit various types of deviance as well. Finally, social prohibitions surrounding specific behaviors may vary from one social group to another. Alcohol use or sexual experimentation, for example, are status offenses in the U.S. for persons who are underage and are therefore considered delinquent. They may also be considered deviant behaviors for young adults, depending on the degree to which they are engaged in. Yet the degree of condemnation, even for an adolescent facing legal constraint, is arguably less severe than it might be for youths where cultural and/or religious prohibitions are absolute. Based on the premise that those with low self-control would be more likely to discount both the social and the personal risks, however, general theory would predict more experimentation among those who exhibit lower self-control.

To examine these assertions about the applicability of Western theories of deviance to Nigerian youths, the authors conducted research among students enrolled in lower-level classes at Bayero University in Kano, Nigeria. Students were asked to complete a self-report survey that asked about their families, their friends, their attitudes, and a variety of behaviors. To assess deviance, we used an index that asks about behaviors that violate universal conceptions of acceptable social conduct—theft of other people’s money or property, damaging other people’s belongings, breaching expectations of trade or exchange, or using force to benefit oneself at another’s expense.  In addition, some questions asked about the use of specific substances such as tobacco, alcohol, or drugs.  These questions were derived from a scale of deviance developed and tested among low-delinquency European populations, the Normative Deviance Scale (NDS; Vazsonyi et al., 2001), which asks about norm-violating behaviors that are generally independent of cultural and/or legal definitions. The goal was to examine whether universal theories of deviance apply in a culture substantially different from the Western societies in which the theories were initially developed and tested. By doing so, we address a gap in the theoretical literature and shed additional light on the sources of deviant conduct in this society.

Method

Study Site and Sample

The research was conducted in Kano, Nigeria, with subjects selected from the student population of Bayero University. The University is an independent, degree-granting institution that is part of the federal university system. It enrolls students in six faculties (Arts and Islamic Studies, Social and Management Sciences, Education, Technology, Law, and Medicine). Pencil-and-paper questionnaires were filled in by students of both genders enrolled in lower-division classes. The survey was administered in seven classes between October 25 and November 10, 2007; completion took approximately 30 to 40 minutes. Because the instructional language used in these classes was English, the survey was printed in English and was not translated into local languages. Instructors offered alternative and/or study activities to students who did not wish to participate in the survey. A total of 265 surveys were completed and returned.

Measures

The survey contained three general sets of questions:  background and demographic information; measures of the theoretical constructs of general theory; and a series of questions about participation in deviant or criminal behaviors including vandalism, alcohol use, drug use, theft, and violent behaviors including assault. All items were adapted from previous empirical research; in order to maintain comparability, the only changes made were those needed to reflect cultural differences between Nigeria and the U.S.  These included altering monetary units for theft items to reflect the Nigerian economic structure and the value ascribed to specific consumer goods in the local culture; the Nigerian faculty members collaborating on this project made these changes. In addition, some items regarding theft from a store were altered to include theft from a shopkeeper or trader. Other cultural adjustments were made to demographic questions, with additional answer categories provided for parent education and living circumstances.

Self-control

The survey used the measures of low self-control found in the first complete empirical test of the theory by Grasmick et al. (1993). These survey items have been utilized in whole or in part in most published research and, therefore, are used here in order to replicate these studies (Pratt & Cullen, 2000). Self-control was measured by 24 Likert-scaled items (five answer categories ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”) that asked respondents how well certain statements describe them; these items are reported in Appendix 1. These include items asking about impulsive behaviors (4 items); risk-seeking (4 items); present-orientation (4 items); temper (4 items); preference for simple tasks (4 items); and self-centeredness (4 items).

Deviance

Survey respondents were asked about their commission of a wide range of deviant and/or criminal behaviors. These included questions about tobacco and alcohol use, public mischief and vandalism, school misbehaviors, theft of various amounts and types, violence towards others in both at home and outside, and drug use. Each of these items permitted subjects to select from five answer categories indicating the number of times the various acts had been committed, ranging from “never” to “more than six times.” These items were summed to form a single multidimensional deviance scale; for descriptive purposes, they were also grouped into several content-specific subscales, reflecting the dimensions noted above. Tobacco use was measured by a single item; alcohol use consists of a summed scale of 6 items; vandalism, a summed scale of 8 items; school misbehavior 7 items; theft 7 items; violence 5 items; and drug use, 3 items. Items included in each of these categories are reported in Appendix 2.

Results

A total of 183 male students (69.8%) and 79 females (30.2%) completed surveys. The majority of respondents were Level I students (205, or 77.9%); a few were sub degree, however (5), and the remainder (53 or 20.2%) were Level II. Most of the respondents still lived at home (207, or 80.8%); a minority lived independently (49, or 19.2%), and some were themselves married (40, or 15.6%). Approximately 10% reported that their father was of Christian faith (24, or 9.1%); about the same number described themselves as Christian (28 or 10.6%). The majority, however, identified themselves (237, 89.4%) and their fathers (241, 90.9%) as Muslim. Moreover, most described themselves as being “much more concerned about religion” than others of their own age (202, or 77.4%), and reported that they observed religious practices on a daily basis (204, or 80%). Respondents ranged in age from 18 to 41; the mean age was 25. Sample characteristics are summarized in Table 1.

On the 24-item Low Self-Control scale, possible values ranged from 0 (strongly disagree on each of the 24 items) to 96 (strongly agree on each of the 24 items). Because each of these items asked students about behaviors and attitudes that would be descriptive of low self-control, higher values on this scale represent a greater tendency to reflect the qualities of someone with low self-control: a greater preference for risky behaviors, more impulsivity, more tendency to live in the present, and so forth.

The mean for the total sample was 38.6.  When means were compared among different subgroups of the sample, modest differences were noted. There were no differences based on gender and negligible or slight differences based on age, where living, and marital status. For education level, however, the lower-level students reported a higher mean score than the upper-level ones. Religion (father’s and own) also made a difference, with those students who were Christian about 6 points higher than those who were Muslim (44.1 for father’s religion, and 44.0 for subject’s own religion, compared to 38.6 and 88.7 respectively for Muslim students). The extent to which students described themselves as concerned about religion and the frequency of their worship or practice were associated with similar differences. Those who described themselves as less or slightly less concerned about religion than others their age had a mean of 41.7 on the low self-control scale, compared to 38.4 among those who described themselves as more concerned.  Similarly, those who reported they worshipped or practiced their religion once a week or less had a mean of 45.5, seven points higher than those who reported that they worshipped or engaged in religious practices daily. These findings are summarized in Table 2.

The scale assessing self-reported deviance was constructed from responses to the various questions about deviant and criminal misbehaviors. This produced an initial scale ranging from 0 (“never” on all items, reported by 49 subjects, or 18.8%) to 78 (one subject). To reduce skew, the scale was recoded to the 90th percentile, with answers above 23 coded to 23. The resulting scale ranged from 0 to 23, with a mean of 7.4 (Table 3). Subscales for each type of deviant behavior were also constructed by summing the responses on individual items. Each subscale was recoded in order to collapse some values and avoid empty cells. The overall level of specific types of deviance engaged in by these respondents was low, with “never” the modal response for all items and subscales.  Only a small number of subjects had ever used tobacco; 234 (87.5%) had “never” used it in any form, while only 20 (7.8%) had used it three or more times. The remainder (12, or 4.7%) had used tobacco products once or twice. Drug use, also, was similarly not reported; 232 students had “never” experimented with drugs (89.9%), while only 13 (5%) had 1 or 2 times, and the same number 3 or more times.

Deviance in Relation to Independent Variables

Bivariate relationships between various predictors, including low self-control, are summarized in Table 4, which reports means and standard deviations on the summed deviance scale within categories of the independent variables. For purposes of this examination, age was split into two categories: those younger than the mean age of 25 (n=166), and those 25 and older (n=94).  Self-control was also split into categories: a middle group, consisting of those within one standard deviation of the mean (n=194); and those whose answers on the self-control index placed them more than 1 standard below the mean (n=31), or above the mean (n=38).  There were no substantial differences on the self-reported deviance scale based on where students were living, their marital status, or their age group. Males were somewhat more likely to report committing a number of these actions than females, however, for males the mean was 8.3, while for females if was 5.4. Education level was also associated with differences: sub degree students reported a mean of 14.8, while the mean for Level I students was 7.7, and that for Level II students was 5.6.

Although father’s religion had no impact, subjects’ religion did: students who stated they were Christian had a mean of 9.1, while Muslim students had a mean of 7.2. While religion itself thus appears to be a factor, religiosity and frequency of worship appeared to be of greater import. Those who described themselves as “more concerned” about religion had a mean of 6.0 on the deviance scale, while those who described themselves as less or slightly less concerned reported committing twice as many deviant actions (12.0). And those who reported they worshipped every day had a mean of 7, compared to 8.6 for those who stated they practiced their faith a few times a week, and 10.1 for those who worshipped once a week or less. Those who described themselves as being least likely to exhibit attitudes and behaviors consistent with low self-control (more than 1 standard deviation below the mean) were also less likely to report deviance; these students had a mean of 5.3, compared to the middle group (mean of 7.2). Those in the highest group on the low self-control scale also reported engaging in more deviance, with a mean of 10.4.

Discussion and Some Preliminary Conclusions

From these bivariate results, we can draw some initial conclusions about the prevalence of deviance among this sample of Nigerian youths and about the relationship between various independent variables, including low self-control and deviance. First, in spite of cultural differences in family relationships and socialization, and although these subjects were all university students, there is substantial variation in the extent to which individuals report behaviors and attitudes consistent with low self-control; these attitudes and behaviors vary depending on educational level, marital status, father’s and own religion, religiosity, frequency of religious practice, and age. In general younger, single, lower-level, and less religiously-active Christian students described themselves as sharing attitudes/behaviors more characteristic of low self-control than did older, married, upper-level, and more religiously-active Muslim students.  Second, there is considerable variation in the extent to which these students reported committing a variety of deviant and criminal actions. While “never” was the modal response for tobacco and alcohol use, vandalism, school misbehavior, theft, violence, and use of drugs, a substantial minority reported committing one or more acts of violence (46.1%); and more than half reported one or more acts of vandalism (58.8%) and school misbehavior (51.2%).  On the summed scale, the majority of students reported committing one or more of these acts; and most had reported more than one, with the mean being 7.4. The extent to which students reported engaging in deviance varied depending on gender, educational level, religion, and commitment to religion as indicated by self-reported religiosity and frequency of worship. Male students, those who identified themselves as sub degree students, Christians, those who were less concerned about religion, and those who worshipped/practiced their faith less often were all more likely to report committing more deviance than females, those at higher educational levels, Muslims, those who were more concerned about religion, and those who practiced their faith more frequently. Finally, the low self-control scale was associated with differences in deviance; those least likely to describe themselves as having the characteristics of low self-control committed, on average, about half as much deviance as did those who more frequently described themselves as having those characteristics.

These means reported here summarize bivariate relationships and were not subjected to tests of statistical significance. They provide some preliminary indications, however, that deviance varies considerably even in a completely different cultural context, depending on variables that have been identified as important predictors of crime and delinquency in Western research. Hence, these findings lead us to conclude that a more complete multivariate analysis of these data can provide a statistical test of low self-control as a predictor of deviance among Nigerian youths, and hence make a significant contribution to the literature on General Theory of Crime.

 Appendix A

Measures of Low Self-Control (adapted from Grasmick, et al., 1993) (coded from 0, “strongly disagree” to 4, “strongly agree”)

Impulsivity

1. I don’t put much thought and effort to preparing for the future.
2. I often act depending on the situation without thinking ahead.
3. I often do whatever brings me pleasure here and now even at the cost of some distant goal.
4. I’m more concerned with what happens to me in the short run than in the long run.

Physical Activities

1. If I had a choice, I would mostly do something physical instead of something mental.
2. I almost always feel better when I am on the move than when I am sitting and thinking.
3. I like to get out and do things more than I like to read or think.
4. I seem to have more energy and a greater need for activity than most of my age mates.

Risk Seeking

1. Excitement and adventure are more important to me than security
2. I like to test myself every now and then by doing something a little risky/dangerous.
3. I sometimes find it exciting to do things for which I might get into trouble.
4. Sometimes I will take a risk just for the fun of it.

Self-Centered

1. I try to look out for myself first, even if it means making things difficult for other people.
2. I will try to get things I want even when I know it’s causing problems for other people.
3. I’m not very sympathetic to other people when they are having problems.
4. If people are unhappy with what I do, it’s their problem, not mine.

Simple Tasks

1. I frequently try to avoid projects that I know will be difficult.
2. When things get complicated/difficult I tend to quit or withdraw.
3. The things in life that are easiest to do bring me the most pleasure.
4. I dislike a really hard task that stretches my ability to the limit.

Temper

1. I easily become angry.
2. Often, when I am angry at people, I feel more like hurting/injuring them than talking to them about why I am angry.
3. When I’m really angry, other people should stay away from me.
4. When I have a serious disagreement with someone, it’s usually hard for me to talk about it without getting upset.

 Appendix B                       

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