Low Self Control Theory

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Gottfredson and Hirschi’s Low Self-Control Theory The first article I read is about low self-control and fraud offending. The hypothesis of this theory says that individuals that possess low self-control levels are more vulnerable to resort to fraud and the use of force to receive self-interest. Mainly looking at check and credit card fraud, this study uses data from a national, longitudinal sample of young adults to study the correlation between low self-control and the self-reported fraud offenses of check and credit card fraud. Gottfredson and Hirschi state that fluctuations in low self-control are instinctively portrayed by parenting in early years of childhood, and that it remains constant over the period of an individual’s life. This is due to the fact that individuals with low self-control levels prefer simple acts that are easy to perform, and they are also impatient and instead of mental activities they prefer physical. These people are prone to participate in a variety of analogous behaviors. Most studies are focused on popular form of offending such as assault and drinking and driving so the correlation between fraudulent offending and low self-control is still a neglected topic of research. Research from Allison et al’s study has shown that fraudsters tend to be older white males with high levels of education ranging from ages twenty six to thirty four. In addition to et al’s findings, Holtfreter also found that serious fraud offenders tent to be older, more educated males than people who committed less serious fraud crimes. This leads to one of the policy implications of past studies because they mainly focused on sampling from college student populations and this could hinder the outcomes of the tests. Using college students as a sample shed little light to the nature of this type of offending because of the age. The objective of this study is
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