Charles Tittle's Control Balance and Criminological Theory

Abstract

Charles Tittle's (1995) Control Balance suggests that deviance is likely either when people are much more controlled than controlling or when they are much more controlling than controlled. The theory is more subtle than first appearances suggest; it finds control ratios to influence motivation, provocation, opportunity and constraint. Tittle's work opens up the potential for a more productive integration of explanatory and normative theory in criminology. A republican account of the redistribution of control is advanced at this explanatory-normative theoretical interface.