Whether it be from a moral or legal standpoint, murder is one of the worst crimes in the book. Social control theory attempts to explain why a person would ever go so far as to kill someone. The theory proposes that people’s relationships, commitments, values, norms, and beliefs help them not to be deviant, and to align with social norms. Therefore, if a close relationship with another person ends, or emotions toward someone or something important are severed, people can begin to act out violently. This often happens when people leave a religion, because they feel as if they have less moral restriction. One astonishing example of someone who struggled as a child and became a murderer is the birthday clown, John Wayne Gacy. Social control explains murder through loss of emotion and connectional ties to important objects and/or people.

A 2005 study has linked many serial killers (there about 1500 serial killers ever recorded) to early childhood abuse. Although there is no direct evidence to support the idea that the abuse is what causes people to become serial killers, it is clear to see that it can easily effect the likelihood of a child developing psychopathic traits. In this study, only about 37% of all serial killers had no reported abuse. However, 36% suffered from physical abuse, 26% had been sexually abused, 50% were psychologically abused, and 18% were neglected as children. The authors of this study also found that the type of abuse had no correlation to what type of serial killer the people became; organized or unorganized. Over all it seems most serial killers became deviant due to poor and neglectful upbringings. This evidence strongly supports social control theory, because those who were abused tended to have poor relationships with their parents and friends.

As I mentioned before, John Wayne Gacy is one prime example of someone who had a rough childhood and ended up a serial killer. Although not all people with a depressing childhood grow up to be murderers, this unfortunate soul did. John Wayne Gacy’s father would beat John and John’s mother. Throughout high school, Gacy was ruthlessly bullied due to his weight. John also had a lot of internal conflict because he was a homosexual, however, because it was the 1960’s he couldn’t tell anyone. Gacy committed his first recorded crime on a 15 year old boy, sexually assaulting him. His next crime was the same, on a different male teenager, but the victim never came to court so it was dismissed. Over the course of the following years, Gacy murdered over 30 men, mostly young but some old. He hid 26 of these victims in his crawl space (Hall). It seems that John Wayne Gacy’s bad childhood haunted his adult life. Many, including myself, would argue that the abuse in his younger years caused him to be deviant in his adult years. This makes him an example of how social control describes why deviance (and crime) occurs.           

However, there is more than one theory that explains why anyone would become deviant. If we use John Wayne Gacy as an example again, we can view his story through more than just social control theory. Many who have studied Gacy’s life say that strain theory explains why he began to commit crimes. Strain theory says that society puts pressure on people to reach impossible goals. When this happens it creates strain on said person’s life, leading to deviance. Due to Gacy being overweight and homosexual, in that era he may have felt like he had to change himself to be socially acceptable (Guy). Eventually, this leads to strain, which resulted in him becoming deviant.

In the end, even though there are many ways to explain deviance, social control theory is one of the best ways to explain why someone would murder another person. I believe that this is because when they are abused when they are young, children can develop sociopathic tendencies, making it so they pertain less and less human decency. This leads to deviance and in some cases, even crime as serious as murder.

Works Cited

Argamosa, Nicole Hazel. “Social Control Theory and Murder.” Prezi, 12 Mar. 2014.

Hall, Elizabeth. “Social Construction: A Study of Theory in Relation to Serial Murder.”Criminology & Justice.

Guy, Fiona. “Serial Killers And Childhood Abuse: Is There A Link?” Crime Traveller, 22 Jan. 2018.