Self-Control, Violent Offending, and Homicide Victimization: Assessing the General Theory of Crime

Criminologists have long recognized that offending and victimization share common ground. Using Gottfredson and Hirschi’s general theory of crime, with its emphasis on self-control as a theoretical backdrop, we examine the extent to which self-control is related to both violent offending and homicide victimization. To examine this issue, we use 5-year post-parole data on violent offending and homicide victimization from a sample of parolees from the California Youth Authority. Using rare-events logistic regression models, results indicate that self-control is related to each outcome, but that other risk factors are also uniquely related to each outcome. The implications of this study for theory and future research are addressed.