ABSTRACT
“The elephant in the living room” is a cliche whereby people avoid discussing uncomfortable issues that plague them. Self-control theory is palatable to sociologists because of its focus on family socialization processes in causing problem behaviors. Consequently, one of the most pivotal contributions of self-control theory is the explicit discussion of the role that abject parenting plays in producing criminal and largely unsuccessful persons. Criminal versatility enhances the idea that the ultimate driving force of crime lies within the individual, making the claims of individual pathology approaches like self-control and psychopathy more believable. Mendacious claims with social psychological approaches simply cannot compete with the consistency posed by individual-level defects. Unfortunately, “too little, too late” might be optimistic if the pathology posed by self-control approaches the criminal justice track record of psychopathic offenders. Psychopaths, by their very nature are not amenable to treatment or correction, thus their recidivism is a certainty.
