Control theories are different to other criminological theories. Most theories suggest that people naturally obey the law and they argue that there are certain factors that influence whether they will commit crime or not. Control theories take the stance that if we are left to our own devices we would all commit crime and that it is down to certain controls whether internal to the person or enforced by others externally which prevent us from doing so (Paternoster and Bachman, in McLaughlin & Newburn, 2010). These theories therefore assume that all people are capable of crime and individuals commit crime due to the weakness of controls restraining them from doing not because of forces driving them to do so (Vold 2002). This is described by Lilly et al (2011), "Non-conformity such as crime and delinquency is to be expected when social controls are less than completely effective". This therefore leads us to believe that these theories are not explaining deviance rather conformity. In addition, Downes and Rock, 2011 claim that “control theories do not explain conformity and whether it is as complicated as deviance. They make far too little of both deviance and conformity”. This essay will look at the different types of control theories in relation to social control and the prevention of crime. One of the early control theorist’s Reiss (1951) outlined the main argument of control theorists by stating that delinquency is due to the failure of restraint. (Paternoster and Bachman, in McLaughlin & Newburn, 2010) He looked at two different types of control; personal control and social control. Personal control is the ability to avoid meeting needs in ways which go against the norms of society and social control is the ability of society and institutions to make norms effective (Lilly et al, 2011). He continued to say that conformity may result from the acceptance of these norms or the mere submission to them. This means that the norms of the individual need to be in balance with the norms of the institution or this may lead to delinquency. In order to investigate this idea, he examined a number of factors to predict probation revocation among juvenile offenders. He looked at court records of 1110 white male juvenile probationers between the ages of 11 and 17 and found that probation revocation was more likely when the juvenile was diagnosed with having weak ego or superego controls which would count as weak personal controls. In addition he also found that probation revocation was more likely when the juveniles didn’t attend school regularly therefore lacked the social controls. (Vold et al, 2002) Reiss (1951) says, “Primary groups are the basic institutions for the development of personal controls and the exercise of social control. This is further explained by Paternoster and Bachman (in McLaughlin & Newburn, 2010) who comment that “one of the most important institutions in the development of social control of the individual is the family”. Reiss further argues that attachments between parents and children are important as where the bond is strong they are more likely to exercise direct control over the child. Whilst this theory was a good starting point in relation to control theory, there were a number of methodological flaws in his research which may discredit his claim that personal and social controls prevent us from committing crime. One flaw is that the research sample is not representative as it doesn’t take into account race, gender or different age categories therefore it is difficult to generalise this research to other people. In addition, Vold et Al (2002) says that the strongest associations in the research were between personal controls; however they take the diagnoses by the psychiatrist at face value and do not comment on the strengths and weaknesses of this method of testing. Furthermore, the research on social controls and probation revocation was weaker and may be able to be explained by other perspectives other than control theory. This theory therefore does support the view that it is social controls that prevent us all from committing crime; however there is more support for personal controls being responsible for this. One theory that supports the idea that it is social controls that prevent us from committing crime is by Nye (1958) who studied the family as the most important social control for adolescents. His main argument, according to Vold (2002), was that most deviant behaviour was due to the lack of social controls and delinquent behaviour ‘caused by’ positive factors was very rare. Vold (2002) also describes what was meant by social control in the way that it was studied by Nye (1958). He wrote, “Social control was used as a broad term that included direct controls imposed by means of restrictions and punishments, internal control exercised through conscience, indirect control related to affectionate identification with parents and other non criminal pers