Drunk Driving and the Prediction of Analogous Behavior: A Longitudinal Test of Social Learning and Self-Control Theories

Abstract

Drunk driving assumed near pandemic proportions in the 1980s, and state legislatures rushed to control it throughout the 1990s—largely with increased surveillance, apprehension, and punishment, key elements in a deterrence model. Early in the twenty-first century, researchers and policy makers suggested that deterrence models poorly served us in the control of drunk drivers. Policy makers needed better insights into the social psychology of chronic drunk drivers. In their general theory of crime, Gottfredson and Hirschi describe the propensity of low self-control persons to exhibit a higher propensity for crime and analogous behavior relative to persons with higher levels of self-control. Akers's social learning theory emphasizes the various mechanisms by which the motives, orientations, and methods of crime and delinquency are learned and reinforced. We used data collected as part of an assessment of a municipal court drug-treatment program to explore the ability of variables taken from both theories to predict status as an alcoholic, self-reported misconduct, and subsequent criminal conduct. We followed the program's 110 drunk drivers for at least six months after sentencing. We found that with respect to status as an alcoholic and reconviction status, age (i.e., being older) and level of self-reported misbehavior (i.e., higher levels of self-reported criminal activity) are the most crucial factors. In terms of the theoretical variables, only differential associations play a significant role in the analyses; further, this role appears to be indirect, through the level of self-reported misbehavior.