THE APPLICABILITY OF THE INTEGRATED SOCIAL CONTROL MODEL TO PUERTO RICAN DRUG USE

ABSTRACT

Although the Integrated Social Control (ISC) model, developed by Elliott and associates to explain deviant behavior, has had a powerful influence in the field of criminology, it has been less often applied to drug use. The use of the ISC model with non-white populations is particularly important because delinquency and drag-use research has not generally addressed the question raised by ethnographic studies concerning the extent to which the deviant behavior of specific ethnic groups can be modeled with a general theory.

This study uses data from a survey of inner-city Puerto Rican male adolescents to replicate Elliott et al.'s analytical model of deviance, based on an integration of social control, social learning and strain theories. Taking Elliott et al.'s path model results as a starting point, using the same measures developed for their National Youth Survey, and applying the results of previous ethnographic research on the cultural specificity of the Hispanic family and on the relationships between conventional institutions and adolescent peer groups in inner-cities, our study examines hard-drug use among Puerto Rican inner-city youth. The model was found to be generally applicable to Puerto Ricans. However, when a more comprehensive measure of drug use is applied to the Puerto Rican data, family and school bonding become more important influences on drug use. Findings support the applicability of the ISC delinquency model to drug use and bolster the importance of modeling the sociocultural contexts of specific ethnic groups in deviance theory.