Social Process Theories – Frankie
Frankie’s motivation to commit bank robbery happens earlier in the movie when compared to the rest of the girls. Frankie was a bank teller at the bank that was initially robbed by Darnell at the start of the movie. While being held at gunpoint, she failed to follow the correct procedures; this led to her losing her job in the aftermath of the robbery. Additionally, the investigators for the robbery accused Frankie of being an accomplice because she knew the robber, Darnell, as well as for her failure of following the bank’s robbery procedures. Despite her protests, it is clear that her background makes her a suspect throughout the movie for the initial bank robbery and for the ones she later commits.
Hirschi’s social bond theory explains Frankie’s motivation to commit bank robbery. Social bond theory is best explained by the idea that an individual’s bonds to society, including friends, family, school, and peers, are what keeps individuals from committing crimes or falling into delinquency. In order to have an adequate attachment for this to occur, individuals must have some sort of societal attachment, commitment, involvement and belief. When one or more of these are lost, societal bonds are weakened and it is more likely that the individual will commit a crime. In Frankie’s case, her bond to society was forcefully broken when she was wrongfully fired from her job and interrogated by the investigator. The job at the bank was Frankie’s tie to society that allowed her to feel successful. When she lost it, she also lost the attachment she felt towards it and felt as if her commitment to doing well at it broke too. Although these weakened her bond to society, the proverbial last straw when it comes to Frankie was that her belief in society was broken. Up until this point, Frankie believed that by finding a good job with good prospects, she was doing exactly what was needed to be successful in society. She had the belief that doing the right thing would lead to positive outcomes. When she was harshly questioned and fired from her job for doing the right thing, it was a direct contradiction of her belief in the fairness of society. With this integral belief broken, her bond to society broke as well, making it easier to rationalize using illegal means like robbery to be successful.
Frankie is being harshly interrogated by the investigator after being the victim in a bank robbery.
Social Process Theories – Stony
Stony’s motivation to rob the bank can be explained by her relationship to her brother and his death. Stony’s brother, Stevie, was friends with the initial robber and was seen leaving his house by the cops. They mistakenly thought he was the robber and attempted to detain him. The cops thought the bottle in his pocket was a gun, so they openly fired on Stevie, killing him instantly. Stony was upset about her brother’s wrongful death and decides to take part in the bank robbery since she now has nothing to lose. She later decides to commit the other bank robberies in order to save enough money to get out of the Projects.
Stony’s motivations to rob the bank align with the social bond theory. The four major tenants of social bond theory include attachment, commitment, involvement, and belief. When an individual has an inadequate amount of any of these, they are more likely to commit crime and delinquency. Of these four tenants, Stony is most closely affected by the attachment postulate. Attachment recognizes that the emotional ties to others, whether that be family or friends, will deter them from crime because they value their relationships. Stony’s bond with her family was already weak at the beginning of the movie because her parents had died, and her closest familial relationship was her brother. When he is wrongfully murdered by the police, she loses another major attachment that is keeping her from breaking the law. Since she loses her brother to an unjust law enforcement system, this also erodes her belief in law enforcement and justice as a whole. This loss of belief, another postulate of social bond theory, played a part in her justification of committing the crime of bank robbery.
The police misidentify the champagne bottle as a gun, leading them to shoot and kill Stevie.
Social Process Theories – TT
TT spent the majority of the movie working to provide for her son, and her motivation to rob the bank was no different. TT worked for Luthor who did not pay her well enough after taxes for her to afford a babysitter. This meant that she had to bring him to work with her where he accidentally drank bleach. After taking him to the hospital, Child Protective Services was called and took TT’s son away from her. TT then realizes that she needs to make enough money to prove to Child Protective Services that she is capable of taking care of her son and providing him with a safe environment. Since she makes very little money at Luthor’s, robbery feels like the only way that she can earn enough money to do so. It is this loss of her son, and intense desire to get him back, that led TT to commit bank robbery.
TT’s actions align very closely with the social bond theory developed by Travis Hirschi. Social bond theory posits that individuals are more likely to commit crime if they do not have “adequate” bonds to society. These bonds must include attachment, commitment, involvement, and belief in order to help keep an individual from succumbing to delinquency or crime. TT’s actions correlate to the attachment part of the social bond theory. TT’s strongest attachment was to her son, so when she lost this attachment, or bond, she was willing to violate the law in order to get him back. It is also worth noting that TT was the least ready to commit the initial bank robbery, as she ran away before even entering the bank. It was her attachment to her friends, and an even stronger desire to get her son back, that encouraged her to commit the second bank robbery. TT is a prime example of an individual who did not want to violate social norms until she felt she had no other choice in order to restore her broken bond with her son.
The girls are waiting in the hospital after TT’s son accidentally drank bleach. CPS takes her son while at the hospital.
Social Process Theories – Cleo
Cleo is one of the most complex characters in Set It Off, and her motivation to commit bank robbery is equally as complex. Throughout the movie, Cleo lives her life in a very carefree way with little-to-no restrictions. It is revealed to the audience that she has a criminal past, although the specifics are unknown. Despite all of this, her decision to commit bank robbery is not one of pure entertainment, but as a response to TT’s child being taken away by Child Protective Services. As mentioned previously, TT could not afford to pay a babysitter for the time she had to go to her job at Luthor’s, so she brought her infant son to work with her. While she was cleaning a hotel room, her son accidentally drank bleach, sending him to the hospital where Child Protective Services took custody of him. Cleo is at the hospital when this encounter takes place and is rightfully upset at the situation. It is because of this moment that she decides to commit bank robbery.
Cleo’s decision to commit bank robbery is reinforced by Hirschi’s social bond theory. The social bond theory emphasizes that it is an individual’s bond to society that plays the biggest role in whether or not they will commit a crime. Hirschi posits that there are five parts of a bond that must be present to keep an individual’s bond to society strong. These include: attachment, belief, commitment, and involvement. Throughout the film, and the audience can infer before the film, Cleo does not have any major commitments or involvement that keep them from engaging in criminal activity. However, it is Cleo’s attachment to her friends and lack of belief in the fairness of society that motivate her to commit the bank robbery in the movie. Cleo’s strongest attachment is to her friends, and her propensity to commit crime comes directly from if she feels it would help her friends. This is shown when TT’s child is taken away by Child Protective Services, and Cleo is ready to commit bank robbery in order to get the money for TT to get her child back. Additionally, Cleo has a lack of belief in society and the law enforcement system throughout the movie. Despite this, she does not decide to rob the bank until this system failed her friends. When she believes that the law enforcement system, and society as a whole, was working against TT, she decides that it is only fair for them to use illegal means to right society’s wrongs. Overall, Cleo’s actions are directly aligned with Hirschsi’s social bond theory and the tenets of attachment and belief.
Cleo is called for the lineup for Luthor’s murder, but she intimidates the witness into not being identified.