Social Control in Criminology PDF

# TOPIC 2.1 Explain forms of social control ## Getting started Working in a small group, complete the following: 1. What are norms, values and moral codes? (If you're not sure, look back at Criminology Book One, Unit 2, Topic 1.1.) 2. What sanctions exist for controlling our behavior in line with...

# TOPIC 2.1 Explain forms of social control ## Getting started Working in a small group, complete the following: 1. What are norms, values and moral codes? (If you're not sure, look back at Criminology Book One, Unit 2, Topic 1.1.) 2. What sanctions exist for controlling our behavior in line with society's norms? For example, how is our behavior controlled in school by peers and teachers? 3. Why do you think people follow the norms and values of society? Share your answers with the rest of the class. As a whole class, make a list of the ways our behavior is controlled in society. ## What is social control? For society to function smoothly, people need to behave more or less as others expect them to. Imagine the chaos, for example, if the bus driver decided today to take their bus to the seaside, passengers and all, instead of following the normal route so that people could get to work, school or the shops or if the postman decided to post all the mail to just one address in each street. Social control involves persuading or compelling people to conform to society's norms, laws and expectations. Society has various means of achieving control over its members' behavior, which we can group into two main forms: * Internal forms of social control * External forms of social control. ## Internal forms of social control These are controls over our behavior that come from within ourselves from our personalities or our values. As such, they are therefore also forms of self-control. They lead us to conform to the rules of society and the groups that we belong to because we feel inwardly that it is the right thing to do. ### Moral conscience or superego According to Freud's psychoanalytic theory, we conform to society's expectations and obey its rules because our superego tells us to do so. Along with the id and the ego, the superego forms part of our personality. Our superego tells us what is right and wrong and inflicts guilt feelings on us if we fail to do as it urges. Our superego develops through early socialization within the family, as a sort of internalized 'nagging parent' telling us how we ought to behave. Its function is to restrain the selfish, 'animal' urges of the id. If we acted on these urges, they would often lead us into anti-social and criminal behavior. The superego allows us to exercise self-control and behave in socially acceptable ways. ### Tradition and culture The culture to which we belong also becomes part of us through socialization. We come to accept its values, norms and traditions as part of our identity. For example, believers follow the religious traditions that they have been raised in, such as the Muslim tradition of fasting during Ramadan or the Jewish tradition of sharing the Shabbat (Sabbath) evening meal. Conforming to such traditions is an important way of affirming one's identity and being accepted as a member of a particular community. ### Internalization of social rules and morality Both our superego and the traditions we follow become part of our inner self or personality. Yet both of them start as things outside of us either as our parents' rules and values in the case of the superego, or as those of our culture or social group in the case of tradition. Socialization In both cases, we internalize these rules through the process of socialization whether from our parents or from wider social groups and institutions such as religion, school and peer groups. In this way, society's rules and moral code become our own personal rules and moral code. As a result, we come to conform willingly to social norms. 'Rational ideology' is a term that has been used to describe the fact that we internalize social rules and use them to tell us what is right and wrong. This enables us to keep within the law. ## External forms of social control As well as internal forms of control such as our conscience, society has external forms of control that aim to ensure we conform to its expectations and keep to its rules. Society does this through agencies of social control. ### Agencies of social control These are organizations or institutions that impose rules on us in an effort to make us behave in certain ways. They include the family, peer group and education system. For example, parents may send a naughty child to bed, friends may shun someone who tells tales, and teachers may give a disruptive student a detention. All these are negative sanctions (punishments), but agencies of social control can give positive sanctions (rewards) to those who conform. For example, a hardworking student may earn praise, gold stars etc. from the teacher. Both positive and negative sanctions help to impose social control. This echoes Skinner's operant learning theory of behavior reinforcement - punishments deter undesired behavior and rewards encourage acceptable behavior. ### The criminal justice system The criminal justice system contains several agencies of social control, each with the power to use formal legal sanctions against individuals in an attempt to make them conform to society's laws. These agencies and their powers include the following. * The police have powers to stop, search, arrest, detain and question suspects. * The CPS can charge a suspect and prosecute them in court. * Judges and magistrates have powers to bail the accused or remand them in custody, and to sentence the guilty to a variety of punishments. * The prison service can detain prisoners against their will for the duration of their sentence and punish prisoners' misbehavior (e.g. by putting them in solitary confinement). All these are negative sanctions, but the justice system also has positive sanctions (rewards) that it can use to control behavior. For example, assisting the prosecution is likely to earn an offender a lower sentence, while good behavior by prisoners may earn them more privileges and earlier parole. ### Coercion Coercion involves the use or threat of force in order to make someone do (or stop doing) something. Force may involve physical or psychological violence, or other forms of pressure. The negative sanctions of the criminal justice system above are examples of coercion: sending someone to prison for stealing is a form of coercion aimed at preventing further offending (if only for the period that the thief is in jail). ### Fear of punishment Fear of punishment is one way of trying to achieve social control and make people conform to the laws. In effect, fear of punishment is a form of coercion, because it involves the threat that force will be used against you if you do not obey the law. For example, if you commit an offense you may be arrested, charged, convicted and jailed all against your will. Deterrence Some theorists, such as right realists, argue that fear of being caught and punished is what ensures that many would-be criminals continue to obey the law. In other words, fear acts as a deterrent. We shall look at punishment and deterrence in more detail in Topic 2.2. ## Control theory Most criminological theories ask why people commit crimes, but control theorists start from the opposite question: why do people obey the law? The answer given by control theorists such as Travis Hirschi is that people conform because they are controlled by their bonds to society, which keep them from deviating. Hirschi argues that 'delinquent acts occur when an individual's bond to society is weak or broken'. According to Hirschi, the individual's bond to society has four elements: 1. **Attachment** The more attached we are to others, the more we care about their opinion of us, the more we will respect their norms and the less likely we will be to break them. This is especially true of attachments to parents and teachers. 2. **Commitment** How committed are we to conventional goals such as succeeding in education and getting a good job? The more we are committed to a conventional lifestyle, the more we risk losing by getting involved in crime, so the more likely we are to conform. 3. **Involvement** The more involved we are in conventional, law-abiding activities, like studying or participating in sports, the less time and energy we will have for getting involved in criminal ones. This is part of the justification for youth clubs: they keep young people off the streets and busy with legal activities. 4. **Beliefs** If we have been socialized to believe it is right to obey the law, we are less likely to break it. ### Parenting Many control theorists emphasize the role of parenting in creating bonds that prevent young people from offending. For example, Gottfredson and Hirschi argued that low self-control is a major cause of delinquency, and that this results from poor socialization and inconsistent or absent parental discipline. Other control theorists put forward similar ideas. Riley and Shaw found that lack of parental supervision was an important factor in delinquency. They argue that parents should: * involve themselves in their teenagers' lives and spend time with them * take an interest in what they do at school and how they spend time with their friends * show strong disapproval of criminal behavior and explain the consequences of offending. Walter Reckless also points to the importance of parenting and socialization. We have psychological tendencies that can lead to criminality, but effective socialization can provide 'internal containment' by building the self-control to resist the temptation to offend. He also argues that external controls such as parental discipline can provide 'external containment'. Feminists have also used control theory to explain women's low rate of offending. Frances Heidensohn argues that patriarchal (male-dominated) society controls females more closely, making it harder for them to offend. For example, women spend more time on domestic duties, leaving them less opportunity to engage in criminality outside the home. Pat Carlen found that females who do offend had often failed to form an attachment to parents because they had suffered abuse in the family or been brought up in care. There is an image of a group of young people kayaking on a river. The caption reads:" Hobbies and sporting activities may help to keep young people out of crime."