2.1

• Internal social control


  Controls over our behaviour that come from within ourselves – from our personalities and our values. Also known as self-control.
• External social control


  Control over people exacted by society and societal agents of social control
• 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. It develops through early socialisation within the family, as a sort of internalised "nagging parent" telling us how we ought to behave. Its function is to restrain the selfish animalistic urges of the id.
• Tradition and Culture

  The culture to which we belong also becomes a part of us through socialisation. We come to accept its norms, values and traditions as part of our identity.
• Internalisation of social rules and morality

  Our superego and the traditions we follow become part of our inner-self or personality. We internalise these rules through the process of socialisation from parents or wider social groups and institutions.
• Rational ideology


  Society's rules and moral codes become our own personal rules and moral codes, enabling us to willingly conform to social norms.
• Coercion


  The use of threat of force in order to make someone do (or stop doing) something.
• Fear of punishment


  This is one way of trying to achieve social control and make people conform to laws. It involves the threat of force being used against you if you do not obey the law.
• Control theory

  Criminological theory that asks why people obey the law, rather than why they commit crime. Suggests people conform because they are controlled by their bonds to society.
• Elements of individual's bond to society (Hirschi)

  • Attachment
  • Commitment
  • Involvement
  • Beliefs
• Attachment

  • The more attached we are to others, the more we will care about their opinion of us, the more we will respect their norms and the less likely we are to break them.
• Commitment


  • 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.
• Involvement

  • The more involved we are in conventional, law abiding activities, the less time and energy we will have for getting involved in criminal ones.
• Beliefs

  • If we have been socialised to believe that it is right to obey the law, we are less likely to break it.
• Low self-control


  • A major cause of delinquency, resulting from poor socialisation and inconsistent or absent parental discipline.
• Effective socialisation

  • Can provide "internal containment" by building self-control to resist the temptation to offend, and "external containment" through parental discipline.
• Feminism


  • Used to explain women's low rate of offending, as patriarchal society controls females more closely, making it harder for them to offend.