AC2.1

• 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
• Internal social control


  • Moral Conscience or superego
  • Tradition and Culture
  • Internalisation of Social Rules
• Superego


  According to Freud's psychoanalytic theory, we conform to society's expectations and obey its rules because our ­superego tells us to. It tells us what is right and wrong and inflicts guilt feelings on us if we fail to do as it urges.
• Superego development


  1. Develops through early socialisation within the family, as a sort of internalised "nagging parent" telling us how we ought to behave

  2. Its function is to restrain the selfish animalistic urges of the id

  3. Allows us to exercise self-control and behave in socially acceptable ways
• 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
  • Conforming to such traditions is an important way of developing one's identity and being accepted as a member of a particular community
• Internalisation of social rules and morality

  • Our superego and the traditions we follow become part of our inner-self or personality
  • These start as things outside of us, either our parents' rules and values or those of our culture or social group
  • We internalise these rules through the process of socialisation [in upbringing]
• Internalisation


  • The process by which society's rules and moral codes become our own personal rules and moral codes
  • This enables us to willingly conform to social norms
• External forms of social control

  • Coercion
  • Fear of punishment
  • Agencies of social control
• Coercion


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


  A form of coercion, involving the threat of force being used against you if you do not obey the law
• Control theory


  • Asks why people obey the law, rather than why they commit crime
  • Suggests that people conform because they are controlled by their bonds to society, which keep them from deviating
• Elements of an individual's bond to society- Travis Hirschi

  • Attachment
  • Commitment
  • Involvement
  • Beliefs
• Attachment- Hirschis control theory


  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- Hirschis control theory


  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- Hirschis control theory


  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- Hirschis control theory


  If we have been socialised to believe that it is right to obey the law, we are less likely to break it
• Many control theorists emphasise the role of parenting in creating bonds that prevent young people from offending
• Theorists who argued that low self-control is a major cause of delinquency

  • Gottfredson and Hirschi
  • Riley and Shaw
  • Walter Reckless
• Low self-control


  Results from poor socialisation and inconsistent or absent parental discipline
• Lack of parental supervision was an important factor in delinquency
• Effective socialisation


  1. Can provide "internal containment" by building self-control to resist the temptation to offend

  2. External controls like parental discipline can provide "external containment"
• Feminism has been used to explain women's low rate of offending
• Patriarchal society- Heidensohn 


  • Controls females more closely, making it harder for them to offend
  • Women spend more time on domestic duties, leaving less opportunity to engage in criminal activity outside the home
• Pat Carlen - Females who offend had often not been able to form an attachment to parents because they had suffered abuse in the family or been brought up in care
• What is social control?

  Social control involves persuading or compelling people to conform to society's norms, laws and expectations.