Social Control

• Social Control


  Methods of ensuring people comply with society's rules and regulations.
• Formal Social Control 


  Institutions directly and explicitly control the behaviour of the populations. E.g. police, legal system, prisons.
• Functionalist views on prison


  Punishes a failure to conform to the norms and value of society. Maintains value consensus and reaffirms social boundaries through media coverage.
• McPherson Report 1999 - Murder of Stephen Lawrence

  • Parts of the police are 'institutionally racist' and failed to help ethnic minorities
  • Young black men are 6-9 times more likely to be stopped and searched
• Gordon

  • 'Selective law enforcement' - upper class commit crime but are not prosecuted
  • If they are then it benefits the upper-class as it maintains that the law is equal
  • When the working-class are prosecuted, they are deemed 'social failures' who are entirely responsible for their own actions.
• Goffman

  • Total institutions control all aspects of life and the individuals become institutionalised and unable to deal with the real world.
  • Some are mortified and stripped of their sense of self through clothing and being reduced to a number.
• Right Realist view on prison

  • The legal system should be stricter - long prison or death sentences that act as a deterrent and a punishment
  • Protects the rest of society by removing them
  • 3 strikes and you're out - retributive justice
• Murray and Herrnstein

  • People are born with a predisposition to anger, aggression, and impulsiveness, which can lead to crime and deviance.
  • Family can use informal social control to intervene and control these traits.
• Informal Social Control 


  More subtle, may not be done with the intention of control. Family, peers, etc.