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 forms part of our personality and tells us what is right and wrong, inflicting guilt feelings 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 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/social group
  • We internalise these rules through the process of socialisation from parents or wider social groups and institutions
• Rational ideology

  A term used to describe the fact that we internalise social rules and use them to tell us what is right and wrong, enabling us to keep within the law
• Coercion

  • The use of 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
• Fear of punishment

  • A way of trying to achieve social control and make people conform to laws
  • Involves 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 people conform because they are controlled by their bonds to society, which keep them from deviating
• Elements of an individual's bond to society (Hirschi)

  • Attachment
  • Commitment
  • Involvement
  • Beliefs
• Gottfredson and Hirschi

  • Argued that low self-control is a major cause of delinquency
  • This results from poor socialisation and inconsistent or absent parental discipline
• Riley and Shaw

  • Found that lack of parental supervision was an important factor in delinquency
  • Argue parents should involve themselves in their teenagers' lives, take an interest, and show strong disapproval of criminal behaviour
• Feminism

  • Used to explain women's low rate of offending
  • Patriarchal (male dominated) society 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
• Frances Heidensohn and Pat Carlen

  • Found that 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