lec 1

• Social control


  The way society regulates individual and group behaviour to maintain order
• Criminal justice system


  • The most powerful institution of social control
• Forms of social control


  • Formal (institutions like education, health, media, religion)
  • Informal (friends, family, colleagues, peers, strangers)
• The state may clearly define what is acceptable or desirable behaviour but friends, colleagues etc may encourage different types of behaviour
• Most people respect and accept social norms (rules) and assume others will do the same
• If they don't, they face punishment through informal and/or informal sanctions
• Reasons why people follow rules/regulations


  • Moral commitment (belief the law/rule is fair and right)
  • Fear of consequences (formal punishment or social disapproval)
  • Habit (internalised controls)
• Stan Cohen's study of social control


  • Studied how the state in 'free' societies deploys social controls outside the criminal justice system
  • Observed new kinds of 'non-custodial' punishments that were used in addition to, rather than instead of, imprisonment
  • Saw new kinds of social control outside the prison associated with 'rehabilitation' (e.g. family therapy, counselling, social work, community crime prevention) as part of a 'dispersal' of social controls
  • These new controls are more invasive and intense, extending and intensifying the repressive power of the state
• Cohen's 'nets' of social control


  • Wider nets
  • Denser nets
  • New nets
  • Deeper nets
• Contemporary applications of social control

  • Expansion of penal system
  • ABC's and civil injunction orders to prevent nuisance
  • Electronic tagging
  • Parenting classes
  • The surveillance society – CCTV and DNA databases
• Beheading of the Duke of Northumberland

  1553
• Wormwood Scrubs


  Modern prison
• Forms of punishment


  • Cell time
  • Electronic tagging
  • Electric Chair: Kentucky. State Penitentiary
  • Public shaming
• Informal social control - alcohol consumption


  • Exploration of what constitutes 'responsible' consumption by women in Cardiff's night-time economy
  • Different expectations on type, quantity & frequency of consumption, and acceptable & desirable outcomes, for 3 groups (Professionals, Students & Locals)
• Binge drinking


  Consuming double the daily unit guidelines in one session (3-4 units for men, 2-3 units for women)
• Nearly a third (29%) of alcohol related deaths are a result of alcohol related accidents (16–34yrs), one in three (30%) sexual offences, one in three (33%) burglaries, and one in two (50%) street crimes
• Membership of particular social group culturally mediated type, quantity & frequency of alcohol consumed, and was linked to shared expectations of what is, and is not, acceptable and desirable – including how women dress, what they drink & what they do
• The ultimate social sanction is exclusion from the group
• Not all women 'behave' because they are told to and/or share the same norms and values
• Applying theory to the problem

  • Durkheim argued that in a functioning society there is a value consensus (a shared set of norms and values), even in a "society of saints" there would still be deviance
  • Foucault claimed that people obey the rules because they know they are being watched, and self-regulate their behaviour for fear of being seen as bad/wrong/failed
  • Marxist thinking might highlight the role of government and powerful businesses in encouraging high levels of alcohol consumption and being unwilling to take responsibility for the ways that capitalism exploits workers and does little-nothing to protect them