2.1 Flashcards
1
Q
What is are internal forms of social control?
A
- control over our behaviour that come from within ourselves (personalities/values)
- forms of self control lead us to conform to rules of society and groups that we belong to because we feel inwardly that it is the right thing to do
2
Q
What are the three internal forms of social control
A
- Moral conscience or superego
- Tradition and culture
- Internalisation of social rules and morality
3
Q
Moral conscience or superego
A
- Freud psychoanalytic theory: we conform to society expectations and obey its rules because our superego tells us to do so along with id and the ego. Superego tells us what’s right and wrong and inflicts guilty feelings if we fail to do as it tells us
- superego develops through early socialisation like ‘internalised parent nagging’ forcing us to behave
- function of superego is to restrain selfish ‘animal’ urges of the ID
- if we act on id it would lead us to anti-social and criminal behaviour
- superego allows us to exercise self-control and behave in socially acceptable ways
4
Q
Tradition and culture
A
- culture we belong to is part of us through socialisation. We accept its values, norms and traditions as part of identify e.g., musk, fasting during Ramadan
- conforming to such traditions is an important way of affirming one’s identity and being accepted as a member of a particular community
5
Q
Internationalisation of social rules and morality
A
- both superego and traditions we follow become part of our inner self or personality
- socialisation: in both cases we internalise these rules through socialisation process either from parents or wider social groups and institutions such as school, religion, peer group - society rules and moral codes become our personal rules and moral code = conforming willingly to social norms
- Rational ideology - we internalise social rules and use the, to tell us right and wrong keeping obeying the law
6
Q
What are the four external forms of social control
A
- agencies of social control
- criminal justice system
- coercion
- fear of punishment
7
Q
Agencies of social control
A
- organisations or institutions that impose rules on us in an effort to make us behave in certain ways e.g., family, peer group and education system such as detention which is a negative sanction
- there can be positive sanctions to impose social controls e.g., token economy system in prisons to encourage good behaviour
- this echoes skinners operant learning theory of behaviour reinforcement - punishments deter undesired behaviour and rewards encourage acceptable behaviour
8
Q
The criminal justice system
A
- Contain several agencies of social control each with the power to use formal legal sanctions against individuals in an attempt to make them conform to society’s laws
Agencies and their powers:
*police: have powers to stop, search, arrest, detain and question suspects
*the cps: can charge a suspect and prosecute them in court
*judges and magistrates: have powers to bail the accused or remand them in custody and to sentence the guilty to a variety of punishments
*prison service: can detain prisoners against their will for the duration of their sentence, and punish prisoners misbehaviours e.g., placing them in solitary confinement
9
Q
Coercion
A
- use of threat to make someone do something (or stop doing) something
- force may involve physical and psychological violence, or other forms of pressure
- negative sanctions of cjs above are examples of coercion: sending someone to prison for stealing is a form of coercion aimed at preventing further offending (if only period for the period that the thief is in jail)
10
Q
Fear of punishment
A
- way to achieve social control and make people conform to the laws
- fear of punishment is a form of coercion because it involves the threat that force will be used against you if you do not obey the law e.g., committing an offence you get arrested
- deterrence: theorists e.g., realists argue that fear of being caught and punished is what ensures that many would be criminals continue to obey the law. Fear acts as a deterrent
11
Q
Control theory
A
- control theorists such as travis hirschi is that people conform to society because they are controlled by their bonds to society which keep them from deviating
- hirschi argues that ‘delinquent acts occur when an individual bond to society is weak or broken’
hirschi says that an individual bond to society has four elements:
*attachment: the more attached we are to others, the more we care about their opinion of us, the more we will respect their norms and the less likely we will be to break them. This is true of attachments to parents and teachers
*commitment: how committed are we to conventional goals such as succeeding in education and getting a good job. 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 e.g., studying/sports the less time and energy we will have for getting involved in criminal ones. This is part of the justification for youth clubs and keep young ppl off the streets - beliefs: if we have been socialised to believe it is right to obey the law we are less likely to break it
12
Q
Control theory: parenting, Walter reckless
A
Parenting:
- many control theorists emphasise role parent create bonds that prevent young people from offending e.g., hirschi argued that low self esteem is a major cause of delinquency and that this results from poor socialisation and inconsistent or absent parental discipline
Walter reckless
-points out importance of parenting and socialisation and everyone has psychological tendencies that can lead to criminality but effective socialisation can provide internal containment by unlocking self control to resist the temptation to offend he also argues that external controls such as parental discipline can provide external containment
