2.1- explain forms of social control

Question 1

What is social control?

Answer 1

For society to function smoothly, people need to behave more or less as others expect them to. Social control involves persuading or compelling people to conform to society’s norms, laws and expectations. This can be internally or externally.

Question 2

Internal forms of social control

Answer 2

These are controls over our behavior from within ourselves from our personalities or our values: self-control.

Question 3

Moral conscience or superego

Answer 3

Freuds psychoanalytic theory, we conform to society’s expectations and obey its rules because our superego tells us to do so. This forms part of our personality, tells us what is right or wrong. It develops in early socialization with the family. Its function is to restrain the selfish, ‘animal urges of the id. Acting on these are often anti-social and criminal behavour. Our superego allows us to behave in socially acceptable ways.

Question 4

Tradition and culture

Answer 4

We accept its values, norms and traditions as part of our identity. For example, believers follow religious traditions that they have been brought up in; such as the Muslim tradition of fasting during Ramadan. Conforming to these traditions is a way of being accepted within a community and affirming ones identity.

Question 5

Internalization of social rules and morality

Answer 5

Both our superego and tradition become our inner self but we learn them as things outside of us, through socialization of parents and wider social groups and institutions giving rules and moral codes which become our own.

Question 6

‘Rational Ideology’

Answer 6

A term that has been used to describe the fact we internalize social rules and use them to tell us what is right and wrong, this enables us to keep within law.

Question 7

External forms of control

Answer 7

Ensuring we conform to society’s expectations and keep to its rules, society does this through agencies of social control.

Question 8

Agencies of social control

Answer 8

These include the family, peer group and education system in which impose rules in an effort to make us behave. Negative sanction and positive sanctions push us to conform. This echoes Skinners operant learning theory of behavior reinforcement.

Question 9

The CJS

Answer 9

The CJS contains multiple agencies, each with the power to use formal legal sanctions against individuals in an attempt to make them to conform to society’s laws. These include the police, the cps, judges and magistrates and the prison service. Having negative and positive sanctions.

Question 10

Coercion

Answer 10

This involves the threat or force in order to make someone do something, this may be physical or psychological (or any other forms of pressure).

Question 11

Fear of punishment

Answer 11

It is a form of coercion, it involves the threat that force will be used against you, if you do not obey the law.

Question 12

Deterrence

Answer 12

(Right realist). Fear of being caught and punished is what ensures that many would-be criminals continue to obey the law, fear acts as a deterrent.

Question 13

Control theory

Answer 13

Control theoriests ask why dont people commit crime?

Question 14

Hirschi’s bonds of attachment

Answer 14

Attachment- the more attached we are to others, the more we care about their opinion of us, the more we respect their norms and wont break them. Commitment- being committed to a conventional lifestyle, we are more likely conform and at less risk of being involved in crime. Involvement- the more we are in conventional, law-abiding activities like studying and sport. Beliefs- being socialized to believe it is right to obey the law.

Question 15

Parenting

Answer 15

The role of parenting in creating bonds that prevent young people from offending is very important. Gottfredson and Hirschi argued that low self-control is a major cause of delinquency, this results from poor socialization and inconsistent or absent parental discipline. Riley and Shaw argue parents should involve themselves in teenagers lives and spend time with them, take an interest in school and friends and show strong disapproval of criminal behaviour.

Question 16

Walter Reckless

Answer 16

Points to importance of parents and socialization and that we have psychological tendencies that lead to criminality, but effective socialization leads to ‘internal containment’. Building self-control to resist temptation to offend. He also argues external controls like parental discipline can provide ‘external containment’.

Question 17

Feminists on social control

Answer 17

They have also used control theory to explain women’s low rate of offending. Heidensohn argues that patriarchal society controls females more closely , leaving them less opportunity to engage in criminality outside the home. Carlen found tat females who do offend had often failed to form an attachment to parents because they had suffered abuse in the family or been brought up in care.