Topic 5 - Social Control

Durkheim

• Takes a positive view of police and courts institutions

• As they punish individuals who fail to conform to norms and values of society which helps maintain a value consensus.

• Functionalists also see it as having a positive function, it reaffirms social boundaries.

The McPherson Report

• Murder of black teenager, Stephen Lawrence.

• Concluded that parts of the police were institutionally racist.

• Young black men are 9x more likely to be stopped and searched than white people are.

• This has resulted in the origins and developing of the BLM campaign.

Gordon

• Marxists also take critical view of police, army, criminal justice system etc as the law is not equally applied to all - specifically in terms of social class.

• “Selective law enforcement”

• Upper, middle class prosecutions are rare but working class prosecutions are frequent.

Goffman

• Found that those that spend long times in total institutions become institutionalised, mortified.

• Their sense of self is stripped away.

• Clothing, personal items removed, generic uniform and haircut.

• Shows how formal social control can have a dramatic impact on identity.

Right Realists

• Argue punishments should be stricter, criminals should be punished by being excluded from society.

• In the USA, policy of “3 strikes and you’re out” (retributive justice) - means after 3 convictions you receive an automatic life sentence.

• “Zero tolerance” - means police pick up on tiny crimes like littering and impose heavy penalties, persuades people to avoid crime.

• When this policy was introduced in New York, crime dropped significantly.

Murray and Hernstein

• Argue that some people are born with a predisposition to aggression which can lead to crime.

• They highlight that effective informal social control from the family can help.

• So that personal traits like impulsivity and lack of empathy are controlled or changed.

• This suggests how informal social control can be effective in preventing criminal behaviour.