social control 5

what does formal control mean

institutions directly and explicitly control the behaviour of the population

• police, law, legal system, courts, government, military

• education due to attendance and behaviour codes

• workplace

• religion

McPherson report 1999

followed the murder of Stephan Lawrence in 1993 concluded that parts of the police were institutionally racist.

• ‘the collective failure of an organisation to provide an approximate and professional service to people because of the colour, culture, or ethnic origin.

• black men are 9x more likely tone stopped and searched then whites

• demonstrates how police as formal social control may treat certain groups less equality than others

• BLM movement progressed over polices negligence to poc

what does functionalist Durkheim say about police and courts

• positive view as they punish people who fail to conform to norms and values and therefore helps to maintain a value consensus.

• crime is not good but the goodness that comes from it is that it reaffirms social boundaries

• the media coverage of someones crime reaffirms existing values and acts as a deterrent for others to not commit crime

• courts act as a reminder of whats wrong and right

gordon

marxist

selective law enfore=cement

1 - mc do commit crime but prosecutions are rare

wc prosecutions are frequent

• no one has yet been prosecuted for the grenfell tower fire despite it being proven that the cladding on the outside of the building did not get safety standards

the rare prosecution of the powerful are still in favour of the powerful as it perpetuates the idea that the law operates the same way for all

2 - when wc are prosecuted they are deemed as ‘social failures’ who are wholly responsible for their deviance.

eg: 2010 London riots the media focused on hedonism and disrespect of the rioters rather than the context for their behaviour (a black man mark Duggan had been shot by police despite being unarmed) and cuts to public services which led to communal outrage and frustration . around 1500 people got prosecuted.

marxist argue the finger should instead be pointed at the inherently unfair nature of capitalism which has lead many to commit crime out of necessity or rebellion, rather than just the working class.

goffman on military and government institutions

found that in total institutions all areas of life activities are regimented controlled

• people who spend a long time in total institutions become institutionalised and lose the ability to deal with the outside world

• in many total institutions people are mortified meaning their sense of self is stripped away and denied

• clothing and personal items are removed

• generic uniforms

• generic haircut

• a prison or solider number is intended to strip away what gives us our sense of identity

• ones own identity and ones own norms and values is slowly stripped away because of the lack of control over ones movement

• permission is needed to go to the toilet, shower

formal social control can have dramatic impacts on identity and those in total institutions

what are total institutions

prison

psychiatric hospitals

the army

right realists

punishment (legal system) should be stricter

• criminals should be incarcerated

• electronically tagged

the believe those who make bad choices should be removed from society to protect others

• long prison sentences act as a deterrent making it less rational to commit crime

• iUSA = retributive system = three strikes then your out

• ‘prison works’ as it deters many potential offers away from the crime while taking in as many persistent and serious offenders as possible out of circulation

• the retributive system has led to the quadrupling of the us prison pop since 1990

• right wing politicians often support the return of capital punishment as this would reduce prison pop and the cost of incarceration

murray and herrnstein

some people are born with a predisposition to aggression, argumentativeness, low temper, irrationality, impulsiveness which can all lead to a criminal and deviant behaviour if not intervened or socialised into correct behaviours

they suggest informal social control form the family can help

• personal traits like impulsiveness and lack of empathy are controlled/ or changed

• suggests how informal social control can be effective in preventing extreme behaviours like criminal activity

informal social control meaning & studies

subtler and happen all the time as ppl around us control our behaviour through positive sanctions an and negative sanctions

usually stems from primary and secondary socialisation

• oakley: manipulation, canalisation

• Walter: hypersexualisation

• hey: female cliques within mc and wc girls

formal social control studies

• Durkheim: reaffirms social boundaries, value consensus

• the McPherson report 1999 & case report 2023

• gordon: selective law enforcement

• goffman: total institutions: mortified(sense of self is stripped away)/ institutionalised (loosing ability to deal life on the outside)

• right realists: prison works/ punishment should be stricter/ retributive system/ incarceration/ right wing politicians & capital punishment

what do right realists also suggest

police should be stricter

in nye they used Xero tolerance which means even tiny crimes like littering were imposed with heavy penalties.

when introduced the crime in nye dropped significantly

however still have the larger prison pop so this doesn’t rly work