criminology essay on social control

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Annual Review of Criminology

Volume 3, 2020, review article, social control theory: the legacy of travis hirschi's causes of delinquency.

Barbara J. Costello 1 , and John H. Laub 2
View Affiliations Hide Affiliations Affiliations: 1 Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, Rhode Island 02881, USA; email: [email protected] 2 Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA; email: [email protected]
Vol. 3:21-41 (Volume publication date January 2020) https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-criminol-011419-041527
First published as a Review in Advance on September 03, 2019
Copyright © 2020 by Annual Reviews. All rights reserved

The publication of Travis Hirschi's Causes of Delinquency in 1969 was a watershed moment in criminology. There are many reasons for the work's lasting influence. Hirschi carefully examined the underlying assumptions of extant theories of crime in light of what was known about the individual-level correlates of offending. He then developed critical tests of hypotheses derived from social control theory and competing perspectives and empirically assessed them using original self-report delinquency data. Many of his key findings, such as the negative correlation between attachment to parents and delinquency, are now established facts that any explanation of crime must consider. Causes of Delinquency is still cited hundreds of times per year, and it continues to spark new research and theoretical development in the field. Perhaps the most lasting legacy is the volume of criticism it has attracted and fended off, leading to its enduring contribution to the study of crime and delinquency.

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Article Type: Review Article

Social Control Theory in Criminology Essay

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Control theories represent one of the sociological explanations for delinquent behavior. Travis Hirschi is a popular control theorist who presented a social control theory; Edward Ross, Walter Reckless, and Jackson Toby are other contributors to its development (Cullen, Agnew, & Wilcox, 2017; Alvarez, 2018). The main idea of the theory is that social bonds are the most significant factors that can prevent individuals from engaging in unlawful activities. To understand the main claims of Hirshi’s work, it is necessary to analyze the concept of social control in detail.

The main components of the theory are commitment, attachment, involvement, and belief (Smith, 2017). The first factor is related to an individual’s desire to achieve conventional, law-abiding goals and willingness to adhere to social expectations.

The theory claims that acceptance of social norms can prevent individuals from committing crimes. The study by Cretacci, Rivera, Gao, and Zheng (2018) supports this argument and shows that commitment can constrain delinquency. Involvement refers to people’s participation in activities related to their goals. Cretacci et al. (2018) report, however, that not all types of involvement can prevent a person from engaging in unlawful activities.

The attachment factor is associated with individuals’ bonds with their families, partners, and peers, which eliminates their desire to offend against the law. Cretacci et al. (2018) add that parental attachment may be the most influential. Finally, belief refers to a person’s attitude towards the rules of society. The more individuals agree with the fairness of existing norms, the less likely they are to commit a crime (Cretacci et al., 2018). It is possible to say that this factor exclusively cannot have a significant impact on a person; there should be a combination of several components. In summary, the social control theory presents a reliable explanation for delinquent behavior.

Alvarez, C. (2018). Testing social bond theory on Hispanic youth . Web.

Cretacci, M. A., Rivera, C., Gao, Y., & Zheng, L. (2018). Bonding to Bamboo: A social control explanation of Chinese crime. International Journal of Criminal Justice Sciences , 13 (1), 122.

Cullen, F. T., Agnew, R., & Wilcox, P. (2017). Criminological theory: Past to present: Essential readings (6th ed.). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Smith, M. (2017). Prison programming and recidivism as a method of social bond theory: A meta-analysis of research from 2000-2015. Web.

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Social control theory.

Social control theory assumes that people can see the advantages of crime and are capable of inventing and executing all sorts of criminal acts on the spot—without special motivation or prior training. It assumes that the impulse to commit crime is resisted because of the costs associated with such behavior. It assumes further that a primary cost of crime is the disapproval of the people about whom the potential offender cares. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

I. Introduction

Ii. attachment, iii. commitment, iv. involvement, vi. historical development, vii. similarities and differences between social control theories and other major theories of crime, viii. a critical issue, ix. theoretical and research extensions, x. policy implications.

The social control approach to understanding crime is one of the three major sociological perspectives in contemporary criminology. Control theorists believe that conformity to the rules of society is produced by socialization and maintained by ties to people and institutions— to family members, friends, schools, and jobs. Put briefly, crime and delinquency result when the individual’s bond to society is weak or broken. As social bonds increase in strength, the costs of crime to the individual increase as well.

The first task of the control theorist is to identify the important elements of the bond to society. The second task is to say what is meant by society—to locate the persons and institutions important in the control of delinquent and criminal behavior. The following list of elements of the bond— attachment, commitment, involvement, and belief—has proved useful in explaining the logic of the theory and in summarizing relevant research. It has also provided guidelines for evaluation of delinquency prevention programs.

Social control theory assumes that people can see the advantages of crime and are capable of inventing and executing all sorts of criminal acts on the spot—without special motivation or prior training. It assumes that the impulse to commit crime is resisted because of the costs associated with such behavior. It assumes further that a primary cost of crime is the disapproval of the people about whom the potential offender cares. To the extent that the potential offender cares about no one, he or she is free to commit the crime in question. Sociologists often explain conformity as the result of such sensitivity. Psychologists as often explain deviation as the result of insensitivity to the concerns of others. Together, they tell us that sensitivity is a continuum and that some people have more than others and some have less than others. This is the position adopted by control theorists. They focus on the extent to which people are sensitive to the opinion of others and predict that this variable will predict rates of crime and delinquency.

Sensitivity suggests feeling or emotion, and this element of the social bond indeed attempts to capture the emotions (or lack thereof) involved in conformity and deviance. The words are many: affection, love, concern, care, and respect, to name only some. Social control theorists use attachment as an abstract summary of these concepts.

The evidence is clear that family attachments are strongly correlated with (non)delinquency. In their famous book Unraveling Juvenile Delinquency, Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck (1950) indicated that, according to their research, affection of the father and the mother for the child were two of the best five predictors of delinquency. They found, too, that in the other direction, the emotional ties of the child to the parent tended to be weaker among delinquents. From this, we may conclude that family attachments play a role in the socialization of the child as well as in maintaining his or her subsequent conformity to the rules of society. Researchers have reported that family attachments may account for the apparent effects of other variables. For example, the item “Do your parents know where you are (and what you are doing) when you are away from home?” has been often found to predict levels of self-reported delinquency. These correlations are of course taken as evidence of the importance of parental supervision. They are better seen as evidence of the importance of communication between parent and child. Scandinavian scholars have shown that parents know where their children are to the extent that their children inform them of their whereabouts. In other words, well-supervised children are those who supervise themselves, those who in effect take their parents with them wherever they happen to go.

Attachment to school is also a well-established predictor of delinquency. Students who report liking school and caring about the opinion of teachers are far less likely to be delinquent regardless of how delinquency is measured. Indeed, it is practically a truism that “delinquents don’t like school.” The general principle would seem to be that withdrawal of favorable sentiments toward controlling institutions neutralizes their moral force. Rebels and revolutionaries may dispute this principle, but that says nothing about the element of truth it contains (and they prove it by their actions).

Everyone seems to understand the paraphrased song lyric that freedom is another way of saying that one has nothing left to lose. Control theory captures this idea in the concept of commitment, the idea that conforming behavior protects and preserves capital, whereas crime and delinquency put it at risk. The potential delinquent calculates the costs and benefits of crime. The more he or she has to lose, the greater the potential costs of the crime and the less likely it is to be committed. What does one lose or risk losing from crime? The short answer is life, liberty, and property. The long answer, attachments aside, is that it depends on one’s assets and prospects, on one’s accomplishments and aspirations.

For young people in American society, the main arena for the display of accomplishment or achievement is the school. Athletics aside, and however diverse the curriculum, the currency of this realm is academic achievement. Also, truancy aside, of the available measures of school-related activities, grade point average appears to be the best predictor of delinquency. Good students are likely to aspire to further education and are unlikely to commit delinquent acts or to get into difficulties with the police. Grade point average accounts for the correlation between IQ test scores and delinquency. Put another way, IQ affects delinquency through its effect of grades. It has no direct effect on delinquency. This means that the ancient idea that, other things equal, intelligent people are better able to appreciate the consequences of their acts is not supported by the data; instead, the data suggest that the correspondence between achievement and prospects on one side and delinquency on the other is just what one would expect from rational actors, whatever their level of intelligence.

In television courtrooms, one task of the prosecutor is to establish that the defendant had the opportunity to commit the crime of which he or she is accused. Crimes are events that take place at a given point in time. Conditions necessary for their accomplishment may or may not be present. Control theorists, like most other theorists, have seized on this fact and tried to incorporate the notion of opportunity into their explanation of crime. They do so through the concept of involvement, which is short for “involvement in conventional activities.” The idea is that people doing conventional things—working, playing games, watching sporting events or television, doing homework, engaging in hobbies, or talking to parents—are to that extent unable to commit delinquent acts, whatever their delinquent tendencies may be.

Despite its firm place in the common sense of criminology, the idea of involvement/limited opportunity has not fared well when put to the test. More than one researcher has found that adolescents with jobs are more rather than less likely to be delinquent. Also, counts of the hours of the day the adolescent is doing an activity that is inconsistent with delinquent acts have proved disappointing.

There are two problems with the concept of involvement. First, it is based on a misconception of the nature of crime. Most criminal acts, perhaps especially those available to adolescents, require only seconds or minutes for their completion—the pull of the trigger, a swing of the fist, a barked command, a jimmied door, a grab from a rack or showcase. This fact allows the commission of large numbers of criminal acts by a single offender in a short period of time. (It also makes ridiculous attempts to estimate the average number of offenses committed by individual offenders in an extended period of time.) Because opportunities for crimes are ubiquitous, the hope of preventing them by otherwise occupying the potential offender has proved vain.

A second problem with this concept is that it neglects the fact that opportunities for crime reside to a large extent in the eye of the beholder. Objective conditions matter, but so do the perceptions of actors. Control theory claims that people differ in the strength of their bonds to society. It therefore predicts that people who are strongly bonded are less likely to engage in activities that provide opportunities for delinquency and are less likely to see them should they arise.

The role of beliefs in the causation of delinquency is a matter of considerable dispute. Some social scientists argue that they are of central importance. Others ignore them, suggesting that they are nothing more than words that reflect (and justify) past behavior but are in no way responsible for it. Control theory rejects the view that beliefs are positive causes of delinquency, that offenders are somehow living up to their beliefs when they commit delinquent acts. Control theory is, however, compatible with the view that some beliefs prevent delinquency while others allow it.

Perhaps the principal benefit of the study of beliefs is that they help us understand how the other bonds work to prevent delinquency. For example, responses to the statement “People who break the law are almost always caught and punished” are related to delinquency in the expected direction. Individuals who disagree are more likely to report delinquent acts. What can be said about the factual accuracy of this belief? Do delinquents know the truth while non-delinquents have been systematically misinformed? The answer appears to be that both delinquents and non-delinquents are correct, at least from their point of view. In the short term, “getting away with it” may well be the rule. In the long term, offenders are typically caught and, in various ways, punished. A short-term orientation reflects a lack of commitment and is therefore conducive to delinquency. A long-term orientation is indicative of commitment and prevents delinquency. All of this teaches two lessons: (1) Manipulating beliefs without changing the reality on which they are based is unlikely to reduce the level of delinquency, and (2) changing actual levels of law enforcement efficiency is unlikely to change the beliefs that allow and disallow criminal conduct.

The intellectual underpinnings of social control theory may be seen in the 17th-century work of Thomas Hobbes. In his famous book Leviathan Hobbes described a set of basic assumptions about human nature and the origins of civil society. Hobbes believed that humans naturally seek personal advantage without regard for the rights or concerns of others. In the absence of external restraints, in a state of nature, crime is a rational choice, a “war of all against all” naturally follows, and the life of everyone is “nasty, poor, brutish, and short.” Fortunately, in Hobbes’s view, a second choice presents itself to individuals capable of calculating the costs and benefits of their actions. They can continue in a state of war, or they can establish a system of laws and a government empowered to punish those who resort to force and fraud in pursuit of their private interests. Given the choice between war and peace, rational people choose to submit to government authority in return for the safety of their persons and property.

Hobbes’s theory of crime is a choice theory. People consider the costs and benefits of crime and act accordingly. The important costs of crime are those exacted by the state—which has the power to deprive citizens of life, liberty, and property. The content of the criminal law is not problematic. There is consensus that the use of force and fraud for private purposes is illegitimate. Crime is real. It is a not a matter of definition; it is not a social construction that may vary from time to time and place to place.

As we have seen, social control theory accepts choice and consensus. People are not forced by unusual needs or desires to commit criminal acts. Belief in the validity of the core of the criminal law is shared by everyone. Control theory nevertheless rejects Hobbes’s view (which is still a popular view among economists and political scientists) that the important costs of crime are the penalties imposed by the state. It can reject this view because of the assumption (and fact) of consensus. Everyone agrees that theft, robbery, and murder are crimes. As a result, victims and witnesses report offenses to interested parties, and their perpetrators embarrass and shame those who know them. Shame and the penalties that follow from it are, according to social control theory, major costs of crime.

Hobbes’s view of human nature does not imply that people are inherently criminal or that they prefer crime; it suggests only that self-interest underlies whatever they do. They harm others because it gives them pleasure or advantage. They steal because stealing provides goods or money. They hit or threaten to hit others because such acts may bring status, a feeling of justice, or control of their behavior. They do good things for self-interested reasons as well. They are trustworthy and helpful because being so brings such rewards as trust and gratitude. From the point of view of their motives, there is thus no difference between offenders and non-offenders, between criminal and noncriminal acts; all reflect the same basic desires. Thus, working from the Hobbesian view of human nature, social control theories do not ask why people commit criminal acts. They ask instead why, given the plentiful opportunities for criminal acts and their obvious benefits, people do not commit more of them.

Sociology is the dominant discipline in the study of crime. Sociologists reject Hobbes’s perspective. They see human behavior as caused rather than chosen. They tend to reject the idea of consensus, preferring the idea of cultural diversity or even culture conflict. Nevertheless, in the early years of the 20th century, sociologists in the United States often talked about social disorganization, the breakdown of society they saw occurring in immigrant communities and the slums of large cities. The high rates of crime and delinquency in these areas were seen as symptoms of this breakdown. In disorganized areas, unemployment is high and families, schools, and neighborhoods are too weak to control the behavior of their residents. The theory of crime implicit in the concept of social disorganization is a variety of social control theory. In the absence of the usual social restraints imposed by jobs, families, schools, churches, and neighborhoods, delinquency flourishes. In other words, delinquency is natural, as Hobbes suggested and, worse— but contrary to Hobbes—the penalties of the criminal justice system are insufficient to contain it.

By the middle of the 20th century, the concept of social disorganization was no longer fashionable. Sociological theories had come to focus primarily on the impact of social class and culture on law-violating behavior. Lower-class adolescents were said to be forced into delinquency in their efforts to realize the American Dream or they were socialized into a lower-class culture that justifies or requires delinquent behavior. As an explanatory factor, the family had fallen from favor and the school was rarely mentioned except as an important source of strain and subsequent malicious delinquency among lower-class boys.

Sociology, however, is more than a theoretical perspective that is brought to bear in efforts to explain criminal and delinquent behavior. It is also a research discipline that attempts to locate the causes and correlates of such behavior. While sociological theories of delinquency were painting one picture of delinquency, research was painting a very different picture, and sociological researchers were forced to use or invent a sociologically incorrect language to describe it.

By the mid-20th century, hundreds of studies of delinquency had been published, and the number was growing at an ever-increasing rate. With respect to its findings, perhaps the most important was the work of a Harvard University couple, Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck. Their book Unraveling Juvenile Delinquency (1950), discussed earlier in this research paper, is unrivaled in the scope and complexity of its results. The Gluecks compared 500 delinquent boys with 500 non-delinquent boys on a large number of carefully measured variables: family structure and relations, school attitudes and performance, physical and mental characteristics, and attitudes and behavior. The Gluecks reported that the five best predictors of delinquency were “family” variables: (1) discipline of the boy by his father, (2) supervision of the boy by his mother, (3) affection of the father (and [4], separately, the mother) for the boy, and (5) cohesiveness of the family.

The Gluecks’s research was said to be atheoretical, and they did not advertise themselves as theorists, but there could be no doubt that their findings supported social control theory. There also could be no doubt that their characterization of their findings reflected acceptance of a control theory perspective—and rejection of then-popular sociological theories. (For example, whereas popular sociological theories assumed that delinquents tend to be eager to succeed in school, the Gluecks reported that truancy and “lack of interest in school work” were from an early age one of their defining characteristics.) In one fell swoop, then, the Gluecks put control theory back on the table.

The Gluecks were not alone; other researchers were reporting results consistent with control theory and using the language of the theory to interpret them. Albert Reiss resurrected the distinction found in the social disorganization literature between personal and social controls. Walter Reckless and colleagues advanced a containment theory of delinquency that was said to account for the behavior of “good” as well as “bad” boys. Jackson Toby introduced the idea of stakes in conformity—the costs of delinquency to people with good reputations and bright prospects—as an important factor in the control of delinquent behavior.

During the same mid-20th century period, social control theory benefited from introduction of an innovative technique of research, what came to be known as the self-report method. Prior to the invention of this method, researchers had been forced to rely on official measures of delinquency, basically police and court records. The new method allowed them to ask juveniles about their delinquent activities regardless of whether they had official records. It allowed researchers at the same time to ask young people about their relationships with parents, their attitudes toward school, and much else of interest to those wishing to explain delinquent behavior. Indeed, this research technique put the explanation of delinquency in a new light. For example, whereas the Gluecks stressed the affection of the parent for the child, it now became apparent—because it could be measured—that the affection of the child for the parent should be equally, if not more, important.

Relying on the terms and assumptions of the social disorganization perspective, F. Ivan Nye (1958) undertook the first major self-report study of delinquency, distinguishing between internal control and direct and indirect forms of social control. Nye’s particular focus was on the family. He showed how parents limit access of their children to opportunities for delinquency (an example of a direct control) and how adolescents refrain from delinquency out of concern that their parents might disapprove of such actions (an indirect control). He illustrated internal control with the concept of conscience, which acts to prevent one from committing acts that are harmful to others.

The various strands of thought and research on social control were brought together in Travis Hirschi’s Causes of Delinquency, published in 1969. This book reports in a study of a large sample of junior and senior high school students using self-report and official measures of delinquency. The theory guiding the study, as well as some of the study’s findings, are summarized at the beginning of this research paper. Hirschi’s study was a small part of a larger study based on ideas compatible with alternative theories of delinquency. Hirschi was therefore able to compare and contrast the predictions of social control theory with those stemming from its major competitors. These comparisons and contrasts have proved useful in providing structure to subsequent research.

As we have seen, the underlying assumptions of social control theory are in many respects similar to those of classical theories of crime, theories that have come down to us under such names as deterrence theory and rational choice theory. The differences among them are often differences in emphasis. Deterrence theory claims that the key to crime control is found in the swiftness, severity, and certainty of the punishments administered by the legal system. Rational choice theory focuses on the costs and benefits of crime. Control theorists accept the importance of punishment, but they ignore the punishments of the legal system and thereby question their role in the control of crime. They do the same with benefits of crime—that is, they ignore them on the grounds that the benefits of crime are the same as the benefits of non-crime.

The assumptions of control theories contrast sharply with those of other sociological explanations of crime. Cultural deviance or social learning theories assume that there is no natural capacity for crime. In their view, all human action, whether crime or conformity, is the product of a combination of socializing influences. Peers exert influence on the individual, as does the family and, more broadly, the prevailing culture. Where the sum total of influences directs the individual in particular instances to engage in crime, then that person will do so. Where these influences are absent, crime cannot occur. The offender is thus a conformist, albeit not to the rules of the dominant society.

Strain theories (sometimes called anomie theories) assume that an individual is naturally inclined to conform to standard cultural values but can be pushed into crime when the social structure fails to provide legitimate opportunities to succeed. These theorists emphasize the influence of the American Dream, which produces aspirations and desires that often (all too often, scholars say) cannot be satisfied within the limits of the law. These sociological perspectives have proved popular and adaptable. They continue to provide a foundation for critiques of social control theory.

One question that social control theory has faced from its inception relates to the role of delinquent peers. Walter Reckless (1961), a prominent theorist whose work is usually associated with control theory, concluded from the Gluecks’s (1950) data that “companionship is unquestionably the most telling force in male delinquency and crime” (p. 10). If this conclusion were allowed to stand unquestioned, whatever debate there might be between social control theory and social learning theory would be settled in favor of the latter. From the beginning, control theorists have questioned the meaning of the admittedly strong correlation between one’s own delinquency and the delinquency of one’s friends. Their major counterhypothesis was that advanced by the Gluecks, who interpreted their own data as showing that birds of a feather flock together, so to speak. In control theory terms, this argument is that weak bonds to society lead to association with delinquents and to delinquent behavior. Companionship and delinquency thus have a common cause. The limits of this argument were readily apparent. The correlation between companionship and delinquency was so strong that no combination of its supposed causes could possibly account for it. Social learning theorists naturally saw this as evidence against social control theory and in favor of their own theory. A compromise solution was to integrate the two theories, the idea being that lack of social control frees the adolescent to be taught crime and delinquency by his or her peers.

Hirschi resisted this compromise, observing that the two theories, if combined, would contain fatal internal contradictions. Social control theories assume that crime is natural. Social learning theories assume crime must be learned. The two assumptions cannot peacefully coexist, because one assumption must necessarily negate the other. Yet the delinquent-peer effect would not go away. Its presence forced social control theorists to confront a fact seemingly in contradiction to the theory’s internal logic. Attempts were then made to explain the role of delinquent peers without violating the assumptions of control theory. Perhaps peers do not teach delinquency, but they make it easier or less risky, thus increasing the temptation to crime by lowering its costs. Assaults and robberies and burglaries are, after all, facilitated by the support of others, just as they are facilitated by muscles and guns and agility.

Another tack was to question the validity of the measures of peer delinquency. If the data collection methods were faulty, then the seemingly strong evidence supporting the delinquent peers–delinquency correlation could also be faulty. Most studies of the delinquency of peers ask the respondents to describe their friends. The results, some researchers argued, could reflect the phenomenon of projection, whereby study respondents, apparently describing their friends, are in fact describing themselves. Dana Haynie and Wayne Osgood (2005) tested this hypothesis. They reported that standard data do contain a good quantity of projection. Using measures of delinquency collected directly from the peers in question, they found that what was once the strongest known predictor of crime turned out to have only a modest effect, an effect that could be accounted for by alternative theories of crime. This story teaches several lessons. Persistent attention to a theoretical problem may produce unexpected results. The facts that are at the root of the problem may themselves fail to survive, and the end results of criticisms of a criminological theory do not necessarily take the form imagined by its critics.

In its social disorganization form, social control theory was what is now called a life course theory. The idea was straightforward: Individuals are controlled by ties to the significant people and institutions in their lives. As they move through the various stages of life, these people and institutions automatically change. Their significance and the strength of the individual’s ties to them may change as well. The favorite example was the transition from the family of orientation, with parents and siblings, to the family of procreation, with a spouse and children. In principle, the transition from one family to the other could be a period of deregulation, of relative freedom from social bonds and a consequent high rate of delinquency. In principle, successful completion of this transition was problematic. The adolescent could end up securely wrapped in the arms of job, church, community, and family, or he or she could end up in a stage of protracted adolescence, with weak and fleeting ties to the central institutions of adulthood. Adolescent delinquents could easily end up as law-abiding adults, and adolescent conformists could easily end up as late-starting adult offenders.

The social control theory described was based on data collected at one point in time. It could not therefore deal directly with questions of change and transition. It was designed, however, with the change and transition problem firmly in mind. If the connection between juvenile delinquency and adult crime depended on events that could not be foreseen, this posed no problem for the theory. It assumed that strong bonds could weaken, or break, that the people and institutions to which one was tied could change their character or cease to exist. It assumed, too, that weak bonds could strengthen, that they could be established where none previously existed. Social control theory was thus seen as the only major theory capable of dealing with variation in levels of crime and delinquency over the life course.

Readily available data suggested, however, that the facts were not so complicated. The data suggested that differences in levels of delinquency were relatively constant across individuals, that the form of the age distribution of crime was the same from one group to another. As a result, in 1983, Hirschi and his colleague Michael Gottfredson explicitly rejected the life course perspective on crime, declaring that criminality, once established in late childhood, stabilized and did not change. Put another way, they said that if a researcher ranks children on their propensity to commit criminal acts at age 8, he or she will find the same rank order when the children are 15 and any age thereafter. They concluded that no criminological theory, including social control theory, could explain the relation between age and crime.

Shortly thereafter, Robert Sampson and John Laub came into possession of the data originally collected by Sheldon and Eleanor Gluecks in the famous study described earlier. After reworking and supplementing these data, they were able to follow the Gluecks’s (1950) participants into adulthood and, by so doing, restate and test the life course (or longitudinal) version of social control theory, which they called a theory of informal social control. Analyses reported in their book Crime in the Making (1993) confirm the Gluecks’s findings about the correlates of delinquency and move on to a focus on stability and change in levels of delinquency during adulthood. Their analyses (and subsequent analyses based on even more extensive data) confirm the importance for delinquency involvement of such adult social bonds as income, marriage, attachment to spouse, job stability, and commitment. It should be mentioned that their analyses of full-life histories reveal a substantial decline in crime with age that their bond measures cannot explain.

Current crime control policy in the United States emphasizes the value of incarceration on the one side and treatment or rehabilitation on the other. Increased rates of incarceration have been encouraged by renewed academic interest in so-called “career criminals” and by the view that crime control requires swift, certain, and severe punishment by agents of the criminal justice system. The emphasis on punishment is encouraged by politicians, the media, an influential segment of academic criminology, and of course by law enforcement officials themselves. The crime problem is a blessing to all of them, and they do not fail to take advantage of it.

Increased levels of concern and punishment automatically produce greater numbers of potential offenders, probationers, inmates, and parolees—all of whom are thought to benefit from exposure to modern treatment and rehabilitation programs. The emphasis on treatment is encouraged by the belief that it provides a humane alternative to punishment. It is also encouraged by renewed faith in its effectiveness in reducing subsequent involvement in criminal and delinquent behavior. Where it was recently believed that treatment does not work, the question of effectiveness is now answered in advance by advocacy of evidence-based programs. An emphasis on treatment is a blessing for psychologists, social workers, and social service agencies.

Support for neither of these general policies is found in social control theory. Consistent with the theory, potential offenders are not influenced by the threat of legal penalties, and their behavior is not altered by changing the certainty or severity of such penalties. Consistent with the theory, the behavior of people exposed to the criminal justice system is not affected by such exposure. The level of punishment (e.g., the length of sentence) imposed by the system does not affect the likelihood that its wards will be seen again. Put another way, the criminal justice system receives people after they have committed offenses, but it has little or no influence on their prior or subsequent behavior.

Incarceration is sometimes justified on the grounds that it reduces the crime rate by incapacitating offenders. Even if punishment and treatment do not work, the argument goes, people in prison are not committing countable crimes while they are there, though a derivation of this argument from any version of control theory is not supportable.

The idea that crime can be prevented by treating or rehabilitating offenders is contrary to the assumptions of control theory. The theory sees crime as a choice that does not reflect illness or defective judgment but the social circumstances of the actor and the logic of the situation. The renewed enthusiasm for treatment is also not justified by research. As often as not, it seems, the difference between the treatment and control groups is disappointing, or even in the wrong direction. Given the investment in various treatment strategies and the felt need to counterbalance punitive policies, the return of a skeptical view of treatment in the near future is unlikely, but better evidence that treatment works will be required to make it a serious challenge to the control theory perspective.

Crime control strategies that go by such names as situational crime prevention, the routine activity approach, and environmental design are perfectly compatible with control theory. All assume that crimes may be prevented by focusing on the conditions necessary for their occurrence—by reducing their benefits, by making them more hazardous or difficult. Unlike control theory, these approaches focus on one type of crime at a time—burglary, robbery, assault—but they, too, see the potential offender as acting out of choice rather than compulsion. A choosing offender may attack a lone individual but will not consider attacking a member of a group; a choosing offender may enter an unlocked door but refrain from breaking down a door that is securely locked. The beauty of these approaches is that, to the extent they are successful, they eliminate criminals by eliminating crime. Situational crime prevention theorists like to say that “opportunity makes the thief,” but a more direct statement of their position would be that “theft makes the thief.”

Social control theories typically do not provide specific positive guidance about crime control policy. Those who attack their policy implications tend to focus on the odious implications of “control,” suggesting that control theorists favor selective incapacitation and value thoughtless conformity over individual freedom. It may be partly for this reason that control theorists are reluctant to play the policy game, but it may be that the policy implications of control theory are too obvious to bear repeating. If weakened social bonds are the reason crime flourishes, the straightforward way to reduce the crime problem would be to help individuals intensify their relationships with society. How is this to be accomplished? Control theory cannot provide particularly good answers to this question anymore than strain theory can offer unusual insight about how to improve economic conditions among the poor. We do know that stakes in conformity cannot be imposed from without, that society cannot force friends on the friendless. But we know, too, that some conditions are more conducive than others to the creation and maintenance of the natural bonds that make people consider the consequences of their acts for the lives and well-being of others. With such conditions in place, the theory claims, the need for crime control policies is greatly reduced.

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Social Control

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Megan C. Kurlychek 5

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Social bond

Social control refers to the mechanisms through which a society is able to regulate and direct the behaviors of its members. These mechanisms take many shapes and sizes and are often classified by type and/or level. For example, social control is often divided into two types: informal and formal. Informal sanctions encompass such things as not engaging in an action so as not to disappoint one’s parents or because one believes the act to be wrong. Formal social controls involve more direct action against a person such as suspension from school or arrest and incarceration in the criminal justice system. These mechanisms also traverse various levels or domains of control ranging from the private to the public realm. The private level refers to those modes of control that are the most intimate or close to the person such as the control exhibited by family and friends and is the level most likely to contain informal measures. The next level, often referred to...

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Megan C. Kurlychek

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Gerben Bruinsma

VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Department of Criminology, Law and Society, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA

David Weisburd

Faculty of Law, The Hebrew University, Mt. Scopus, Jerusalem, Israel

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Kurlychek, M.C. (2014). Social Control. In: Bruinsma, G., Weisburd, D. (eds) Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5690-2_360

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7.2A: Social Control Theory

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Social control theory argues that relationships, commitments, values, and beliefs encourage conformity.

Learning Objectives

Differentiate between methods of social control
Internal means of control, such as an individual’s own sense of right and wrong, decrease the likelihood that one will deviate from social norms.
Through external means of control, individuals conform because an authority figure threatens sanctions if the individual disobeys.
Jackson Toby argued that individuals engaged in non-delinquent community activities felt as thought they had too much to lose by joining delinquent groups and, hence, had a “stake in conformity “.
F. Ivan Nye argued that youth may be directly controlled through constraints imposed by parents, through limits on the opportunity for delinquency, and through parental rewards and punishments.
Michel Foucault argues that the eighteenth century introduced a new form of power: discipline. Discipline is a power relation in which the subject is complicit. This is contrasted with the previous strategy of regulating bodies but not seeking complicity.
Socialization refers to the lifelong process of inheriting, interpreting, and disseminating norms, customs, and ideologies.
socialization : The process of learning one’s culture and how to live within it.
Social Control Theory : Social control theory proposes that people’s relationships, commitments, values, norms, and beliefs encourage them not to break the law. Thus, if moral codes are internalized and individuals are tied into, and have a stake in their wider community, they will voluntarily limit their propensity to commit deviant acts.
Discipline and Punish : Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison is a 1975 book by the French philosopher Michel Foucault.

Social control theory describes internal means of social control. It argues that relationships, commitments, values, and beliefs encourage conformity—if moral codes are internalized and individuals are tied into broader communities, individuals will voluntarily limit deviant acts. This interpretation suggests the power of internal means of control, such as one’s own conscious, ego, and sensibilities about right and wrong, are powerful in mitigating the likelihood that one will deviate from social norms. This stands in contrast to external means of control, in which individuals conform because an authority figure (such as the state ) threatens sanctions should the individual disobey.

Social control theory seeks to understand how to reduce deviance. Ultimately, social control theory is Hobbesian; it presupposes that all choices are constrained by social relations and contracts between parties. Like Hobbes, adherents to social control theory suggest that morality is created within a social order by assigning costs and consequences to certain actions that are marked as evil, wrong, illegal, or deviant.

Jackson Toby

An internal understanding of means of control became articulated in sociological theory in the mid-twentieth century. In 1957, Jackson Toby published an article entitled “Social Disorganization and Stake in Conformity: Complementary Factors in the Predatory Behavior of Hoodlums,” which discussed why adolescents were inclined or disinclined to engage in delinquent activities. Toby argued that individuals engaged in non-delinquent community activities felt as thought they had too much to lose by joining delinquent groups and, hence, had a “stake in conformity.” The notion of an individual being shaped by his ties to his community, of having a “stake in conformity,” laid the groundwork for the idea of internalized norms that act as a method of social control.

F. Ivan Nye

Toby’s study was followed in 1958 by F. Ivan Nye’s book Family Relationships and Delinquent Behavior . Nye carried on the tradition of studying juvenile delinquency as a means of theorizing about deviance and social control. Nye conducted formal interviews of 780 young people in Washington State, though his sample was criticized for not including individuals from urban backgrounds and for only selecting individuals who were likely to describe their families unfavorably. Nye focused on the family unit as a source of control and specified three types of control: (1) direct control, or the use of punishments and rewards to incentivize particular behaviors; (2) indirect control, or the affectionate identification with individuals who adhere to social norms; and (3) internal control, or the manipulation of an individual’s conscience or sense of guilt to encourage conformity.

Youth may be directly controlled through constraints imposed by parents, through limits on the opportunity for delinquency, or through parental rewards and punishments. However, youth may be constrained when free from direct control by their anticipation of parental disapproval (indirect control), or through the development of a conscience, an internal constraint on behavior.

Michel Foucault

How do individuals develop a particular conscience that promotes social adherence? This is the question taken up by social theorist Michel Foucault in his 1975 seminal text, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison . Foucault argues that the eighteenth century introduced a new form of power: discipline. Prior to this period, government achieved social control by the mere regulation of bodies. Deviants were controlled by the threat and frequent use of the death penalty or indefinite incarceration.

Discipline, however, is a power relation in which the subject is complicit. Rather than the state only regulating bodies, the state began to achieve social control by molding the minds of its subjects such that individuals were educated to conform even when out of the direct gaze of the punishing authority. The training of subjects’ minds occurs broadly in society via socialization, or the lifelong process of inheriting, interpreting, and disseminating norms, customs, and ideologies. Simply by living within a particular cultural context, one learns and internalizes the norms of society.

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Modern Control Theory and the Limits of Criminal Justice

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6 Self Control, Social Control, Morality, and Opportunity in a Choice Theory of Crime

Published: October 2019
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Control theory is consistent with the notion of situational crime prevention and many of the ideas that support it. This chapter discusses several contemporary issues in control theory, including the connection between self-control theory and social control theory, the connection between morality and crime, and the role and conception of the opportunity or situational factors in a choice theory of crime causation. It is concluded that self and social control are the same theory operating under common logic, assumptions, and terms. Efforts to show them as competing are misguided. How situational causes are integrated into control theory and the connections among belief, morality, and self control are explored.

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7.1 Social Control and the Relativity of Deviance

Learning objectives.

Define deviance, crime, and social control.
Understand why Émile Durkheim said deviance is normal.
Understand what is meant by the relativity of deviance.

Deviance is behavior that violates social norms and arouses negative social reactions. Some behavior is considered so harmful that governments enact written laws that ban the behavior. Crime is behavior that violates these laws and is certainly an important type of deviance that concerns many Americans.

The fact that both deviance and crime arouse negative social reactions reminds us that every society needs to ensure that its members generally obey social norms in their daily interaction. Social control refers to ways in which a society tries to prevent and sanction behavior that violates norms. Just as a society like the United States has informal and formal norms (see Chapter 2 “Eye on Society: Doing Sociological Research” ), so does it have informal and formal social control. Generally, informal social control is used to control behavior that violates informal norms, and formal social control is used to control behavior that violates formal norms. We typically decline to violate informal norms, if we even think of violating them in the first place, because we fear risking the negative reactions of other people. These reactions, and thus examples of informal social control, include anger, disappointment, ostracism, and ridicule. Formal social control in the United States typically involves the legal system (police, judges and prosecutors, corrections officials) and also, for businesses, the many local, state, and federal regulatory agencies that constitute the regulatory system.

Social control is never perfect, and so many norms and people exist that there are always some people who violate some norms. In fact, Émile Durkheim (1895/1962), a founder of sociology discussed in Chapter 1 “Sociology and the Sociological Perspective” , stressed that a society without deviance is impossible for at least two reasons. First, the collective conscience (see Chapter 1 “Sociology and the Sociological Perspective” ) is never strong enough to prevent all rule breaking. Even in a “society of saints,” such as a monastery, he said, rules will be broken and negative social reactions aroused. Second, because deviance serves several important functions for society (which we discuss later in this chapter), any given society “invents” deviance by defining certain behaviors as deviant and the people who commit them as deviants. Because Durkheim thought deviance was inevitable for these reasons, he considered it a normal part of every healthy society.

HELL'S KITCHEN: Chef Ramsay (R) yells at Tek (L) during dinner service on an all-new HELL'S KITCHEN airing Tuesday, Aug. 11 (8:00-9:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX. ©2009 Fox Broadcasting Co. Cr: Patrick Wymore/FOX

Informal social control, such as the anger depicted here, is used to control behavior that violates informal norms.

gordonramsaysubmissions – gordon-ramsay-15 – CC BY 2.0.

Although deviance is normal in this regard, it remains true that some people are more likely than others to commit it. It is also true that some locations within a given society have higher rates of deviance than other locations; for example, U.S. cities have higher rates of violent crime than do rural areas. Still, Durkheim’s monastery example raises an important point about the relativity of deviance: whether a behavior is considered deviant depends on the circumstances in which the behavior occurs and not on the behavior itself. Although talking might be considered deviant in a monastery, it would certainly be considered very normal elsewhere. If an assailant, say a young male, murders someone, he faces arrest, prosecution, and, in many states, possible execution. Yet if a soldier kills someone in wartime, he may be considered a hero. Killing occurs in either situation, but the context and reasons for the killing determine whether the killer is punished or given a medal.

Deviance is also relative in two other ways. First, it is relative in space : a given behavior may be considered deviant in one society but acceptable in another society. Recall the discussion of sexual behavior in Chapter 3 “Culture” , where we saw that sexual acts condemned in some societies are often practiced in others. Second, deviance is relative in time : a behavior in a given society may be considered deviant in one time period but acceptable many years later; conversely, a behavior may be considered acceptable in one time period but deviant many years later. In the late 1800s, many Americans used cocaine, marijuana, and opium, because they were common components of over-the-counter products for symptoms like depression, insomnia, menstrual cramps, migraines, and toothaches. Coca-Cola originally contained cocaine and, perhaps not surprisingly, became an instant hit when it went on sale in 1894 (Goode, 2008). Today, of course, all three drugs are illegal.

The relativity of deviance in all these ways is captured in a famous statement by sociologist Howard S. Becker (1963, p. 9), who wrote several decades ago that

deviance is not a quality of the act the person commits, but rather a consequence of the application by others of rules or sanctions to an “offender.” The deviant is one to whom that label has been successfully applied; deviant behavior is behavior that people so label.

This insight raises some provocative possibilities for society’s response to deviance and crime. First, harmful behavior committed by corporations and wealthy individuals may not be considered deviant, perhaps because “respectable” people engage in them. Second, prostitution and other arguably less harmful behaviors may be considered very deviant because they are deemed immoral or because of bias against the kinds of people (poor and nonwhite) thought to be engaging in them. These considerations yield several questions that need to be answered in the study of deviance. First, why are some individuals more likely than others to commit deviance? Second, why do rates of deviance differ within social categories such as gender, race, social class, and age? Third, why are some locations more likely than other locations to have higher rates of deviance? Fourth, why are some behaviors more likely than others to be considered deviant? Fifth, why are some individuals and those from certain social backgrounds more likely than other individuals to be considered deviant and punished for deviant behavior? Sixth and last but certainly not least, what can be done to reduce rates of violent crime and other serious forms of deviance? The sociological study of deviance and crime aims to answer all of these questions.

Key Takeaways

Deviance is behavior that violates social norms and arouses negative social reactions.
Crime is behavior that is considered so serious that it violates formal laws prohibiting such behavior.
Social control refers to ways in which a society tries to prevent and sanction behavior that violates norms.
Émile Durkheim believed that deviance is a normal part of every society.
Whether a behavior is considered deviant depends on the circumstances under which it occurs. Considerations of certain behaviors as deviant also vary from one society to another and from one era to another within a given society.

For Your Review

In what ways is deviance considered relative?
Why did Durkheim consider deviance a normal part of society?

Becker, H. S. (1963). Outsiders: Studies in the sociology of deviance . New York, NY: Free Press.

Durkheim, É. (1962). The rules of sociological method (Ed. S. Lukes). New York, NY: Free Press. (Original work published 1895).

Goode, E. (2008). Drugs in American society . New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Criminology: The Social Control Theory

Most criminologists used to take conformity, or compliance with social rules, for granted deeming it as a natural part of what it is like to be a human. As shown by Freud, there is always a certain tension between the needs of an individual and the needs of society. Though belonging to different schools of thought, Freud, Skinner, and Piaget concur that children learn social rules through exchanges with authority figures and interactions with peers (Lilly et al., 2018). Complying with them also increases their chances of survival because this way, they are able to fit in the group. A later theory, the theory of social control, draws on their research and suggests that conformity stems from strong social bonds and integration into society.

Hirschi, a well-known social control theorist, puts forward the idea that people who commit crimes are not much different from those who do not. Rationally, any person is capable of seeing the risks and benefits of a criminal offense. What serves as a predisposition for nonconformity is the social context characterized by ineffectual social controls (Lilly et al., 2018). Therefore, a person can seize the opportunity to break the law if benefits outweigh risks. For criminologists, the social control theory means that an effective approach to reducing crime might be to change not individuals but their social contexts.

The question arises as to who decides what is moral or not in human society. Today, there are theistic and evolutionary theories of how morals and ethics have been formed (Film Media Group, 2002). Krebs (2011) opines that the origins of morality can be traced back to primitive human societies of hunters and gatherers. The first humans soon realized that cooperation was needed for survival while misbehavior and transgression jeopardized the survivability of the entire group. Today, moral norms originate from and are maintained by society.

In his social bonds theory, Hirschi assumes that humans are naturally drawn to delinquent behaviors. However, there are four kinds of bonds that can serve as protective factors against misbehavior. By social bonds, the scholar understands the elements of social cohesion that help individuals with social integration. Below is the list of social bonds developed by Hirschi:

attachment refers to the strengths of bonds that exist in an individual’s social environment. For adolescents, the most important bonds are those with parents, though others play a significant role as well;
commitment signifies how much a person is dedicated to pursuing conventional goals. It is implied that the more a person invested in their pursuit, the more he or she has to lose;
involvement means that if an individual is engaged in conventional activities, he or she will have less time for delinquent ones;
belief describes the degree to which an individual has faith in the validity of social norms and conventions (Hirschi, 1998).

If a person already shows strong delinquent leanings, he or she might still be able to benefit from strengthened social bonds. It is better to analyze such situations on a case-to-case basis to determine individual protective factors present in a person’s life. In case a person’s family is alive, its members could be encouraged to get involved and provide moral support. A person might have hobbies or interests, which may be the key to engaging them in conventional activities. There, they can find peer support as well as learn valuable skills.

Films Media Group. (2002). Morality: Judgments and action . Films On Demand. Web.

Hirschi, T. (1998). Social bond theory. Criminological theory: Past to present. Los Angeles: Roxbury .

Krebs, D. (2011). The origins of morality: An evolutionary account . Oxford University Press.

Lilly, J. R., Cullen, F. T., & Ball, R. A. (2018). Criminological theory: Context and consequences . Sage Publications.

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What Is Social Control In Sociology?

Ayesh Perera

B.A, MTS, Harvard University

Ayesh Perera, a Harvard graduate, has worked as a researcher in psychology and neuroscience under Dr. Kevin Majeres at Harvard Medical School.

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Social control is the process whereby society seeks to ensure conformity to the dominant values and norms in that society. This process can be either informal, as in the exercise of control through customs, norms, and expectations, or formal, as in the exercise of control through laws or other official regulations.

The tactics adopted to establish social control may include a mixture of negative sanctions, which punish those who transgress the rules of society, and positive policies which seek to persuade or encourage voluntary compliance with society”s standards.

Albion Woodbury Small and George Edgar Vincent introduced the concept of social control to sociology in 1894. However, this introduction had been foreshadowed in Thomas Hobbes’ discussion of the state.

Much later, Talcott Parsons (1937) and Travis Hirschi (1969) played a vital role in the illumination and development of ‘social control.’

While deviance , the antithesis of social control, investigates into reasons actuating rebellion against accepted norms, social control seeks to explain people’s conformity to the same. Its chief objective is to maintain order and peace in society.

Agencies of Social Control

Agents of social control are the people or groups who work to influence or regulate the behavior of others. They can be found in all levels of society, from the family to the government.

Education : The inculcation of civic norms, which transpires at a tender age for most children, is often inspired by the desire of those in authority to ensure that the future citizens would remain committed to upholding that particular society’s abiding values . The recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance, and elementary school courses on democracy exemplify this.
Family : The control exerted on individuals by their parents, siblings, spouses, and relatives seldom employs clear rules. However, children learn how to respect authority from their parents. Siblings may aid one in discerning early the appropriate standards for acceptable behavior among one’s peers.
Community :Implicit threats of ridicule, shame, and ostracization pervade most mechanisms of social control employed by various communities. The prospect of exclusion from a house of worship may procure and preserve a religious group’s members’ fidelity to orthodox beliefs. Likewise, the hope of reward (extratemporal bliss, or even human respect) may inspire members to assist each other in times of need.
Criminal Justice System :Severe punishments meted out to convicted criminals may serve to deter future felonies. The temporary removal of wrongdoers from society at large both impedes their recruitment of others into crime and renders them incapable of committing endless infractions with impunity. Cities with higher incarceration rates, thus, are likely to have lower crime rates (Sampson, 1986).

Types of Social Control

Formal and informal social control.

Formal social control involves the promulgation of codified laws embodying values, and the enforcement of external sanctions by the government in order to prevent chaos in society.

Prohibitions of robbery and murder are striking examples. Perpetration of such crimes would likely produce harsh consequences such as prolonged imprisonment.

Even lesser infractions of the law, such as exceeding speed limits, generally result in significant penalties such as fines. These function to procure people’s compliance with the law of the land.

Informal social control refers to the internalization of normative mores through either unconscious or conscious socialization. The special respect accorded to the elderly, a salient characteristic of many Asian cultures, is a manifest example.

Moreover, in many free societies, the virtue of patriotism is inculcated in mostly informal ways. The United States, for instance, has no law coercing its citizens to salute their flag or recite the Pledge of Allegiance. However, the devotion wherewith many Americans engage in such exercises is a potent testament to the informal social control exerted by many families and religious communities in America.

Direct and Indirect Social Control

Karl Mannheim has categorized social control into direct and indirect forms.

Direct social control involves the direct regulation of the conduct of individuals, invariably by persons close to such individuals, or primary groups.

These persons/groups may include parents, neighbors, older siblings, grandparents, teachers, and friends.

Indirect social control involves the regulation of conduct by more distant authorities. Secondary groups, such as academic and cultural institutions may exert indirect social control via cultural taboos, public opinion, and social customs.

The influence of direct social control is more pronounced and durable than that of its indirect counterpart.

Positive and Negative Means

Kimball Young (1927) has identified and elaborated upon positive and negative social control.

Positive means of social control involve the provision of positive incentives to procure the compliance of individuals with societal norms. The promise of reward herein may range from pecuniary benefits to the public approval of conformity stemming from the internalization of various social norms.

Awards bestowed upon students for excellence in academics, titles granted to winning varsity sports teams, and honors were given to soldiers demonstrating fortitude on the battlefield are some examples.

Negative social control discourages nonconformity by penalizing deviant conduct. Incurring harsher curfews from one’s parents by violating relatively lenient ones, is an evident example.

Criticism for incompetence, mulcts for parking infractions, imprisonment for theft, and capital punishment for murder are all instances of negative social control that are designed to ensure that most people in a society would gratify its normative expectations for public peace.

Theories of Social Control

Parsons’ approach to social control.

Talcott Parsons was a functionalist heavily influenced by the writings of Emile Durkheim and Max Weber .

Around the 1950s, Parsons sought to align the abstract idea of social order with the concrete concept of social control by developing a theory of social systems.

This general theory identified four functions that operated through multiple levels of human reality. The analytical requisites of the functions demanded that social control be seen under four elementary types: religious, informal, medical, and legal.

Parsons inquired into how the transgenerational reproduction of societies transpires. He noted that most individuals in a society are not opposed to most societal norms and values and that they heed them for most of their lives.

He adduced socialization to explain the purported ‘willing conformity.’ In other words, socialization within families, educational institutions, and religious communities would uphold compliant members as examples meriting emulation, and aid individuals’ internalization of societal norms.

Parsons also developed a four-sub-system model applicable to the social system. The model was predicated on a social system’s tasks relevant to its milieu. The four subsystems, also known as the GAIL system, comprised the following:

Goal-attainment : the polity

Adaptation : the economy

Integration : the culture comprising norms concerning social control and law

Latency : the normative issue of incentives to gratify the social system’s requirements

While Parsons’ theorizing was not flawless, his approach incorporated the perennial problem of scarcity and its concomitant challenge of resource allocation.

Matza’s Techniques of Neutralization

David Matza and Gresham Sykes posit that conduct which undermines social norms and beliefs is accompanied by shame and guilt, which serve to dissuade many individuals from engaging in delinquency or crime (Sykes & Matza, 1957; Matza, 1964).

Consequently, would-be-delinquents contrive schemes to neutralize this guilt preemptively and safeguard their self-image, were they to partake in deviance.

For instance, they may utilize neutralizing techniques to render themselves episodic relief from normative constraints.

These mechanisms also permit delinquents to shift back and forth between criminal and conventional conduct. This drift is effectuated because the delinquents’ neutralization mechanisms significantly enfeeble the moral imperative of predominant cultural mores and counteract the guilt produced by otherwise grave transgressions.

The neutralization impedes the internal and external controls conducing to inhibiting incentives for deviance, thereby inspiring delinquency while simultaneously immunizing the perpetrators’ self-image.

Matza and Sykes focused particularly on the following five techniques of neutralization:

Denial of responsibility

Denial of victims

Denial of injury

Condemnation of condemners

Appeal to higher loyalties

Research on the Matza-Sykes theory has yielded mixed outcomes. Indeed, their theory of neutralization has been incorporated into other theories such as labeling theory, learning theory, and control theory.

However, its capacity to serve as a sufficient explanation of crime is yet to be established. Immo Fritsche, Shadd Maruna and Heith Copes (2005) have, in recent times, sought to summarize the state of the theory, and review its empirical evaluations in light of both psychology and sociology.

Marxist Approaches to Social Control

Marxists see the criminal justice system as part of the repressive state apparatus and used by the ruling class to maintain their power through oppression whilst appearing to be legitimate.

Laws area reflection of ruling class ideology and punishment is part of the repressive state apparatus (Althusser) which keeps people in line and in their place.

The police force and criminal justice system treat the working class and the middle class differently. Middle class are to get a slap on the wrist as they are seen as having made a mistake where are the working class are more likely to be arrested for the same crime. Also many corporate crimes are not investigated or prosecuted by the criminal justice system.

Bowles and Gintis’ Correspondence Theory underscores the purported use of education as a means by the ruling class to dictate its norms to oppressed workers. Moreover, the media, too, is viewed as engaged in gatekeeping and agenda setting to propagate the elites’ worldview.

Meanwhile, the police force is seen as an accomplice in the capitalists’ oppressive scheme, and the law enforcement’s supposed scant attention to white-collar misdemeanors such as corporate crime is cited as evidence for this purported capitalist conspiracy.

Marxist theory holds that a dominant class safeguards and promotes its economic interests via its control of criminal law as well as cultural norms.

Consequently, the normative standards, whether formal or informal, which the members of a society are expected to conform to, according to Marxism, are merely values of the ruling oppressors.

Substantial shifts in political powers, from the former oppressors to the oppressed, may present a challenge to the Marxist approach, especially if such political transitions are not accompanied by fundamental alterations in a society’s primary norms guiding individual behavior.

Interactionist Approaches to Social Control

The interactionist methodology, which is closely associated with the labeling theory of crime, holds that endeavors by agencies via social control to prevent delinquency are, ironically, positively correlated with deviance (Becker, 2018).

According to interactionism, crime is a social construct, and stereotypical assumptions pervade the labeling of the purported powerless by the oppressive agents of social control.

The working class are unfairly tattered by the criminal justice system, and are less likely to be able to negotiate the system to their advantage. The police tend to patrol working class areas more which results in the working class crime statistics being higher than middle class.

The working class are often labeled as being more criminogenic and therefore the criminal justice system sees them as making conscious choices to commit crime where as middle class are seen as making a mistake or unintentionally committing a crime.

What supposedly follows is a self-fulfilling prophecy: criminal careers are engendered, and deviancy is amplified. Interactionists contend that individuals become criminals because of the labeling that occurs during their micro-level interactions with the police, and not because of the individual”s social background, or impeded opportunity structures.

Moreover, interactionists argue that some delinquents and criminals escape labeling, but that the powerless generally tend to receive these labels. The theorist’s further demand policies that pretermit labeling minor infractions as deviant.

Hirschi’s Control Theory

Travis Hirschi’s theory posits that deviance and crime are induced by the weakening of an individual’s bonds to society (Hirschi, 1969; Hirschi & Gottfredson, 1983). Strong attachment, conversely, engenders conformity.

Hirschi adduced four types of bonds as the essential constituents of the glue that holds a society together:

Involvement

The theory implies that single, unemployed, and young males are more prone to delinquency than their older, married, and employed counterparts. Truancy, in particular, seems a potent predictor of deviance.

Hirschi suggests that the underclass are more likely to lack impulse control and bonds to the community which prevent them from committing crime.

Hirschi’s theory has been espoused by significant evidence. Donald West and David Farrington of Cambridge University, for instance, examined 411 working-class men, from their childhood through to their late 30’s (Farrington, 1994).

Their study indicated that delinquents and criminals were likelier to hail from impoverished single-parent households. Moreover, they were more likely to have been subjected to poor parenting and have parents, who themselves had been offenders.

Additionally, Martin Glynn’s research into problems associated with absent fathers has illuminated the consequences of broken familial bonds (Glynn, 2011).

His qualitative survey of a culturally and socially diverse group of 48 young people (22 female and 26 male) aged 16-25 in Liverpool, Derby, and London, suggests that the adverse effects of absent fathers may range from anti-social conduct and crime to drug use and heavy drinking.

What are social control mechanisms?

Social control mechanisms regulate the conduct of individuals in a society. They may be categorized as follows:

Preventive: the establishment of roles with assigned priorities and the exertion of social pressure to elicit subordination to laws.

Restraining: cultural mores and religious obligations that moderate various inclinations.

Sanctioning:

Economic: boycotts and fines.

Physical: expulsion and imprisonment.

Psychological: reproofs and ridicule.

In addition to the above, government propaganda to effect desired behavioral outcomes via the influence of public opinion deserves mention as well.

What are social control agencies?

Individuals, social institutions, and codes of conduct that seek to prevent or restrain deviance and crime can be described as > agents of social control.

Examples range from parents, older siblings, and neighbors, to police officers, the judiciary, and written constitutions.

While some are informal and exert their influence in subtle and intangible ways, others are formal and communicate their expectations (penalties for insubordination and rewards for obedience) through legal promulgations.

Why is social control difficult in contemporary society?

Today’s increased access to a wealth of information and the proliferation of social media platforms can readily expose a society’s members to opinions and norms manifestly contrary to those of its ruling elites.

This exposure to alternate worldviews (including what must be rightly deemed deviance) can challenge the credibility of a society’s traditional agents of social control, thereby diminishing their capacity to substantially influence the ordinary subjects of society.

The growth of Iran’s and China’s pro-democracy movements that have threatened the heavy-handed rule of their leaders illustrates this development.

Is social control theory macro, or micro?

Social control theory may employ either macro or micro-level analysis. Hirschi’s approach, for instance, closely examines immediate family bonds and the implications of their breakdown for deviance.

Interactionists, likewise, focus on how labeling occurs in micro-level interactions between the would-be-deviants and various agents of social control such as police officers.

The Marxist approach views the phenomenon as a macro-level struggle between an oppressive capitalist ruling class, and a passive and oppressed workforce.

Similarly, Parsons evaluates the roles played by the macro milieus such as the economy and the polity, as constituents of the larger social system containing controls.

What is the difference between strain theory and control theory?

Strain theory holds that individuals are thrust into crime and deviance by stressors or strains imposed upon them by society, whereas control theory attributes deviance and crime to a paucity of bonds or controls.

The two theories occupy distinct ends of the spectrum. Strain theory, for instance, claims that the societal expectation that one be successful in life can lead individuals to engage in illegal activities such as the sale of drugs and stealing.

Control theory, conversely, suggests that such expectations deter crime by channeling individuals’ energies into acceptable forms of employment and the formation of relationships with others.

How is socialization a form of social control?

Socialization involves the internalization of cultural mores and social norms, via both teaching and learning for the attainment of cultural and social continuity.

Parsons, notably, argued that socialization engenders a willingness to submit to a society’s standards for conduct. Socialization can thus, be described as a type of informal (rather than formal) social control.

Socialization hardly includes legal sanctions or imprisonment. However, when it is carried out by families, schools, and religious communities, it does indoctrinate individuals and mold them into citizens obedient to civil laws.

Becker, H. S. (1963). Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance . London: Free Press of Glencoe.

Bowes, S., & Gintis, H. (1976). Schooling in Captalist America. Cole, M. (2019). Theresa May, the hostile environment and public pedagogies of hate and threat: The case for a future without borders . Routledge.

Cicourel, Aaron Victor, and John I. Kitsuse. The educational decision-makers . Bobbs-Merrill, 1963.

Gibbs, J. P. (1977). Social control, deterrence, and perspectives on social order. Social Forces , 56 (2), 408-423.

Glynn, M. (2011). Father deficit, young people and substance misuse. London: Addaction .

Hirschi, T. (1969). Key idea: Hirschi’s social bond/social control theory. Key ideas in criminology and criminal justice , 1969 , 55-69.

Hirschi, T. (2017). On the compatibility of rational choice and social control theories of crime. In The reasoning criminal (pp. 105-118). Routledge.

Hollingshead, A. B. (April 1941). The Concept of Social Control. American Sociological Review, 6 (2): 217–224.

Farrington, D. P. (1999). Cambridge study in delinquent development [great britain], 1961-1981. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research .

Kaptein, M., & Van Helvoort, M. (2019). A model of neutralization techniques. Deviant Behavior, 40 (10), 1260-1285.

Maruna, S., & Copes, H. (2005). What have we learned from five decades of neutralization research?. Crime and justice, 32 , 221-320.

Matza, D. (1964). Berkeley University of California. and Center for the Study of Law and Society. Delinquency and Drift. New York: Wiley .

Parsons, T. (1937). The structure of. Social Action , 491 .

Parsons, T. (1972). Culture and social system revisited. Social Science Quarterly , 253-266.

Sampson, R. J. (1986). Crime in cities: The effects of formal and informal social control. Crime and justice , 8 , 271-311.

Small, A. W., & Vincent, G. E. (1894). An introduction to the study of society . American Book Company.

Sykes, G. M., & Matza, D. (1957). Techniques of neutralization: A theory of delinquency. American sociological review, 22 (6), 664-670.

Young, K. (1927). Source book for social psychology.

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Social Control by Jason Carmichael LAST REVIEWED: 26 June 2012 LAST MODIFIED: 26 June 2012 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199756384-0048

Social control is the study of the mechanisms, in the form of patterns of pressure, through which society maintains social order and cohesion. These mechanisms establish and enforce a standard of behavior for members of a society and include a variety of components, such as shame, coercion, force, restraint, and persuasion. Social control is exercised through individuals and institutions, ranging from the family, to peers, and to organizations such as the state, religious organizations, schools, and the workplace. Regardless of its source, the goal of social control is to maintain conformity to established norms and rules. Social control is typically employed by group members in response to anyone it considers deviant, problematic, threatening, or undesirable, with the goal of ensuring conformity. It is a broad subfield of sociology that involves criminologists, political sociologists, and those interested in the sociology of law and punishment, as well as scholars from a variety of disciplines, including philosophy, anthropology, political science, economics, and law. The subfield includes both macro and micro components. Those concerned with macro forces of social control have focused primarily on the goals and effectiveness of the formal mechanisms, such as the police, law, and punishment, employed to maintain order. Scholars interested in the macro aspects tend to examine questions related to the role that elites, the state, and other political and religious institutions have on establishing the norms and rules that people are governed by. Researchers focusing on the micro, on the other hand, tend to be more focused on the role that socialization and peer influence have on placing limits on human action. The origins of the discussions of social control can be traced back to the writings of such social philosophers as John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, as well as classic social theorists such as Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, and Max Weber, among others. Today, social-control researchers continue to design and refine our understanding of social order and how it is maintained as well as the conditions under which it fails to do so.

Social philosophers, as seen in Hobbes 2011 , Rousseau 2003 , and Beccaria 1963 , have played an important role in the development of social control, a subfield of sociology. The modern origins of the writings on social control can be traced to some of the pillars of sociology, including Karl Marx and Emile Durkheim. Durkheim 1947 is a contribution to the area of social control and the maintenance of social order that is particularly important. The writings established the foundation of much of modern social-control theory. Marx and Engels 1978 is another significant contribution to the subfield, with particular attention paid to how class domination is at the base of social-control efforts. Contemporary works have borrowed from these classical writings but have left their own indelible mark on the subfield of social control. Mead 1925 first introduced other social-science disciplines outside of sociology into the modern debate, but perhaps the most profound statement on social control from a sociological perspective is Pound 1996 . In his seminal work in the field, Social Control through Law (New Brunswick, NJ, and London: Transaction, 2006), Pound articulates rather-precise definitions of social control and the mechanisms and motivations for achieving it. Another seminal piece is Rusche and Kirchheimer 2007 . These texts show that levels of punishment are a function of structural factors, particularly rates of unemployment. Recently, Foucault 1977 has dominated the discourse surrounding social control.

Beccaria, Cesare. 1963. On crimes and punishments . Translated by Henry Paolucci. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

The seminal text that has shaped all modern criminal-justice systems around the world. Establishes classical deterrence theory by arguing that social control can be achieved by modifying the criminal code. Beccaria maintains that humans will avoid criminal behavior if the cost is too high. Originally published in 1764.

Durkheim, Emile. 1947. The division of labor in society . Translated by George Simpson. New York: Free Press.

In this book, Durkheim argues that crime is normal because it exists in every society. Given this, he argues that the goal of punishment cannot be to cure it. He claims that formal punishment is a symbolic mechanism used to galvanize public sentiment. He also maintains that modern societies will increasingly utilize restitutive sanctions over punitive ones. Originally published in 1893.

Foucault, Michel. 1977. Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison . New York: Pantheon.

A historical, philosophical, and theoretical account of punishment. Foucault outlines his theory of power/knowledge and argues that changes in punitive policies are merely an attempt by the state to increase its domination over individuals in society.

Hobbes, Thomas. 2011. Leviathan: Parts I and II . Peterborough, ON: Broadview.

In Leviathan , Hobbes outlines his doctrine of the state and social contract theory. Famously, Hobbes argues that without a strong state, society would consist of “war of all against all.” He suggests social order is maintained by the state through its control over civil and military power. Originally published in 1651.

Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. 1978. The Marx-Engels reader . 2d ed. Translated and compiled by Robert Tucker. New York: Norton.

The Marx-Engels Reader , compiled by Tucker, includes writings by Friedrich Engels and is an excellent source of Marx’s key writings. Important sections include “The Communist Manifesto” (pp. 469–501), “The German Ideology” (pp. 146–203), and “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte” (pp. 594–618). These works were originally published between 1844 and 1883.

Mead, George Herbert. 1925. The genesis of the self and social control. International Journal of Ethics 35.3 (April): 251–277.

Borrowing from psychology and biology, Mead outlines the origins of social control and the interplay between social control and self-control. Specifically, Mead provides substantial detail on the creation and maintenance of consciousness , which he describes as the internalization of normative behavior relative to others’ behavior, and explains how this internalization modifies social conduct. Available online for purchase or by subscription.

Pound, Roscoe. 1996. Social control through law . New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.

In this seminal work, Pound defines social order and the law and outlines the ways in which the two operate together to enforce normative expectations of behavior. Originally published in 1942.

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 2003. On the social contract . Translated by G. D. H. Cole. Mineola, NY: Dover.

Rousseau’s classical statement on social order and politics. Originally published in 1944.

Rusche, Georg, and Otto Kirchheimer. 2007. Punishment and social structure . New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.

Seminal work that examines the history of punishment through a critical lens. Authors argue that levels of punishment are a function of the surplus value of labor. They maintain that when unemployment is high, punishment levels will be high.

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community control

Quick reference.

A concept used widely but frequently rather loosely. In social work, probation work, or psychiatry, the term may be used as part of the vocabulary of practice to refer to some form of community care, therapy, or treatment (often forming part of a process of decarceration), or with reference to schemes such as Intermediate Treatment, Community Service Orders, or home-detention monitored by electronic tagging. In criminology and social control theory it may be used in a broader sense, to draw attention to the ways in which control systems become part of the fabric of the community, such that communities and individuals come to be controlled and to control themselves through mechanisms of surveillance, regulation, and reporting of rule-breaking. This scenario is best drawn by Stanley Cohen in his essay, ‘The Punitive City: Notes on the Dispersal of Social Control’, Contemporary Crises (1979). Cohen's essay, and the writing of others on the exercise of social control through community agencies, is heavily influenced by the work of Michel Foucault, notably his volume Discipline and Punish (1977).

Critics have suggested that use of both terms—community and control—is too broad and vague, prone to romanticism, and often employed for purposes of polemic. However, the idea of community control seems usefully suggestive to many writers, and is increasingly fashionable among those involved in making social and government policy. See also social control.

From: community control in A Dictionary of Sociology »

Subjects: Social sciences — Sociology

Surgeon General Calls for Warning Labels on Social Media Platforms

Dr. Vivek Murthy said he would urge Congress to require a warning that social media use can harm teenagers’ mental health.

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Surgeon General Vivek Murthy speaking and holding a microphone. He is wearing a dark blue military jacket.

By Ellen Barry and Cecilia Kang

The U.S. surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, announced on Monday that he would push for a warning label on social media platforms advising parents that using the platforms might damage adolescents’ mental health.

Warning labels — like those that appear on tobacco and alcohol products — are one of the most powerful tools available to the nation’s top health official, but Dr. Murthy cannot unilaterally require them; the action requires approval by Congress.

The proposal builds on several years of escalating warnings from the surgeon general. In a May 2023 advisory, he recommended that parents immediately set limits on phone use, and urged Congress to swiftly develop health and safety standards for technology platforms.

He also called on tech companies to make changes: to share internal data on the health impact of their products; to allow independent safety audits; and restrict features like push notifications, autoplay and infinite scroll, which he says “prey on developing brains and contribute to excessive use.”

In an interview, Dr. Murthy said he had been deeply frustrated by the platforms’ reluctance to do so.

“I don’t think we can solely rely on the hope that the platforms can fix this problem on their own,” he said. “They’ve had 20 years.”

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Social Control Theory of Crime
The Social Control Theory was developed by Travis Hirschi in 1969. It states that an individual's behavior is bonded by society, and the extent to which an individual feels the bond or commitment to society determines their deviance from conventional societal norms. The theory is commonly used in criminology and aims to explore why an ...
Social Control Theory: The Legacy of Travis Hirschi's
The publication of Travis Hirschi's Causes of Delinquency in 1969 was a watershed moment in criminology. There are many reasons for the work's lasting influence. Hirschi carefully examined the underlying assumptions of extant theories of crime in light of what was known about the individual-level correlates of offending. He then developed critical tests of hypotheses derived from social ...
Social Control Theory in Criminology
The main idea of the theory is that social bonds are the most significant factors that can prevent individuals from engaging in unlawful activities. To understand the main claims of Hirshi's work, it is necessary to analyze the concept of social control in detail. The main components of the theory are commitment, attachment, involvement, and ...
Social Control Theory
For social control theory, the underlying view of human nature includes the conception of free will, thereby giving offenders the capacity of choice, and responsibility for their behavior. As such, social control theory is aligned more with the classical school of criminology than with positivist or determinist perspectives.
Social Control Theory
The social control approach to understanding crime is one of the three major sociological perspectives in contemporary criminology. Control theorists believe that conformity to the rules of society is produced by socialization and maintained by ties to people and institutions— to family members, friends, schools, and jobs.
PDF Encyclopedia of Criminological Theory
influence of Hirschi's social control theory on the field of criminology. The fundamental question addressed with social control theory can be traced back to the work of Thomas Hobbes. Hobbes, and later the classical criminologists Jeremy Bentham and Cesare Beccaria, assumed that human nature is fundamentally asocial or selfish.
Social Control
Social control refers to the mechanisms through which a society is able to regulate and direct the behaviors of its members. ... The following essay provides the reader with an introduction to the study of social control, formal theories of social control, and modern extensions and analytical techniques that have evolved to account for its ...
7.2A: Social Control Theory
Jackson Toby. An internal understanding of means of control became articulated in sociological theory in the mid-twentieth century. In 1957, Jackson Toby published an article entitled "Social Disorganization and Stake in Conformity: Complementary Factors in the Predatory Behavior of Hoodlums," which discussed why adolescents were inclined or disinclined to engage in delinquent activities.
Crime, Social Control and Human Rights: From Moral Panics to States of
Crime, Social Control and Human Rights: From Moral Panics to States of Denial, Essays in Honour of Stanley Cohen by D. Downes, P. Rock, C. Chinkin and C. Gearty (Eds.) ... Stan Cohen occupies a pivotal position in criminology. His work over the last four decades has done much to transform the discipline from a dull social science into the site ...
Self Control, Social Control, Morality, and ...
Abstract. Control theory is consistent with the notion of situational crime prevention and many of the ideas that support it. This chapter discusses several contemporary issues in control theory, including the connection between self-control theory and social control theory, the connection between morality and crime, and the role and conception of the opportunity or situational factors in a ...
Crime policy and informal social control
POLICY ESSAY. Crime policy and informal social control. Megan Ferrier. Northwestern University. Search for more papers by this author. Jens Ludwig. ... The Impact of Drug Market Pulling Levers Policing on Neighborhood Violence, Criminology & Public Policy, 11, 2, (161-164), (2012). Wiley Online Library. Volume 10, Issue 4 ...
Social Control Theory Essay
Social Control Theory Essay. 1. Name of the theorist (s) that coined the theory or most associated with the theory due to his/her research contributions to the theory. In regards to the Social Control Theory, also known as the Social Bond Theory, the theorist named Hirschi coined it. According to the Social Process Theories lecture, Hirschi ...
History, periodization and the character of contemporary crime control
Garland D (2003) Penal modernism and postmodernism. In: Blomberg TG, Cohen S (eds) Punishment and Social Control: Essays in Honour of Sheldon L. Messinger. New York: Aldine De Gruyter, 45-73. Google Scholar ... Sparks R (2000) Criminology, social theory and the challenge of our times. British Journal of Criminology 40(2): 189-204. Crossref ...
Social Control Essay
Social control/bond theory was developed by Travis Hirschi in1969. The social control approach is one of the three major sociological perspectives in understanding crime in our contemporary criminology. The theory holds that individuals will break the law as a result of the breakdown of the social bonds (Akers & Sellers, 2004, p. 16).
What is Formal Social Control? What are Some Examples?
Governmental policy, especially via legislation, is an evident example of formal social control that demonstrates what may be acceptable or unacceptable in a certain society. Germany's official ban on propaganda by Nazi, Communist and Muslim extremist groups via Strafgesetzbuch section 86 amply illustrates how elected officials may readily ...
7.1 Social Control and the Relativity of Deviance
Deviance is behavior that violates social norms and arouses negative social reactions. Crime is behavior that is considered so serious that it violates formal laws prohibiting such behavior. Social control refers to ways in which a society tries to prevent and sanction behavior that violates norms. Émile Durkheim believed that deviance is a ...
Criminology: The Social Control Theory
Criminology: The Social Control Theory. Most criminologists used to take conformity, or compliance with social rules, for granted deeming it as a natural part of what it is like to be a human. As shown by Freud, there is always a certain tension between the needs of an individual and the needs of society. Though belonging to different schools ...
Principles of social control theory
Social Control Theories. Many criminological theories always explain why do people commit crime, or to find out what are the most influential factors motivate people commit crime and violate the socia ... Essays; Criminology; Principles of social control theory. Paper Type: Free Essay: Subject: Criminology: Wordcount: 2029 words: Published: 9th ...
Reviewing Social Control Theories On Individuals Criminology Essay
The theory of social control emphasizes on the role of society in the control of criminal behavior and proposes social learning with the help of 'social control' which is why I chose the theory of social control over the social learning theory. The Theory of Social Control is widely cited in criminology in addition it has also been explored ...
What Is Social Control In Sociology?
Theories of Social Control. Social control is the process whereby society seeks to ensure conformity to the dominant values and norms in that society. This process can be either informal, as in the exercise of control through customs, norms, and expectations, or formal, as in the exercise of control through laws or other official regulations.
Social Control
Introduction. Social control is the study of the mechanisms, in the form of patterns of pressure, through which society maintains social order and cohesion. These mechanisms establish and enforce a standard of behavior for members of a society and include a variety of components, such as shame, coercion, force, restraint, and persuasion.
Community control
Cohen's essay, and the writing of others on the exercise of social control through community agencies, is heavily influenced by the work of Michel Foucault, notably his volume Discipline and Punish (1977).Critics have suggested that use of both terms—community and control—is too broad and vague, prone to romanticism, and often employed for ...
Rehabilitation within pre-crime interventions: The hybrid criminology
When we think about 'pre-crime' interventions, the last thing we expect to find is an emphasis on rehabilitation. And yet, the policy paradigms of social crime prevention and countering violent extremism (which acts to reform the potential terrorist offender) both centralize rehabilitation—enacted before the crime. This begs the question of why Criminology has, to-date, separated ...
Surgeon General Calls for Warning Labels on Social Media Platforms
Dr. Vivek Murthy said he would urge Congress to require a warning that social media use can harm teenagers' mental health. By Ellen Barry and Cecilia Kang The U.S. surgeon general, Dr. Vivek ...