Social Control

Social Control

1. Feeley & Simon (1992)

   • Acturalism - assess rick and who is most likely to commit crime.
   • The stress of social control has changed from controlling deviant behaviour to controlling potentially deviant people and acting against them

2. Durkheim's functions of punishment (1886)

   • Modern societies focused on dispassionate punishment - arises out of necessity not revenge
   • Punishment is a defence mechanism - well thought out precaution
     • fines, prison, ASBOS - deterrent - more humanitarian
       • rehabilitate
   • Purpose of punishment
     • expressive - shows societies emotions of moral outrage
     • Shared values are reaffirmed and everyone agrees
     • Uphold social solidarity
     • HOWEVER - Oscar Pistorious - public was divided on punishment
       • 2 types of justice
         • Retributive - severe and cruel - reinforces collective conscience
           • Punishment changed now - would not happen
         • Restitutive - solidarity based on interdependence and crime damages the - community service/rehabilitation to repair damage

3. S. Cohen -1994 - visions of social control

   • Punishment makes up part of our everyday lives
     • Specialist language - barriers between MC and WC (Berstein) - Hierarchy - maintain power - elaborated and restricted code
     • Systems of classification - classified by class, ethnicity, age, gender - self fulfilling prophecy - streaming in education
     • Time tabling - routine that you must follow and meet deadlines
   • suspicious of official state forms of control
     • increase in influence of state (creation of police, prisons, laws etc)
       • Specialisation of agencies of deviance (riot police/terroism police)
         • Segregation of deviants - moved into separate geographical spaces - hospitals, asylums, prisons
           • Decline in public punishment - more humane way of treating criminals

4. Foucault

   • Punishment changed from physical & public to internalised and intense
     • Shifted from body to mind
   • Modern punishment is contains invisible forms of social control
   • Social life controlled through discourse (set of specialised knowledge)
     • Medicine - study of body
       • Penology - Study of prisons
         • Pedagogy - Study of education
           • Psychology - Study of mind
   • Uses Patheon Prisons for an analogy of contemporary society - being watched more by agencies

5. Rusche & Kircheimer

   • Marxist
   • Punishments reflect capitalist interests but also suggests it is a tool used by ruling class
   • Capitialism prisons - long hours of boring work and poor living conditions
     • Say that prison population increases when unemployment figures do
       • However - may not be able to get jobs due to criminal record when they get out

6. Reiner (1992)

   • Police discretion when deciding how to apply laws - depending on case
     • Structural - law based in favour of bourgeoisie - Tarling (88) - 65% of police time is spent patrolling neighbourhoods - poorer and city centres (acturalism)
     • Cultural - officers mostly white males - long hours, develop occupational culture - canteen culture - Skolnick & Graef - suspision + stereotypes, internal solidairty, uphold nature of the state
     • Individualistic - each officer has own interests and concerns - Coleman & Gorman (82) - evidence that racist police officers apply law more to ethinic minorities