Yet how does this social control affect deviant and criminal behaviour? The first problem many sociologists must overcome when discussing social control and behaviour, is to define both the terms deviant and criminal. It is accepted that deviant behaviour can take many forms, some people see animal testing as deviant whereas others see it as a way of gaining valuable medical knoweldge; deviance therefore brings out much political and moral debate, yet is personal to every individual. Clinard and Meier identified four different types of definition of deviance, statistical, absolutist, reactivist and normative.
According to statistical definitions, deviance occurs when behaviour is very different from the average. However, the problem with this is that a small minority of people have never drunk alcohol, never broken the law or never had premarital sex, but very few individuals would label any of these three activities as deviant, therefore it is clear that this definition fails to take into account the actual meaning of deviance.
Absolutist definitions focus on the guiding principles through which we live our lives, also known as values. This definition see deviant actions as any which move away from these established guidelines, such as moving away from the teachings of Christ. This theory has some links with the funtionalist concept of consensus in society. However, it is criticised by many as it is seen to fail to appreciate the amount of variation in values between different subcultures. Also, it ignores the power relationships in society, and fails to recognise to that more powerful groups impose their values and standards on others.
From a reactivist perspective, deviance is simple a label applied to some acts and the people responsible for them. If there is no social reation, then there is no deviance. This is also known as the labelling theory on crime, in which Howard Becker says ‘Deviancy is not about the quality of the act a person commits but rather a consequence of the application by others of rules and sanctions to an ‘offender’. Deviant behaviour is behaviour that people so label’. The main problem with reactivist definitions is that they fail to provide any explanation of what it is about certain acts that cause others to view them as deviant.
Normative definitions see the idea of deviance as behaviour that contradicts the social norms. This definition reflects modern societies more effectively than absolutist definitions. It takes into account the constantly changing nature of deviance and can be combined with a reactivist definition to provide a fuller picture of the process of deviancy creation. However, it fails to explain why some norms are considered more serious than others and fails to appreciate, as does the absolutist definition, the power relationships in society.
Crime, on the other hand, many believe to be simple to define. It is simply an act which goes against the law in the particular society. However, the link between deviance and crime is not as simple or as clear. While some see speeding as acceptable, and therefore deviant, the law and the majority of society view it as a crime, yet attempted suicide, while seen as deviant is not a crime.
For Durkheim, crime and deviance were central to understanding how society functions and controls itself. He identified two sides of crime and how they aided the functioning of society; a positive side that helped society chance and remain diverse, a negative side that saw too much crime leading to social disruption.
According to Durkheim, a limited amount of crime was needed for society to function. He argued that society shares a set of values, known as the collective conscience, which provides us with boundaries, which distinguish between actions that are acceptable and those which are not. The problem for every society is that these values are often unclear, which is where crime can help. It will reaffirm the acceptable boundaries, reflect the changing values of the society and horrific crimes can often result in social cohesion.
However, too much crime will have negative consequences. Durkheim noted, during times of great social change or stress, such as hurricane Katrina which tore through New Orleans, the collective conscience may be weakened. In this situation, people may be freed from the social control imposed by this collective conscience, and begin to look after their own selfish interests, as seen in New Orleans by the looting of shops and businesses. Durkheim refers to this situation as anomie, and in this state, crime rates rocket, as social control has dispersed.
Heavily influenced by Durkheim, was Hirschi, who talked about the bonds of attachment. He turned the usual question of ‘why do people commit crime?’ on its head and instead asked ‘what is it that stops people committing criminal acts?’ and he came up with four bonds of attachment; four social bonds, the weaker these are the more likely the individual is to commit a crime. The bonds are; attachment, to what extent do we care about other people’s opinions; commitment, this refers to the personal investments, what have we got to loose by commiting crime; involvement, how busy are we, do we have time to plan and carry out crime?; belief, how strong a persons belief is that they should obey society. The greater the persons level of attachment to society, the lower their level of crime.
A key component in social control and crime is punishment, the fact that criminals should pay for their acts. Durkheim argued that when people act against societal values, then generally a system of informal control operates to coerce them back into conformity. However, should their behaviour deviate further, into the realms of criminal behaviour, then the formal system of punishment is used. He noted that in less complex mechanistic societies, punishment is based upon retribution, by which savage, often inhuman, punishments are imposed upon which the wrongdoer in order to demonstrate society’s abhorrence at the breaking of the collective conscience. As societies develop and become organic societies, Durkheim said that the punishment shifts and becomes imprisonment, to make the person make amends for their wrongdoing. He called this restitutive law.
Rusche and Kircheimer (1939) agree with the general Marxist argument, that laws reflect the interests of the ruling class. However, they go further and argue that the forms of punishment also reflect their interests. As these interests change, so do the forms of punishment. Rusche and Kircheimer claim, for example, that slavery was an early form of punishment because of the need for manual labour, and that in feudalism the state used physical punishment as there was slightly less need for the labour, yet the peasants needed repressing. They also point out that in times of high unemployment, prison populations soar. However, surely, according to Hirschi, this is because the individuals have the time to commit the crime, have very little to loose, they have no job after all and it is likely that many of the individuals they spend there days with will do the same, therefore their attachment to society is very weak, and so they commit crime, not because the ruling class just locks them up.
Foucault also noted the change in punishment, from being physical and public to being, what he described as internalized and intense, echoing Durkheim’s work. He claims that in recent times the aim of punishment has changed form deterring others, to bringing the unruly back into society and under control. The punishment has therefore shifted from the body to the mind of the offender.
The main agency responsible for the enforcement of social control in our society is the police force. They are the arm of the state, whose role it is to maintain public order and to enforce the law. There are two main positions in understanding the relationship of the police to society, consensual and conflict policing.
The consensual approach sees the police as having a close relationship with the local area being policed and the role of the police force being to represent the interests of the majority of law-abiding people, defending them against the minority of offenders. Police officers are drawn from the community and reflect its characteristics. This is particularly prevalent in small, rural villages with close-knit communities.
Conflict policing has been suggested by Scarton, who argues the police can best be seen as an occupying force, imposed upon working-class and ethnic-minority communities. Police officers often patrol these areas as this reflects the interests of the ruling groups. Lea and Young describe this as military-style policing, which is characterised by the use of large numbers of police officers patrolling an area in vehicles, using advanced technology, such as surveillance, for information gathering.
Although it is the job of the police to enforce the law and social control, there are so many different laws which could be applied in so many circumstances, that police officers need to use their discretion in deciding which laws to apply and in what circumstances. Reiner suggests three ways of explaining the basis of police discretion, individualistic, cultural and structural.
Colman and Gorman found some evidence for Reiners idea of individualistic discretion, in their study of police in inner London. Reiner suggested that particular police officers have specific concerns and interests and thus interprets and applies the law in accordance with these. Colman and Gorman noted individual racist police would apply the law more harshly on certain ethnic minorities.
Cultural discretion is based upon the canteen culture police officers are exposed to. According to Skolnick, this has three main components, suspiciousness, internal solidarity and social isolation, conservatism. He found that, as part of their job, police officers spent much of their time dealing with people who are suspected of commiting a criminal offence. They apparently categorise and stereotype certain people as trouble makers, particularly youths from ethnic minorities. This is what Skolnick labels as suspiciousness. Due to the fact that they spend so much time together and are often isolated from members of the public, they rely upon each other in times of physical threat and when denying accusations. This is known as internal solidarity and social isolation. Conservatism stems from the fact that the social isolation and majority recruitment of White males generates this rarely radically political group to uphols conservative values.
Graef suggests one other component of the canteen culture; masculinity. The majority of police officers are male and drawn from the working classes. The culture of the police officers very much reflects traditional working class values of heavy drinking, physical prowess and heterosexuality. Racial stereotyping is also prevalent and heavily emphasised with assuming the role of a police officer.
The third approach to police discretion is called structural. It is derived from Marxist theory and stresses that the very definition of law is biased in favour of those who are more powerful in society, and are therefore against the working class. Therefore, any upholding of the law, involves the upholding of the values of the capitalist society. Evidence for this can be found in Tarling’s study which showed that over 65% of police resources are devoted to the uniformed patrolling of public space, particularly the poorer neighbourhoods and central city areas. The result is that, as morgan discovered, about 55% of the prisoners in police custody were unemployed and the rest, 30% were in manual, working class jobs. Most of the detainees were young with 60% being under the age of 25years and 87% of all those arrested were male. Finally, they found that over 12% were from African or African-Caribbean backgrounds, despite these groups making up less than 3% of the entire population.
When looking at social control from a postmodern perspective, one particular sociologists ideas play a fundamental role; Jeremy Bentham and the Panopticon design for a prision. It consist of the cells being arranged in a circle al facing inwards, so the inmates can see each other, and in the centre stands the guard tower, with tinted glass and blinds, so the gaurds can see out, but the inmates cannot tell if they are being watched, and it is this feeling which will make the inmates behave themselves. The word panopticon literally means, the many being watched by the few, and because of this, Foucault uses it as a metaphor for modern society. The rise of CCTV and the internet allow our actions and movement to be constantly monitored, and this idea that someone could be watching keeps people within the socially accepted behaviour. This power of the few to control us is fascinating, as who are the few? Who is it whom is sat watching the CCTV of us shopping, an MI5 agent or a retired man who needs extra money? And yet, even though we don’t know, we are being governed and control by the fear that someone might see. This links to Box and his theory on crime and control.
Box said that there are five elements which weaken the bonds of a capitalist society and propel individuals into committing crime. The first is secrecy, whether the individual can get away with the crime, the second is skills, most people are simply unable to commit crime as organised crime takes time, planning and knowledge. The third element is supply, even the most criminal must have someone to get any equipment off and sell any goods on to. The fourth requires the offender to be able to justify their actions, in the form of symbolic support, with the fifth relying on others to share similar criminal values to support and confirm the values that justify crime. This supports the ideas of subcultures and crime, as when gangs commit crime, due to the vast number they have many contacts in the criminal underworld, as well as having each other for support and common values.
Overall, social control is a highly effective yet highly complex way of controlling a society and making them conform to the rules considered acceptable by the ruling classes. The idea of the fear of being seen and caught is what make many conform, which is suprising, as in a sense, we are being governed by fear and, in another way, pride. Social control plays a major, hidden role in everybodies lives, from school children who are told what to wear, when to eat and when to play, to office workers, who are told also when to work and when to eat, and there are sanctions for all, should we dare to step out of line and break any conventional rules. What is truly amazing is how many are blindfolded to this control, and they just accept it, it would be interesting to see what would happen should everyone disobey these rules, would we descend into chaos as and a state of anomie, or would we live as normal? However, we shall never know, we are too afraid of the consequences and therefore will conform, unless placed under tremendous stress and pressure.
