To what extent do the concepts of 'inclusion' and 'exclusion' characterise the nature of social control in late modernity?Consider the concept of 'risk' in your analysis.

Social control as defined above is regulating behaviour amongst groups as well as individuals in society.  Social control focuses on strategies and techniques which aid to normalise human behaviour. This can be done through fear, this includes religion which encourage people to behave in a specific manner for god (punishment in after life); or through punishment in current life given by the physical Law. Thus in theory, this should lead to conformity and compliance of the rules of society and its Laws that set the boundaries for individuals to live by and live within. This includes the influences of family, school, morals, values and beliefs as well as belief systems i.e. religion.

For example the ‘Monkey Analogy’, discusses not only how social control is carried out and used in society; but it also discusses how inclusion and exclusion are used in society.  It is much like law because they learn that going up the stairs means they get punished by being sprayed with water; that in effect controls them and any actions they may choose to take in the future and any monkey which is not familiar with the law is quickly taught by the others.  This highlights how inclusion and exclusion are used in society and its effects.  This simple principle of being punished when doing wrong is applied all throughout society – it is the main bulk and structure of how social control works to keep society in order.

The existence of rules within society does not always ensure that its people will follow.  What happens in the scenario when someone is sent to jail (exclusion from society) and has been released back to society, but just re offends?  This is when one needs to consider tougher rules and structure for individuals like this.  When principles are not effective or seem to ‘slack’, even the punishment they have been given has had no impact upon the individual(s) concerned, the concept of risk comes in to question.  

We can think of risk as the danger in allowing social control to exist. Someone who re-offends may have been forced to do so based on society.  To look at this in a bit more detail, it is well known that anyone with a criminal record will find it harder to get a job in comparison to someone that does not. The mentality of the employer is not the same as the prison system or the law, which is that the offender has paid for their crime and is ready to go back to society. The employer sees the record as a permanent stain; so since the convicted person cannot find a job, they maybe forced to re offend to integrate back into society in order for them to survive.

To summarise, social control is often seen as a large scale topic, as it practically represents any marvel leading to conformity, which in turn leads to norms; and it is these norms that control society not only socially but economically, politically, and culturally too. Other individuals see social control as a vast representation of controlled and regulated mechanisms.  It is these that are placed and almost inserted upon society's members. Social control is often seen as all-encompassing, practically representing anything leading to conformity, which leads to norms. In other words, social control defines what is to be considered deviant, violations of the law, i.e. what is right or wrong and acceptable by society.  Social control mechanisms can be adopted as laws, norms, morals, ethics, etiquette, and customs, which all control and thus define behaviour.

A definition of risk in social terms could be, the risk of allowing social control to actually exist and the extent of its boundaries is a direct result of how we act in society and live our everyday lives.  Everyday in our lives we come across various situations where we have risk elements that we need to process and act upon effectively not only for ourselves but sometimes for others around us too.  In any attempt to identify exclusion (and inclusion), one should closely look at the various elements of risks, which are closely linked by their nature.

One element of risk comes from the declaration, which is undoubtedly true that everyone everywhere is all the time excluded from something or somebody, and without a doubt, there is no exclusion without inclusion; just as there is no good without the bad for example.  An example extreme as it may seem of this element of risk is that of a person who is imprisoned for political reasons; they are at the extreme end of a process of political exclusion.  The same happens in the case of a group whose colour; religion or origin leads to its expulsion from a country in which they have tried to settle.

This quote proves this element of risk in late modernity and how exclusion prominently exists in society today;

“Until well into the 20th century, women were not allowed to vote or stand for election in many Western European countries, or to run a business of their own without the permission of their husbands. In economic terms, absolute poverty and exclusion cannot fail to coincide.”

For many human beings, everyday risk is choosing whether to abide by laws and rules, norms and values and various religious vows that they have personally chosen to follow from birth.  These risks are valuable to a person’s development in their life and to their fellow friends around them; as their decisions affect everyone.  There is a major risk that everyone takes everyday and that is to allow social control to enter and exist and in effect control our every movement in society.  Is this healthy?  Allowing a greater force that we cannot even see thus we cannot even begin to control, to control our lives?  Although, allowing social control to exist in our society is very effective and necessary.  It forces us to follow laws and rules as well as all of the above mentioned.  All these elements enrich us and mould us into the moral human beings that the majority of us are today.  For example take stealing, this is by law an immoral action to carry out as it has a severe punishment; thus teaching us that taking such a risk as to steal and take what is not ours is wrong.  This is the law teaching us this, and this idea is then taught to our children, in a similar fashion to the monkeys. One can say that human society could eventually lead to a ‘programmable’ state. Where people are moulded into what someone believes to be right, but this idea could be abused and lead to a dictator like government where eventually people could be told that giving up there rights is the ‘norm’.

On the opposite end, the risk in taking this social control away from our society means that we would live in a world with a slogan such as, ‘anything goes’.  This does occur in small groups of society where individuals have broken off from the norm and have chosen to rebel i.e. teenagers.  It is not just teenagers however; even the many religions are groups in themselves and have their own beliefs.  Mainstream beliefs are the norms we all follow by law.  They chose to follow either their own or both.

There is another scenario where circumstances can allow people to ignore the controls as they believe that controls cannot be enforced. A real life example of this was the event of Hurricane Katrina which hit New Orleans in 2005. In this example, certain boundaries were removed, such as law enforcement and “individual's right to be treated equally” (as defined as part of social inclusion). This leads to individuals looting and stealing just to survive or even benefit from a ‘law-less’ situation. So there could be a risk that if one of these boundaries fail to work properly, it will cause a ‘chaotic’ society.

It is clear that inclusion and exclusion have a major effect on social control and at the same time have pros and cons. From what has been discussed, it is clear that they are needed for a late modern society to exist. However a future risk is when these inclusion and exclusions defined force the people to give up rights as what they are presented is the new ‘norm’ (e.g. ID cards).