Using data from items A, B and C and elsewhere, discuss how far methods of social control have become bureaucratised in the last two hundred years.

Michelle Deluce Tutor Joanne Green Criminology

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SOCIAL CONTROL ORGANISATIONS

From the information provided it shows how different methods of social control have developed over the past two hundred years from public displays of control to the development of early prisons up to present day with CCTV and computerised systems. The post modernist Michel Foucault wrote his book Discipline and Punish (1977) in which he looks at the development of the prison system from 18th century to modern time. He found that two hundred years back, when a person was found guilty of a criminal act, the sovereign or ruler at the time decided their fate. In That time there was no such thing as bureaucracy, there were no files or records on a person in which to retrieve or further document, a decision was made and the outcome was in the form of a public display of punishment by flogging, the stocks or torture and sometimes death. Then gave way to the birth of the prison system in which public displays of punishment converted to other methods of control and the decisions made on how a person be punished was governed by agencies rather than a single person in sovereignty. The goals where no longer to inflict pain and humiliation but to offer a different kind of control, a control of the mind and body and it became a method in which to covert a person rather than a means to an end. Prison became a consequence of a criminal act and whilst incarcerated different forms of control where implemented from rationing of food to control over daily activities such as

sleep as well as enforcement of uniform wearing in which to strip the inmate his/her feeling of self or individuality.

Michelle Deluce Tutor Joanne Green Criminology

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sleep as well as enforcement of uniform wearing in which to strip the inmate his/her feeling of self or individuality.

Michelle Deluce Tutor Joanne Green Criminology

Page 2

The Panopticon, a 19th century prison designed by Jeremy Bentham was a circular like building in which inmates were housed in cells around the building enabling the guards whom where centrally placed and ideally situated, the power in which to watch the inmates without their knowledge at any time almost like an early form of CCTV but without the technology. This prison was a basis for the design of other more modern prisons such as Pentonville. The present day has newer more complex methods of control in place and simpler methods have given way to bureaucratisation, our very lives are documented, filed, and can be raised at any time by institutions that may request it to be. Everything we do can be computerised in the form of taxes, credit card transactions, driving licences and employment records as well as many others; we are all socially controlled in one way or another. There is the implement of CCTV’s in high streets, office buildings council housing estates and other public places in which we can be watched and viewed at most times in the day or night. We are all entangled in red tape and bureaucracy at sometime in our lives whether we are aware or not and for the justice system there isn’t any let off in that there seems to be a system in place for everything, from beginning to end there is a system. The beginning being the police and their role, up to courts and solicitors to the prison system and perhaps in some cases a psychologist onto any institution or system that is in place to help an offender in the outside world during and after time incarcerated.

How do you regard the spread of surveillance?

The spread of surveillance has taken on new meaning over time, what was once simply by one human being watching another in a prison environment has progressed to video surveillance and computerised systems from public and credit records to tagging of sites over the internet. CCTV is

Michelle Deluce Tutor Joanne Green Criminology

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now popping up on council housing estates as a way of combating crime in more deprived areas where crime and poverty is rife. The existence of CCTV can be viewed either as a blessing or a nuisance, on one hand there could be a feeling of safety in knowing they are there and that we are being watched or perhaps there is a feeling of privacy violation. But if we having nothing to hide then what have we to be worried about? only criminals and those doing something they shouldn’t be would take the view that CCTV is not in our best interest. Though it does seem to be the natural order of things and as time moves on it becomes almost invisible and unthought-of as we go about our lives often oblivious of being watched from afar. Perhaps its control gone mad or is it for our own safety that such mechanisms are in place, but are they really for our benefit? In the future where will surveillance be? Will our DNA be recorded from birth? All questions to consider.

Looking at how far we have come in two hundred years it is easy to wonder what next? And are we really a free society as we are often told by those whom are in power, who make the decisions for us but lead us to believe we are making them for ourselves. It is an endless debate were not everyone will agree on which as always been the case or bureaucracy may never have been born had we all shared the same opinion. Bureaucracy is a safety net for those within institutions enabling them backup when required covering their own backs in any situation.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Class handout: Social Control Organisations