What is Social Control? Discuss the Main Agencies of Social Control in British Society Today.

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What is Social Control? Discuss the Main Agencies of Social Control in British Society Today.

In this assignment, I will attempt to show what social control is and how social control is achieved through the main agencies within British Society. To do this I will use the Internet and books and journals if and when necessary to back up any points I will be making. First of all we must define what social control actually is.

        Social Control is control we put upon ourselves - internal control - public opinion, norms and values and lawful control. Ross (1894) defined social control as being: -

"The process by which a community conforms to a set of rules"

He was concerned with creating harmony in society. He looked into how to persuade people to live to a set of rules.

Anyone who various from these rules are seen as a deviant, a non-conformist, i.e. they are a criminal because they are acting in a manner that we, as a society, believe is being unacceptable to our norms and values. So what are norms and what are values? Norms are culturally established rules within a society/community. Values give us information and have a broad meaning. We learn norms and values from a process of social interaction i.e. socialisation. Norms and values are what create a society and it enables all members to meet basic needs, e.g. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Social control allows all of us access to these basic needs. But why do some people deviate, even though the majority don't? The Crime and Deviance web site says: -

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"Social control theorists argue that the more involved and committed a person is to conventional activities, the greater the attachment to others (such as family and friends), the less likely that a person is to violate the rules of society."


The site goes on to say: -

"Juveniles and adults conform to the law in response to certain controlling forces which are present in their lives. Thus, they are likely to become criminal when the controlling forces in their lives are defective or absent."

But according to Durkheim, needs, desires and aspirations are restrained by the norms ...

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