Social Control

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Social Control

• SOC110 Introduction to Sociology
• Sarah Goodrum, Ph.D.

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Social Control

• collective effort to ensure conformity to norms
• achieved through a combination of compliance,
  coercion, and commitment to social values

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Types of Social Control

• informal social control direct interpersonal
  pressure to conform to norms
• Solidarity and Conformity in Japan (Hechter and
  Kanazawa 1993) Three Principles
• Principle of Dependence
• Principle of Visibility
• Principle of Extensiveness
• formal social control used for acts of deviance
  that are illegal or otherwise defined as
  providing legal grounds for intervention
• 3 Methods of Formal Social Control
• Prevention
• Deterrence
• Reform and Resocialization

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3 Methods of Formal Social Control

• prevention attempt to reduce opportunities for
  crime or deviance
• e.g., Cambridge-Somerville Experiment (1951)
• deterrence the use of punishment (or the threat
  of punishment) in order to make people unwilling
  to risk deviance
• e.g., Jack Gibbs (1975)
• reform or resocialization effort to change a
  persons socialization to socialize a person
  over again in hopes of getting him or her to
  conform to the norms
• e.g., TARP Study (1982)