LO2 Flashcards
(44 cards)
Internal forms of social control?
Control over our behaviour that comes from within ourselves, our personalities or morals.
They’re forms of self-control and lead us to conform to the rules of society and the groups we belong to. We feel inwardly that this is the right thing to do.
How does Freud and the superego link to internal social control?
It’s the idea of confirming to society’s expectations and obeying its rule because our superego tells us to do. Our personality is made up of ID, ego and superego. Our superego tells us what is right and wrong and inflicts guilty feelings on us as if we fail to do as it urges.
Tradition and culture.
Become part of us through socialisation. We accept its values, norms and traditions as part of our identity. For example, religious traditions we have been raised with.
Socialisation.
We internalise these rules through this process, either from our parents or wider social groups and institutions. In this way society’s rules become our own personal rules and moral code. We come to conform willingly to social norms.
Rational ideology.
This is a term that has been used to describe the fact that we internalise social roles and use them to tell us what is right and wrong. It enables us to keep within the law.
External social control.
Way do ensuring that we conform to society’s expectations and keep to its rules. This is achieved through agencies of social control.
Examples of agencies of social control?
Family
Peer groups
Education
Coercion
It is the use of force or threat of it in order to make someone do or stop something.
Fear of punishment
Is a form of coercion as it includes threat of force being used against you if you don’t object the law.
What does Travis Hirschi say
That people confirm as they’re controlled by their bonds to society, which keep them from deviating. He argues that delinquents act occurs when an individuals bind to society is weak and broken.
How does parenting play a part in external social control.
Created bonds that prevent young people from offering, sting involvement.
Retribution.
It’s based on the idea of punishment.
The offender deserved punishment for their acts.
It doesn’t seem to reduce crime or change offenders future behaviour.
The offender should suffer as they have breached society’s moral codes.
The punishment needs to be in proportion to the crime.
Retribution theories.
Right realists- theory of rational choice theory links to retribution as it assumes that those who commit crime, consciously choose to commit their crimes and are fully responsible for their actions.
Functionalists sociologists- like durkheim, the moral outrage that retribution expresses performs the function of boundary maintenance. By punishing the offender it reminds everyone of the difference between right and wrong.
Criticisms of retribution.
It could be argued that offenders deserve forgiveness or a chance to make amends, not just be punished.
Fixed tariffs or penalties have to be inflicted even where no good is going to coke of them. Eg. a remorseful offender who will commie no further crimes.
Rehabilitation.
The idea that a punishment can be used to change or reform offenders behaviour so they can go on to lead a crime free life.
It uses treatment programmes to change future behaviours.
It includes education and training, anger management and drug treatment and testing orders. The programme ls require offenders to what to change their lives.
Rehabilitation theories.
Individualist- See rehabilitation as a significant aim of punishment. They support the various ways of changing the offender’s behaviour.
Cognitive- Favour CBT to teacher the offenders ways to correct their thinking errors and biases that lead to aggressive or criminal behaviour.
Eysenck- Favours the use of aversion therapy to deter offending behaviour.
Skinner- Supports the use of token economy to encourage prisoners to produce more acceptable behaviour.
Sociological- They regard social factors like unemployment, poverty and poor education as the causes of crime. By addressing the needs of these offenders, it helps reduce offending.
Criticisms of rehabilitation.
Right realists- Argue that rehabilitation has limited success in that many offenders go on to re-offend even after undergoing programmes aimed at changing their behaviour.
Marxists- Criticise rehabilitation programmes for shifting the responsibility for offending into the offenders failings rather than focusing on how capitalism leads some people to commit crime.
Deterrence theories.
Right realists- Favours deterrence as a means of crime prevention.
Rational choice- theory see individuals as rational actors who weigh up costs and benefits before deciding whether to offend. Severe punishment ls and high chance of being caught acts as a deterrent.
Situational crime prevention- Startegies such as a target hardening make it harder to commit an office successfully acts as a deterrent.
Social learning theory- Is relevant to understanding general deterrence. if would be offenders see a model being punished for offending they will be less likely to imitate that behaviour.
Criticisms of deterrence
Very little evidence that short sharp shocks or boog camps reduce youth offending either in the UK or USA.
More than half of petsoners reoffend within a year of release suggests prison isn’t an effective deterrent.
How do we decide how severe a punishment needs to be for it to deter would be offenders?
It assumes that offenders act rationally, carefully, weighing up the risks but some act irrationally driven by their emotions without thought for the likely punishment.
When people do follow the law it might be because they believe that it is right to do so not because of deterrence.
Public protection.
Incapacitation punishments may be used to protect the public from further offending the incapacitating the offenders. it removes the offenders physical capacity to offend again.
Imprisonment takes offenders out of circulation and prevents them committing further crimes against the public (incapacitation).
Public protection theories.
Biological theories- Lombroso argued that criminals are biologically different from the rest of the population and it’s not possible to change or rehabilitate them. He favoured sending habitual criminals into exile. Other theories have favoured chemical of surgical castration to incapitation sexual offenders.
Right realists- see incapactation as a way of protecting the public from crime. A small number of persistent offenders are responsible for the majority of crimes, so incapacitating them with king prison sentences will significantly reduce the crime rate.
Public protection criticisms.
-Ever-rising prison population.
-Doesn’t change offenders or deal with the causes of crimes.
-The 3 strikes principle re-punishes individuals for their previous crime.
-Unfair as it is locking people up as they might re-offend.
Reparation
This is aimed at compensating the victim of the crime usalky by ordering the offender to pay a sum of money to the victim or do things like return stole goods or community service.
Restorative justice is often used which brings the offenders and the victim together through a mediator. It allows the victim to explain the impact the crime has had and the offender can appreciate the harm they have caused, express their remorse and seek to forgiveness.
Reparations theorises.
Labelling theory- They say you are stopping people from being labelled for the rest of their lives from the thing they have done.
Functionalists- They say this puts things back to how they should be eg. society back to how it should be.
