Sociology Index
Books, E-Books

Social Control

Books on Social Control, Bibliography, Syllabus, Social Control Abstracts, Journals

Society is best conceived as the product of interactions between component individuals which are controlled by a body of traditions and norms that arise in the process of interaction. Social control is "the central fact and the central problem of society" - Park

Society has several mechanisms for building us and our personality. The first mechanism is socialization. Through socialization we learn who we are and what is expected of us and others in our culture. All of our identities come from society. Socialization begins in childhood and continues throughout our lives as we encounter and move through different institutions. By defining what behavior is good, society also defines what is deviant.

A second mechanism society has for building us is social control, which is used to re-build deviants or at least keep them from interfering with the normal operation of society. Social control ranges from gossip and ridicule to imprisonment and execution. Society also has mechanisms for distributing valued resources. Through stratification society categorizes people and distributes valued resources to them based on the categories. Among the most important categories are class, race and gender.

Our class, race and gender affect how we are socialized, what type of social control we face, what opportunities we receive and what obstacles weface. Finally, society provides us with ideologies, justifications for our systems of socialization, social control and stratification, and other social arrangements. Sociologists use the term sociological imagination to describe the ability to see the impact of these processes on our private lives, we are a consequence of society. People are also the cause of society, we build it. Many important changes happen because of social movements, which consist of many people organized to promote social change. We participate in socializing others, carrying out social control, reproducing the stratification system, and promoting ideologies. Sociologists use the term the social construction of reality to describe how people build the social world. - David Schweingruber.

Social control is defined as any effort to ensure conformity to laws, rules, or norms. It is the flip side of deviant behavior. One often causes the other. When people find behaviors or attributes offensive, they create laws, rules, or norms that prohibit those deviances. Then they will attempt to ensure conformity by enforcing sanctions.

Although it is created to deter deviant behavior, social control may also cause deviant behavior. Gary Marx's article, "Ironies of Social Control," describes three ways in which social control can result in deviant behavior. Note the three concepts in Marx's title: escalation, nonenforcement, and covert facilitation.

Gary T. Marx, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, M.I.T.
Social Control and Police - Technologies of social control - web.mit.edu/gtmarx/www/garyhome.html#socialcontrol

Social control is arguably the oldest concept in sociology. Ever since Edward A. Ross’s treatise of the subject in the late nineteenth century, social control has remained alive in sociology and criminology, although with different meanings.’ At first, social control referred to a society’s capacity to regulate itself. Then it was employed to indicate the more repressive and coercive forms of top-down control in capitalist regimes. From the 1950s onwards, social control has been conceived more narrowly in relationship to deviance and/or crime: social control refers to those mechanisms that are put into operation in response to crime, deviant behavior, or other deviations from socially prescribed norms. Within the last perspective, recent years have seen new forms of social control, generally thought of as progressive and rational alternatives to oppressive and coercive means, are added to the already existing systems of punishment, criminal justice and social control.

Deflem, Mathieu. 1992. “The Invisibilities of Social Control: Uncovering Gary Marx’s Discovery of Undercover.” Crime, Law and Social Change 18(1/2):177-192. - mathieudeflem.net

Park's view is that society is best conceived as the product of interactions between component individuals which are controlled by a body of traditions and norms that arise in the process of interaction. Social control is "the central fact and the central problem of society." www2.pfeiffer.edu/~lridener/DSS/Park/PARKW2.HTML

What are deviant behavior and social control? In chapter 1 of Deviant Behavior Erich Goode begins by debunking what he considers false conceptions of deviance. His "Five Misleading Definitions of Deviance" correspond to the misconceptions of many laypersons and several scholars as well. - extend.indiana.edu/courses/soc/socs320b/lesson1/disc1a.htm

Books On Social Control

Identity and Control: How Social Formations Emerge by Harrison C. White

Social Control: An Introduction by James Chriss

Women, Law, and Social Control - Alida V. Merlo, Joycelyn M. Pollock
Examines women as offenders, professionals, and victims. Explores current issues, including the increase in women’s imprisonment rates, women as rape survivors, women who kill in abusive relationships, and women working within the criminal justice system.

Colonizing Sex: Sexology and Social Control in Modern Japan - by Sabine Fruhstuck
Study of sex, power, and knowledge in modern Japan, this ambitious work provides the first full-scale, detailed history of the formation and application of a science of sex from Meiji through mid-twentieth century Japan. Tracing the different uses made of sexual knowledge, the book brings to light the complex and subtle interplay between sexuality, scientific expertise, social control, and empire building.

The Social Control of Cities?: A Comparative Perspective (Studies in Urban and Social Change) - by Sophie Body-Gendrot
The purpose of this chapter is to test the possible correlation between the impact of the globalization of the economy on the city, the growth of inequalities and of power conflicts, and the violence and crime which may ensue in specific segregated urban areas.

On Social Organization and Social Control (Heritage of Sociology Series)
Morris Janowitz, James Burk (Editor)
The task of his "pragmatic sociology" was to identify fundamental trends in the social organization of industrial societies, to indicate their substantive implications for social control, and to clarify realistic alternatives for institution building which would strengthen the prospects for maintaining liberal democratic regimes.
Organized to demonstrate the common logic of inquiry and substantive unity of Janowitz's contribution to several subfields of sociology, the collection includes analyses of the concept of social control, ethnic intolerance and hostility, citizenship in Western societies, models for urban education, and the professionalization of military elites.

Mass Media, Social Control, and Social Change: A Macrosocial Perspective - David Pearce Demers, K Viswanath, (Editor)
Many theories of mass communications deal with the issue of social control, but few are conceived specifically as theories of social control.

Test Card F : Television, Mythinformation and Social Control by Anonymous, Various
Test Card F systematically dismantles the myth-machine of Television, and in the process brings down the culture of distraction surrounding Television.
Test Card F addresses the issue of The Society of the Spectacle - what happens when we all become viewers, spectators in our lives? Today's television viewers are more informed than ever in mankind's history, but are we more active? What is the role of commercials in the television mindscape? Who are these people on the box we see every day? Just who's at the controls here?

Religion, Deviance and Social Control by Rodney Stark, William Sims Bainbridge

Deviance and Social Control: A Reader by Ronald Weitzer
Conveniently divided into five comprehensive parts, Deviance and Social Control provides readers with a selection of articles that examine core issues in the field of deviant behavior and social control.

Images of Deviance and Social Control by Stephen J Pfohl
A persuasive theme is that power relations, which are socially organized, shape a person's perception, definition, and reaction to deviance; thus, the study of deviance and social control is decidedly political.

Social Control in Slave Plantation Societies: A Comparison of St. Domingue and Cuba by Gwendolyn Midlo Hall

Power and Persuasion: Fiestas and Social Control in Rural Mexico by Stanley Brandes
In "Power and Persuasion" Stanley Brandes demonstrates how the annual fiesta cycle reflects political dependency of local communities on the nation-state, helps maintain formal authority, and perpetuates behavioral norms and social values.

Catholicism, social control, and modernization in Latin America (Modernization of traditional societies series) by Ivan Vallier

Obscenity: Social Control and Artistic Creation in the European Middle Ages (Cultures, Beliefs, and Traditions, Vol 4) by Jan M. Ziolkowski (Editor)

"Licentious Liberty" in a Brazilian Gold-Mining Region: Slavery, Gender, and Social Control in Eighteenth-Century Sabara, Minas Gerais by Kathleen J. Higgins
Shows how the gender relations between female slaves and their white masters have often subverted the values of a hypocritical and conservative society, allowing the changing of status of black women, among which the most famous one was certainly Chica da Silva, a former slave who began to live among the members of the limited gold-mining elite after becoming the concubine of a portuguese official.

Serfdom and Social Control in Russia: Petrovskoe, a Village in Tambov by Steven Hoch
Topics covered include amount and kinds of food available to the peasants, housing conditions, household size, marriage patterns, and methods of social control.

Social Control In Europe: 1800-2000 (The History of Crime and Criminal Justice) by Clive Emsley (Editor), Eric Johnson (Editor), Pieter Spierenburg (Editor)

Punishment and Social Control: Essays in Honor of Sheldon L. Messinger (New Lines in Criminology) by T. G. Blomberg (Editor), Stanley Cohen (Editor), Thomas G. Blomberg (Editor), S. Cohen (Editor)

Understanding Social Control Martin Innes
Provides a clear, yet panoramic analysis of how the concept of social control has been used by different theoretical traditions in the social sciences.
Understanding Social Control investigates how the concept of social control has been used to capture the ways in which individuals, communities and societies respond to a variety of forms of deviant behaviour. In so doing, the book demonstrates how an appreciation of the meanings of the concept of social control is vital to understanding the dynamics and trajectories of social order in contemporary late-modern societies. Through an analysis of a range of different modes of social control including: policing, imprisonment, surveillance, risk management, audit and architecture, this book explores how and why the mechanisms and processes of social control are changing.

Social Control and Political Order: European Perspectives at the End of the Century. by Roberto Bergalli (Editor), Colin S Sumner (Editor)
Social control is a key concept within sociology, arguably one of the most important. Contributors debate the issues relating to the future of social control from a range of perspectives. Social Control and Political Order provides an in-depth examination of the debates on the possibilities and problems for social control as a core sociological concept.

Visions of Social Control: Crime, Punishment, and Classification Stanley Cohen
Excellent and Inspiring,
Stanley Cohen's Visions of Social Control is a unique book in criminological theory. It looks at imprisonment and its alternatives through a macro-historical perspective, comparing models and approaches all over the map, from Rothman to Foucault and Ignatieff.

'Of Good and Ill Repute': Gender and Social Control in Medieval England Barbara Hanawalt
Hanawalt explores how social control was maintained in Medieval England. She examines the complex social regulations and stigmatizations that medieval society used to arrive at decisions about certain individuals.

Corporate Crime, Law, and Social Control (Cambridge Studies in Criminology)
by Sally S. Simpson, Alfred Blumstein, David Farrington (Series Editor)
The purpose of this book is to examine whether a shift toward the use of criminal law with its emphasis on punishment and stigmatization will be a successful crime control strategy.

Slaves and Masters in the Roman Empire: A Study in Social Control
by K. R. Bradley
The author demonstrates, first, how the tensions generated between slaves and masters can be perceived in the ancient sources, and, second, how those tensions were dealt with, as masters treated their slaves with varying forms of generosity and punishment in order to elicit obedience from them.

Punishment in America : Social Control and the Ironies of Imprisonment
by Michael Welch
The overarching themes of Punishment in America are social control and the ironic effects of incarceration. In an effort to reduce crime, the criminal justice system ironically produces various self-defeating measures. Moreover, these pitfalls in current correctional policy and practice which neglect fundamental social inequality merely compound the problem of crime.

The Culture of Surveillance: Discipline and Social Control in the United States (Contemporary Social Issues (New York, N.Y.).) by William G. Staples
This provocative new book traces a continuum of social controls, from the simple surveillance camera to lie-detector tests. This book will help readers identify with and understand the consequences of social control.

Policing, Surveillance and Social Control: Cctv and Police Monitoring of Suspects
by Tim Newburn, Stephanie Hayman

Where the Law Ends: The Social Control of Corporate Behavior by Christopher D. Stone

German Catholics and Hitler's Wars: A Study in Social Control by Gordon C. Zahn

Social Threat and Social Control (Suny Series in Deviance and Social Control)
by Allen E. Liska (Editor)

Social Control : Views from the Social Sciences (SAGE Focus Editions) by Jack P. Gibbs
What role will the law, the mass media, or behaviour modification have in preventing socially undesirable actions or guiding the course of society? What will be subject to social control in the future? What will its impact be on specific institutions, the family, education, and politics? Social control of some sort is necessary: when does it begin to interfere with freedom?

Social Control and Political Order - European Perspectives at the End of the Century
Edited by: Roberto Bergalli University of Barcelona, Spain
Colin S Sumner University of Salford, UK
Assessment of issues surrounding the concept of social control, and indicates its significance for the new political orders developing in contemporary Europe. The contributors debate the issues relating to the future of social control from a range of perspectives.

Women and the Social Control of Their Bodies. Reading, Berkshire: Research Publications for the British Library of Political and Economic Science, 1988
COVERAGE The institutions of marriage and family were threatened by the new methods of birth control which became available in the late 19th century. The first organization in England dedicated to advocating the practice of birth control was the Malthusian League.

Punishment and Social Control

Corporate Crime Law and Social Control

Images of Deviance and Social Control

Deviance and Social Control A Reader

A Study in Social Control

Sexology and Social Control Japan

Serfdom and Social Control in Russia

Social Threat and Social Control Religion Deviance and Social Control

German Catholics and Hitlers Wars

Social Control in Eighteenth Century Sabara

Catholicism social control and modernization

Social Control and the Ironies of Imprisonment

Social Control of Corporate Behavior