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Social Order and Social Control
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Crime Control and Social Policy
In this course, Dr Eveleigh Buck-Matthews (Birmingham City University) explores crime control and social policy. In the first lecture, we think about social order and social control, reviewing who holds power in society and some key theories which seek to explain the occurrence of criminal behaviour. In the second lecture, we think about crime control and the link between its methodologies and the issue of power. In the third lecture, we think about the origin of formal crime prevention in the form of the police force, as well as ten modern principles of crime prevention. Next, we think about the evolution of punishment through time and current criticisms of its use. In the fifth and final lecture, we think about social policy and crime, divided into left and right wing perspectives.
Social Order and Social Control
In this lecture, we think about social order and social control, focusing in particular on: (i) how the power held by institutions like the police force and smaller formations like family units can impact crime prevalence; (ii) John Locke’s social contract theory, which states that people give away some rights and responsibility to ‘state agents’ in return for the safety of operating in a community or group; (iii) the Arab Spring as an example of when a nation state has not upheld this social contract; (iv) the Black Lives Matter movement as an example of an eruption of social unrest in the face of a state being perceived to have broken a social contract with its citizens; (v) deviation from social norms, which should be considered in the context of the time, due to them being continually in flux; (vi) some key examples of changing social norms; (vii) Hirschi’s social bond theory, which states that young people develop bonds with their families, caregivers and peers that act to inhibit criminal behaviour; (viii) the four elements of social bond theory being attachment, belief, investment and involvement.
Hello and welcome. My name is Doctor Ely.
00:00:06Book Matthews and I work as a lecture in criminology at Birmingham City University.
00:00:09I'll be exploring crime and control, but to begin with,
00:00:14it's important to understand social order and social control.
00:00:17Really, The foundations, um,
00:00:22for how we understand and why we implement crime and control measures.
00:00:24An important element to understand when we unpack social order is the idea of power
00:00:30who holds it, who exerts it, and also in what ways and
00:00:37processes does it infiltrate into our everyday lives? How does it protect us?
00:00:42But also in what ways do institutions like the police, the criminal justice system
00:00:47and our legal system? How is it all constructed to
00:00:53create and enable a safe and stable society?
00:00:58These institutions
00:01:03like the police
00:01:05and laws.
00:01:06They're all put in place to support a stable society,
00:01:07one in which deviant behaviour and criminal behaviour and activities are,
00:01:12or how we attempt to regulate these kind of behaviours
00:01:18social order, the way in which society institutions,
00:01:22whether this is the police or criminal, just system or more smaller familial units,
00:01:26things like the family or friendship groups,
00:01:31how these construct social norms and values that really inhibit criminal activity
00:01:34activity or deviant behaviour from taking place in the first place.
00:01:41Um, social order is maintained.
00:01:44It could be by a police officer telling a young
00:01:47person to avoid skateboarding in a certain public area.
00:01:50Or it could be facilitated through peer pressure by friends
00:01:53convince you not to run naked down the street.
00:01:58It could be internalised,
00:02:01individually as shame or guilt at an act that
00:02:03is against social order or is conceived as deviant.
00:02:08Social order can be considered using the theory of
00:02:13social contract established by John Locke in the 17th century,
00:02:17an idea where at where a group come together,
00:02:22where people naturally form groups and communities in order to establish safety.
00:02:27To do this,
00:02:34they go give over an element of rights and responsibilities to a state agent.
00:02:34We've seen how this has developed into things like
00:02:39the police and the criminal justice justice system.
00:02:42Over time, this contract has evolved, um, into
00:02:47one that does not simply consider law and order and punishment,
00:02:52but one that is also established around rights and responsibilities,
00:02:56responsibilities that we have to the state but also
00:03:00rights that should be protected by that nation state.
00:03:03But what happens if states or governments do not uphold this social contract?
00:03:07One example we can have seen in the last decade has been the Arab spring.
00:03:12We can look at this through the lens of a social contract.
00:03:19El Hadid discusses how in North Africa, an unsocial contract had developed
00:03:22that indeed, the
00:03:29individual rights and responsibilities
00:03:30from the state were not benefiting the masses.
00:03:33Instead, they were only benefiting an elite,
00:03:37thus breaking the contract,
00:03:42not working for common goals. But in the interests of a few.
00:03:44The growing inequality and unrest
00:03:48is one
00:03:51way in which we have theorised why protest and subsequent revolution took place
00:03:53in countries like Tunisia and Egypt,
00:03:59social order is maintained through social values and norms. If
00:04:02this social order is or becomes seen as being
00:04:08UN beneficial to the majority,
00:04:13subsequent unrest or
00:04:15civil unrest and protests can
00:04:18erupt. We've seen this nationally with
00:04:22the B L M movement.
00:04:25Social control is the way in which a group regulates itself.
00:04:28It is
00:04:32embodied or is or gains power through the use of social norms and values.
00:04:34These are a set of instructions and elements that
00:04:40individuals and societies create in order to regulate behaviours.
00:04:43Deviance is understood as the deviation from the social norms
00:04:49behaviour that violates
00:04:53these
00:04:56key kind of areas and values that society has constructed
00:04:58to mitigate
00:05:03the disruption of stability.
00:05:04There's a key thing to remember when we
00:05:07discuss social norms and deviation from them.
00:05:09Social norms and values are continuously in flux.
00:05:12Always changing what was considered deviant or violating of these
00:05:17social norms 30 years ago is very different to today.
00:05:21For instance, uh, smoking in the workplace or in public spaces
00:05:25wasn't considered a deviant act 30 years ago,
00:05:30but today could be penalised with a fine
00:05:34or um, incarceration.
00:05:37Another example would be, um, the consumption of marijuana.
00:05:39The recreational use of cannabis is now decriminalising
00:05:4421 out of 50 states in the United States
00:05:48once criminalised and would find you, um, imprisoned, fined
00:05:52and, uh, major criminology consequences.
00:05:58It is now a legal prescription as well as recreationally used
00:06:02our ideas of what is criminal and deviant changes throughout time,
00:06:08and therefore the way in which we
00:06:12enact social order around these actions also changes
00:06:14another way in which we can think about social order
00:06:19and Social Control is through the social bond theory.
00:06:22In 1969 Hershey established a theory
00:06:26to understand why deviant behaviour happened,
00:06:30why people,
00:06:33um, engaged in behaviours that went against those social norms and values?
00:06:34He stated that in early childhood, young people developed a bond,
00:06:40um, a bond not only with their family,
00:06:44but and also a bond and an understanding around what good and bad behaviours
00:06:46took place and why
00:06:53social bonds act to inhibit criminal behaviour.
00:06:55They exist and are created, um,
00:06:58to form a relationship between the individual and the state.
00:07:03Social bond theory argues that a person that has
00:07:08established bonds is less likely to commit criminal behaviour,
00:07:11a social bond with their immediate family and friends,
00:07:15but also to the state and nation.
00:07:18There are four elements to social bond theory, attachment, belief,
00:07:21investment and involvement.
00:07:26To conclude a defining link in these elements
00:07:29is really thinking through ideas of power.
00:07:32Either using these two theories, um, in order to unpack social order,
00:07:36Um, but when we discuss or think about social control, it's about who has power,
00:07:42who exerts it and why.
00:07:47I've discussed, uh, two relevant theories and also um, an example,
00:07:50really to illustrate
00:07:55in what ways social order
00:07:56exists,
00:07:59how it can be controlled and then the subsequent
00:08:00consequences
00:08:04if it is not maintained.
00:08:06
Cite this Lecture
APA style
Buck-Matthews, E. (2023, April 06). Crime Control and Social Policy - Social Order and Social Control [Video]. MASSOLIT. https://massolit.io/courses/crime-control-and-social-policy
MLA style
Buck-Matthews, E. "Crime Control and Social Policy – Social Order and Social Control." MASSOLIT, uploaded by MASSOLIT, 06 Apr 2023, https://massolit.io/courses/crime-control-and-social-policy