Concept and Importance of Social Control

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Louis Rodriguez was a member a gang member in East LA since he was 12 years old. He was slowly lured into the gang because he wanted to gain money and fame in his neighborhood.

In the course of his involvement in the gang, a lot of factors contributed to his involvement. These were the micro factors and macro factors that affect the behavior of an individual.

Micro factors are those factors which grow from within an individual and affect the overall outcome of his behavior (Barling and Cooper 151). Louis had these in him. He wanted to be a famous person within his neighborhood.

This could only be achieved by having money and power. The only way which this can be achieved was by him having an easy access of money. Due to this, he was slowly drawn into the gang.

Macro factors are those factors which come from the surroundings of an individual (Coles 15). For Louis, the gang was the source of macro factors which affected his behavior.

He witnessed people being beaten up, others being killed and robbed from while in the gang. For him to rise up the levels of the gang, he had to commit several crimes and social evil. These factors changed his behavior making him be a danger to the society.

Social Control

In the process of socialization of an individual, social control is an essential aspect. This is because it regulates the behavior of the individual to conform to the rules and regulations of a country.

They are therefore norms or rules which are universal in nature and have to be followed by an individual or the entire society (Fourier 204). If an individual or a group goes against these rules and regulations, they would have committed a criminal offence which is punishable by law.

Social control therefore regulates the behavior of an individual or groups within a society. They aim at maintaining, good relations among members of the society and at the same time they ensure that law and order is maintained.

There are two forms of social control. They are: formal social control and informal social control (Liska 185). Although they have the same intentions of achieving similar objectives, the nature in which they are organized and applied is different.

Informal social control is exercised by the society itself. Its rules and regulations are not stated but operate on the norms and customs which the society follows. Social control is therefore implemented by informal agents through an unofficial capacity of ensuring that law and order is maintained within the society.

As a result therefore, the informal social controls will vary from place to place and region to region within one state or one country. This might be due to the differences in the culture, customs and beliefs of the people in different societies.

Informal social controls use shame, sarcasm and criticism are used to punish those individuals who go against them. Discrimination and exclusion from the society are used at extreme cases.

On the other hand, formal social control is exercised by authorized agents of the state. This includes the police, military officials, employers and judicial officials (Dean 405). This form of social control is carried out as the last result when informal social control fails to instill favorable behavior to the members of the society.

Its implementation and severity of the punishments imposed vary between countries. Social control in the formal context is implemented in the forms of statues, rules and regulations against the individuals or groups who were defiant to the law(s).

Laws against murder, theft and other civil torts for example are directed to all the members of the society. Once they are breached, standard procedures will be followed in instilling punishment to the parties that were found guilty.

Corporate laws and fishing and hunting regulations are directed towards specific individuals or groups within the society and not to all members. When they are breached, there are also standard procedures which will be followed to ensure that the guilty parties suffer punishment for the offences that they committed.

Formal control is contained on written documents that are coded and formalized. Authorized institutions that were created by the government are used to implement them. Due to its strictness it finds easily applicable even in larger populations unlike informal social controls.

Despite their effectiveness and efficiency, applicability of these laws sometimes becomes difficult. This is because they fail to limit social behavior. Informal controls for example are only applicable in small settings where the population is not dense.

On a larger scale, informal control fails since individuals tend to ignore them. Formal controls on the other hand are rigid thus difficult to change or amend to suit the changing behavior of individuals. The world is dynamic and people tend to change their behavior with time. It is therefore difficult for formal control to keep up with this pace to maintain normality and sanity in the society.

Works Cited

Barling, Julian and Cooper, Cary. The SAGE Handbook of Organizational Behavior: Micro approaches. London: SAGE Publications, 2008.

Coles, Roberta. Race & family: a structural approach. London: Sage, 2006.

Dean, Meryll. Japanese Legal System. London: Routledge, 2002.

Fourier, Charles. The phalanx, or, journal of social science. Boston: Ayer Publishing, 2000.

Liska, Allen. Social threat and social control. Manhattan: SUNY Press, 1992.

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Concept and Importance of Social Control

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