Prisons as Social Control Mechanisms

This assignment examines the role of prisons as instruments of social control from a sociological perspective. Students are tasked with critically evaluating the various functions of prisons within society, considering how they influence individuals, communities, and broader social structures. The analysis should draw upon relevant sociological theories and research to provide a nuanced understanding of the complex relationship between imprisonment and social control.

HOW RELEVANT IS THE
PRISON IN DISCUSSING
SOCIAL CONTROL TODAY?

“Injustice anywhere is threat to justice everywhere”
- Martin Luther King
There is a requirement of certain rules and regulations in the society so that the criminal
activities can be reduced. Further, there are various factors that take control of these acts, they
are, internal and external means of control. The essay makes comprehensive discussion on the
concept of social control discussing varied that can have adequate control over the society. In
order to make the understanding to the stated knowledge concrete, role of imprisonment in social
control will be discussed. Imprisonment helps in inculcating positive effects in the society in
order to reduce the crime which will also be focussed in the essay. Further, the essay ponders on
different purposes of punishment such as, Deterrence, Incapacitation, Rehabilitation, Retribution
and Restitution. In the end, the essay will ponder on relevance of prison in social control.
Social control is the ability of internal and external forces that helps in regulating the
society in appropriate manner. The concept of social control is related to upholding discipline in
the society. There can be two types of social controls which are mentioned as under:
As per informal means of control, a person is born with a certain type of behaviour further it
is also inculcated in him by his family members. It helps in keeping the individual in confined
boundaries (Ross, 2017). The inner thought of individual with respect to social norms and values
that has been learnt in his early growth days helps in inculcating right and proper thinking so that
criminal activities can be prevented.
As per formal means of control, control activities that are introduced by the government in
the form of stringent laws and penalties in order to reduce criminal activities in the society. It
keeps a person in certain boundaries which restricts them from committing any crime, out of fear
of getting penalised or punished.
However, in contrast to this, a person must get deviated from his behaviour due to external
influential factors which ultimately forces him to commit a crime. Some of the factors include,
revenge, anger, unsatisfied wishes etc.
Imprisonment is considered as one of the primary methods that are used to control
criminal activities in the society. In other words, it is also known as one of the significant activity
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of social control. In the thirteenth century, prison was not used as a method of punishment.
People were imprisoned to make them perform some work so that they can pay for their debts,
wait for the trials in the courts and based on the non-fulfilment of any obligation they were
penalised or punished. In sixteenth century, the imprisonment activity was shifted to punishment
which was a new and reformed idea of social control (Kent and Carmichael, 2014). When any
criminal activity that was used to be performed by the individual then he used to be imprisoned
as a part of his punishment. According to the current scenario in UK, imprisonment is used as a
tool to protect crime, further protecting deviant behaviour of the individual as well. However, the
measure can not be called as the only tool of social control as there are various other methods
that are also used by the government which includes, hang by death, financial penalty etc. It also
acts as a driving factor to promote social control and prevent people from committing any
activity that is not legal by nature (Liebling and Maruna, 2013).
The government holds the power to punish an individual if any law that has been framed
for the public have been violated. It helps in bringing adequate control over people of society and
initiating appropriate regulations on it. There is a broad conception of related to imprisonment or
any other punishment that helps public institutions to form adequate number of rules and
regulations that are related to it.
The proportionality of the punishment is decided based on the intensity of crime that has
been done by the individual. Punishments are said to be deserved if the seriousness of the
criminal activities is equal to it. A major difference between the offence conducted and
punishment extended can bring loss, directly to the individual. Punishments can sometimes tend
to be less severe than the offence conducted which can offend the aggrieved party.
The length of imprisonment must match the crime that has been conducted by the individual
and it should never be more severe than it. The main reason of it is it can develop a sense of
revenge in the mind of the offender further ruining his life after the completion of imprisonment
duration as well.
When the severity of the imprisonment is more than compared to that of the crime that has
been committed by the individual, then in that case, it can lead to violation of fundamental rights
of the individual as a member of the society (Downes and et.al., 2013). The lethal violence in the
country can be initiated due to unjustified punishment extended.
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Rather than imprisonment being a part of punishment to the offender, it must be an
instrument of justice for the people of the society. The punishment extended to the offender must
not take up the basic rights of the individual that has been given by the society. Some of them
includes, fair distribution of opportunities, resources and rights.
The rights given to the people or any institution to imprison an individual based upon the
offence being conducted by him must not be misused for own benefits. Adoption of
imprisonment helps in reducing criminal activities in the country. In addition to this, it has strong
emphasis on reduction of violence as well. The criminal justice helps in serving the people best
by providing utmost safety to them from the criminals and their activities (Gowan and
Whetstone, 2012). It is obvious that imprisonment helps in reduction of the crime in the society
but it also helps in bringing equality in the society by initiating adequate safety to every
individual and delivers social justice to every individual. However, critically assessing the stated
fact, there are some people who tend to come under imprisonment even if no crime has been
committed by them. The reason can be that they may not be able to prove themselves innocent in
front of the court. Imprisonment of these types of people tends to increase the state of revenge in
them further motivating them to commit the crime when they come outside of the prison. In that
case, prison may not be considered as a body of social control (Nellis, Beyens and Kaminski,
2013).
Prisons play a significant role from reducing crime from societies as it brings a sense of
fear among people for not conducting any activity that is unjustified. Criminal activities tend to
create violent activities in the country, further developing revengeful nature in people. It is the
reason due to which prisons were introduced so as to assert control over criminal activities in the
country. Earlier, the practice that used to be followed by the officials was that the person who
conducted any crime was removed from the society as there was no law and order regarding
punishment. Further, it was difficult to understand the severity of the offence as well so the
punishment that used to be extended to people was almost same to every individual committing
crime. Generalizing the applicability of the punishment was proved to be unjustified to several
individuals whose crime was not severe (Cheliotis, 2016). Hence, the imprisonment duration
decided for them was not appropriate. It can inculcate a sense of inequality that is promoted in
the society further breaking the basic human rights of the individual (Marzano, Ciclitira and
Adler, 2012).
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Application of prisons as a punishment for the activities was appropriate so that the
individual can be punished based on the severity of their crime. The activity is referred to as less
coercive source of social control than the one which was previously followed by the authorities.
Further, the assault was also performed on the family members of the criminals which instigated
violence between the two parties involved in the matter. The adoption of prisons helped in
reducing these types of activities and bringing peace to the environment in appropriate manner.
It helps in removing the person from the society who has committed the crime for some time and
is kept in the prison for the sake of rehabilitation and making sure that no other criminal
activities is performed by the individual which may cause damage to other individual in the
society (Davis, 2003).
Further, removing criminals from the society or threatening them of imprisonment helps
in reducing the rates of crime in the neighbourhood further bringing down the fear of crime as
well. There is no direct study present that has been conducted on assessing the imprisonment as
less coercive activity than other but it has been proved that imprisonment and fear of being
imprisoned have direct impact on the reduction of crime in the society. Removing the individual
from the society for some time and imprisoning him may help in preventing the criminal activity
as the person is not provided with adequate freedom that can help him to perform crime or
hurting an individual in the neighbourhood (Cochran, 2014). The incapacity to perform that
action and providing adequate amount of psychological counselling to the person helps in
bringing the individual back to the normal life giving adequate certainty that the criminal activity
will not be performed by the individual again when he will get back to the normal life and to the
same society in which he was living earlier. The in capacitative condition helps in giving
adequate time to the authorities to reinforce something on the criminal so that his mindset can be
changed. It can be done through counselling sessions, training programmes etc. Based upon the
suggestions extended by the critics of prison, it can be analysed that there is an overuse of prison
and rather than imprisonment there are various other methods can be used. It includes curfews,
community service and treatment orders (Knight, 2016). It has been analysed that the people who
have gone through the alternative measures are at lower risk of reoffended rather than the one
who have been entered into the prison further decreasing the reoffending rates as well.
Reducing the criminal activities in the society requires adequate amount of penalty and
punishment. It helps in frightening the people from conducting any crime. However, if in case,
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any criminal activity has been performed by the individual then he is made responsible for the
imprisonment. Out of fear of being given worse punishment, people restrict themselves from
committing any crime. There are five possible reasons due to which criminals are punished. They
are, Deterrence Incapacitation, Rehabilitation, Retribution, and Restitution:
The main purpose is to prevent future happenings of the crime. Further, there are two types
of crime, they are, specific deterrence and general deterrence. In case of individual deterrence,
punishment is given to an individual based upon the criminal activities being conducted by him.
The individual do not conduct any other crime after coming out of the imprisonment out of fear
of being punished in the worst manner. General deterrence is performed when it applies to the
public (Staples, 2013). When the public get aware of the punishment being given to an individual
then they tend to commit the crime less likely in comparison to the period before. For instance, if
the individual has been punished by death of penalty or lifetime imprisonment then in that case,
it will create a sense of fear in the public which will restrict them from committing any crime.
Incapacitation helps in removing the criminal from the society. Some of the common
examples of incapacitation is death penalty, house arrest etc. Further, rehabilitation is the method
which helps in altering the behaviour of the behaviour of the criminal. It helps in inculcating the
behaviour that can help in reduction of the criminal activities. This program is common in case
of involvement of the defendant in drugs who are non violent yet dangerous to the society since
they pursue deviant behaviour. Some of the common rehabilitation programmes include,
education and vocational training programme, placement of the individual in treatment centres
and organizing counselling sessions for the person (Pratt and et.al., 2005). The court have right
to make the combination of rehabilitation with that of incarceration. It reduces the possibility of
re-offending behaviour.
Retribution helps in reducing the criminal activities by removing the revengeful attitude
against the defendant. It is important that the victim is adequately punished for the crime. It helps
in reducing the revengeful nature that can be possessed by the family member or the innocent
party himself for the crime that has been committed by the defendant. The criminal procedure
must be in such a manner that helps in achieving the satisfaction level of both the parties. It helps
in building faith on the government and the law that is enforceable in the country (Kaye, 2013).
Restitution is punishing the individual or defendant in financial terms also helps in reducing
the crime to some extent. The activity is conducted when the court asks the defendant to pay for
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the harm being caused to the innocent party. The loss being faced by the plaintiff is assessed and
based on it the court decides the amount of damages to be paid. Restitution can be in the form of
physical injuries, loss of money of property leaving the plaintiff into losses, emotional distress
extended by the plaintiff. It helps in taking adequate fine from the defendants which restricts him
from repeating the mistake again.
A prison is a facility which is also known as correctional facility or detention centre.
People in the jail and forcefully confined to a specific place further denying variety of freedoms.
This place is basically used as a punishment to the defendants which are found guilty of some
crime. It is also used as a tool for political repression where the people involved in the political
matters are punished due to their involvement in crimes. In contrast to this, it has to be noted that
the characteristics possessed by the people who are presently in prison it have been there in past
as compared to the one who are living in the population as a whole. Therefore, they require
special attention as they are not accepted by the society in the same manner after coming out of
the prison (Examine Sociological perspective on prison as a form of punishment, 2016).
It is the tendency of human that if they are not punished for something they tend to
continue this activity for longer period of time without hesitation. In order to reduce its impact it
is important for the government to take adequate steps that can help in dealing with the issue.
Therefore, to solve these problems, prison was invented so that a sense of regulation can be
initiated in the environment of the society (Wildeman and Muller, 2012). It has adequate control
over the society as the people with deviant behaviour or of revengeful nature can be stopped
from conducting any illegal activity. It develops a threat in the minds of the people that if any
illegal or criminal activity will be performed by them then it will lead to imprisonment and
penalised for the same. The sense of fear in them helps in reducing the these types of functions in
the environment.
Punishment and social control are the acknowledging factors as increase in the
punishment activities directly helps in developing social control in the environment by reducing
criminal activities. The person must possess inner sense of control where the decision must rely
in his own hands that the action performed by him is right or wrong. The values, beliefs and
relationships inculcated by the person helps in reflecting it in the nature he possesses. The inner
self control is tied with the deviant behaviour of the individual.
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Social control theory seeks to focus on reduction of the deviant behaviour so that criminal
activities can be reduced (Sudbury, 2014). As per the research, the behaviour of the people who
tends to stay in the prison for longer period was studied. It reflected that there are majority of
people in the prison who thinks that they will not be indulging in any illegal activity after coming
out of the jail. However, there are some people who get to involve in revengeful nature and try to
take retaliate on being imprisoned. In that case, they are provided with counselling sessions so
that their behaviour can be changed. It helps in ensuring that the person who is in the jail at
present will not be indulging in criminal activities after the period of his imprisonment will get
over. Death penalty and imprisonment are the type of social control which have been formed by
the government in order to maintain the rule of law. Further, fines and penalties are also another
forms of social control activities that are used by the government (Stucky, 2012).
The elected representatives and government helps in deciding appropriate kind of social
control measures so that obedience of the people towards the law can be increased. The sanctions
of punishment can also take serious turn if the criminal activity performed by the individual or a
group is quite intense and serious. Some of them are, corporal or capital punishments, severe
fines and incarceration. In case of criminal activity confined in the boundaries of civil law then
in that case the punishment is made majorly in monetary terms. It helps in restricting the
individuals from committing serious crimes. The deviant behaviour can not be ignored as it acts
as a foundation to any crime and hence imprisonment is the primary reason of social control.
There is a strong influence of changing behaviour of neighbourhood towards the
criminal. It leads to isolation of the individual further making him feel guilty of his doings.
Hence, imprisonment helps in converting the behaviour of people in most organized manner. In
addition to this, the social status of the individual is also affected because of the involvement in
criminal activities. It also acts as a driving factor which prevents the person from conducting any
crime by harming someone intentionally. Imprisonment causes sense of demotivation in the
mind of the individual and every individual wants to avoid the event of being imprisonment and
hence remain utmost cautious in his daily life (Brown, 2016). It has been assessed that these
factors help in reducing criminal activities in the society further initiating greater control over the
society. It also ensures that the individuals who are committing crime are duly imprisoned so that
they can realise that they were guilty in the matter and come out as a better person from the
prison.
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There are different perspectives to prison where sociological perspective have two major
elements. It includes functional perspective and conflict perspective
It has been assessed that there are various systems that are connected to the society where
it is important to maintain balance and social equilibrium. The norms, lifestyle and state of mind
followed are static in nature. However, a bit is change has been noticed which reflects that the
culture and state have been evolving to some extent (Stark and Bainbridge, 2013). Prison helps
in maintaining that equilibrium in the society, Prison is considered as a place where deterrents
are referred and it helps in maintaining that balance by keeping the criminals away from the
society. The tradition of prison is effective so that the beliefs of the society is not broken and can
be maintained to a great extent.
One of the negative aspect of prison is that there are 60% percent chances that the crime will
be performed again by the individual. People who have committed crime socialize in the prison
giving chances for the occurrence of the crime again.
As per the theorists, the government sees the way through which the offenders are arrested so
that it can be removed from the society with the aim to reduce the crime rate. However, it has
been seen that poor and powerless more likely have chances to get arrested than the one who
own certain amount of power. The crime rate is high due to lack of opportunities that are given
to people in order to improve their economic status and living conditions. They also lack
educational qualification which could have further helped them in earning their living. Hence,
rather than putting them in prison, the government must assess the ways through which poverty
can be removed from the nation.
As per right realism, it takes more realistic approach to assess the cause of crime and
deviance in the society. It requires practical solution to the problem (Crewe, 2012). It has been
noticed that the reason for the growing crime in the country is involvement of lower working
class male juveniles due to their aspiration to reach to certain level in their lives. However, as per
the concept of left realism, it is important to make stringent political agenda to reduce crime in
the state and prioritize justice and gender equality in the country.
Based on the above essay, it can be concluded that, adequate amount of laws, rules and
regulations helps in inculcating social control in the country. It further assists in reducing
criminal activities in the society. It is important that the individuals are adequately punished so
that other people residing in the nation may not indulge in the same activities out of fear of being
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severely punished. Further, it also acts as a demotivating factor for the individual as they are
abandoned by the society for performing illegal acts. Further it can be inferred that there are
various purposes of punishments which are Deterrence, Incapacitation, Rehabilitation,
Retribution and Restitution which helps in reducing the activities to the minimum.
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REFERENCES
Books and journals
Brown, K., 2016. Vulnerability and young people: Care and social control in policy and
practice. Policy Press.
Cheliotis, L. K. ed., 2016. The arts of imprisonment: Control, resistance and empowerment.
Routledge.
Cochran, J. C., 2014. Breaches in the wall: Imprisonment, social support, and
recidivism. Journal of research in crime and delinquency. 51(2). pp.200-229.
Crewe, B., 2012. The prisoner society: Power, adaptation and social life in an English prison.
OUP Oxford.
Davis, A., 2003 Are Prisons Obsolete? New York: Seven Stories Press.
Downes, D. and et.al., 2013.Crime, Social Control and Human Rights: From Moral Panics to
States of Denial, Essays in Honour of Stanley Cohen. Routledge.
Gowan, T. and Whetstone, S., 2012. Making the criminal addict: Subjectivity and social control
in a strong-arm rehab.Punishment & Society. 14(1). pp.69-93.
Kaye, K., 2013. Rehabilitating the ‘drugs lifestyle’: Criminal justice, social control, and the
cultivation of agency.Ethnograph. 14(2). pp.207-232.
Kent, S. L. and Carmichael, J. T., 2014. Racial residential segregation and social control: A
panel study of the variation in police strength across US cities, 1980–2010. American
Journal of Criminal Justice. 39(2). pp.228-249.
Pratt, J. and et.al., 2005 The New Punitiveness: Trends, Theories, Perspectives. Oxon:
Routledge.
Ross, E. A., 2017. Social control: A survey of the foundations of order. Routledge.
Staples, W. G., 2013. Castles of Our Conscience: Social Control and the American State 1800-
1985. John Wiley & Sons.
Stark, R. and Bainbridge, W. S., 2013. Religion, deviance, and social control. Routledge.
Stucky, T. D., 2012. The conditional effects of race and politics on social control: Black violent
crime arrests in large cities, 1970 to 1990. Journal of Research in Crime and
Delinquency.49(1). pp.3-30.
Sudbury, J., 2014. Global lockdown: Race, gender, and the prison-industrial complex.
Routledge.
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Wildeman, C. and Muller, C., 2012. Mass imprisonment and inequality in health and family
life. Annual Review of Law and Social Science. 8. pp.11-30.
Knight, V., 2016. Perspectives on Prison. In Remote Control(pp. 25-49). Palgrave Macmillan
UK.
Marzano, L., Ciclitira, K. and Adler, J., 2012. The impact of prison staff responses on self‐
harming behaviours: Prisoners’ perspectives. British journal of clinical
psychology. 51(1). pp.4-18.
Nellis, M., Beyens, K. and Kaminski, D. eds., 2013. Electronically monitored punishment:
International and critical perspectives. Willan.
Liebling, A. and Maruna, S. eds., 2013. The effects of imprisonment. Routledge.
Online
The Purposes of Punishment. 2015. [Online]. Available through
<http://open.lib.umn.edu/criminallaw/chapter/1-5-the-purposes-of-punishment/>.
Examine Sociological perspective on prison as a form of punishment. 2016. [Online]. Available
through https://revisesociology.com/2016/05/03/examine-sociological-perspectives-on-
prison-as-a-form-of-punishment-essay-plan/.
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