Informal Social Control Mechanisms Research Articles

Defending Others Online: The Influence of Observing Formal and Informal Social Control on One's Willingness to Defend Cyberhate Victims.

This paper examines factors correlated with online self-help-an informal form of social control vis-à-vis intervention-upon witnessing a cyberhate attack. Using online surveys from 18- to 26-year-old respondents in the United States, we explore the roles of various types of online and offline formal and informal social control mechanisms on the enactment of self-help through the use of descriptive statistics and ordinal logistic regression. The results of the multivariate analyses indicate that online collective efficacy is positively related to self-help, as is having close ties to individuals and groups offline and online. Formal online social control, however, is not significantly related to engaging in self-help. Other findings demonstrate that personal encounters with cyberhate affect the likelihood that an individual will intervene when witnessing an attack, and that individuals with high levels of empathy are more likely to intervene to assist others. This work indicates that pro-social online behavior is contagious and can potentially foster online spaces in which harmful behaviors, such as propagating cyberhate, are not condoned.

The Role of Social and Cultural Values in Pandemic Control in a Chinese Community: An Ethnographic Study on the Construction and Stigmatization of "Others" in Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and COVID-19 in Hong Kong.

Background: Studies have widely reported that social and cultural values serve as constraints in controlling the spread of an epidemic. However, I argue that a social and cultural value system is a double-edged sword and can motivate people’s preventive health behaviors. Few studies have examined the positive role of social and cultural values in promoting epidemic control. Methods: Using the severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak in 2003 and the COVID-19 pandemic that began in 2020 in Hong Kong as examples, the present study performed participant observation in Hong Kong from January to June 2003 and from January 2020 to May 2022; in-depth individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with 70 participants between February 2021 and March 2022. Results: Social and cultural values serve as informal social control mechanisms in manipulating people’s adoption of preventive health behaviors that can assist in epidemic control. Specifically, the construction and stigmatization of the “others” groups and the traditional cultural values based on the capitalist ideology were noted to facilitate control measures against the two outbreaks in Hong Kong. Conclusion: These two outbreaks reinforced the embedded social and cultural values of the capitalist ideology of Hong Kong, which increased the vulnerability of disadvantaged social groups to stigmatization.

YOUTH EVENT MANAGEMENT POTENTIAL AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN CHANGING WORLD

In this article, we have considered the complex problem of developing and realizing the potential of young people in the light of the challenges that arise in the modern world. Young people are a vulnerable social group for whom state and local support is essential. Problems in employment can shake the incentive for young people to develop their potential. We investigated the impact of educational and social space on the development of one of the components of youth potential - potential in event management. We emphasized that the development of this component can be a good impetus for intensifying the entrepreneurial activity of young people. However, youth employment and entrepreneurship in event management need care from the state and intensification of informal social control mechanisms. We have formed recommendations that will allow integrating the processes of social development and development of youth potential in event management. This work can be helpful for public authorities, educational institutions and public organizations.

Rural to urban migration, crime, and sentencing disparities in Guangdong, China

China has experienced massive internal migration in the past three decades. The rapidly growing urban population, especially the rural to urban migrant population, is the primary social concern on public health and social stability that China is facing in recent decades. The researcher utilized judicial decisions from the Intermediate Level Courts in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, China, to examine the characteristics of rural migrant offenders, and to explore the relationship between rural migration, sentencing disparity, and crime. The current study shows that rural migrant offenders are predominantly undereducated and underemployed at the time of offenses. They committed street crimes (e.g., robbery and aggravated assault), and received a relatively harsher fixed-term sentence for the same type of offense compared to urban offenders. The ultimate goal of the current research aims to explore how socio-economic inequalities and informal social control mechanisms are related to social disadvantages, particularly crime.

Beyond state regulation of informality: understanding access to public space by street vendors in Bogotá

Selling goods and providing services in public spaces is one of the most accessible occupations for many urban poor. However, use of public space for such occupations is often prohibited by local regulations, excluding street vendors from legally using this space for their survival. While significant research has been devoted to state efforts to control informality, less is known about the everyday governance of street vendors. This article examines how unorganised street vendors regulate access to public space among themselves. We also analyse the contestation and negotiations between state and street vendors. The article is based on a study of street vendors in Bogotá, Colombia. We argue that informal street vendors do not operate in chaos, instead the ‘quiet encroachment’ of public space is governed by nonhierachical informal social control mechanisms. Our findings call for a reconsideration of regulations about urban informal activities and public spaces.

Social Control in Schools: The Relationships between School Security Measures and Informal Social Control Mechanisms

ABSTRACTSocial control and procedural justice theories indicate that informal social control reduces problem behaviors. However, many schools have implemented formal control mechanisms such as school security measures. This study examines the association between school security measures (security personnel, metal detectors, and surveillance cameras) and students’ perceptions of informal social control (relationships with teachers, other school adults, and the fairness and consistency of school rules). We used structural equation modeling to examine these relationships in a nationally representative sample of 6,547 secondary students surveyed as part of the School Crime Supplement to the National Crime Victimization Survey (M age = 14.94; 51% male, 60% White non-Hispanic, 14% Black non-Hispanic, 20% Hispanic). The results indicated that the presence of security personnel in schools was associated with poorer student relationships with teachers. Findings for the other school security measures were nonsignificant or inconsistent across models. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

THE ROLE OF THE NON-OFFICIAL SOCIALCONTROL IN ACHIEVING THE SOCIETALSECURITYIN SOUTH SINAL

The purpose of the study is to identify the role of informal social control in achieving community security in the South Sinai Governorate by recognizing the role of customs, customs and traditions in achieving community security and recognizing the extent to which Bedouins respect tribal leaders and obey their orders. The descriptive study was based on a number of research methods, namely the social survey method in the sample, including a representative sample of all the nine governorates and villages, valleys and Bedouin communities. The study used the appropriate tool. The questionnaire contains 77 closed questions, including two open questions. A sample of 300 persons was easy for the respondents. The illiteracy rate was 28%, and the study used social control theory. The study reached several results, including a statistically significant role for informal social control in achieving community security. The results also indicate that the Bedouins like to live in groups, and that their social relations are distinct in their interdependence and compliment each other in joy and joy and enjoy and enjoy security, where they have no incidents of killing or theft or cutting roads. The results also indicated their keenness to participate in the elections. Informal social control mechanisms were not an impediment to women's participation in elections. They respect the elders and obey their orders, although the degree of respect among young people now and the elderly has declined. They also prefer customary justice to the formal elimination of the speed of adjudication in disputes and their sense that customary law is a preventive security, despite their knowledge of official security rules. In view of the results, it is possible to recommend the following: • Strengthening community security in the governorate by establishing industrial projects to attract the largest number of Bedouin residents to work in it, since tourism often needs specializations that are not available in the Bedouin. • Construction of factories next to the quarries instead of manufacturing them outside the Sinai and thus will not deprive Badawi from working. • The need to codify informal social control rules and incorporate them through scientific studies because they are all oral, and technological advances in communications can expose them to extinction.

Conflict Management in Illicit Drug Cryptomarkets

Illegal drug markets have been described as “stateless” systems. Drug dealers, moreover, are commonly considered to have a predilection toward the use of violence to resolve disputes arising from dealing activities. While some studies have undermined this popular perception, new trends surrounding the distribution of illegal drugs via online channels (drug cryptomarkets) have shifted the transactional setting from the physical to virtual realm, thus decreasing the likelihood of violent resolution outcomes even further. This article examines conflict management strategies within cryptomarkets by coding discussion forums between vendors and buyers. Violence, as expected, is absent. Strategies more likely reflect alternatives that have been recognized in conflict management research within and beyond illegal market settings: tolerance, avoidance, ostracism, third-party intervention, negotiation, and threats. The overall setting from which such resolutions emerge is clearly not subject to formal regulations, but our analyses illustrate the multitude of informal social control mechanisms that are consistently at play and which underlie the self-regulatory and communal processes that are firmly in place.

Cooperating with the Police as an Act of Social Control - Trust and Neighbourhood Concerns as Predictors of Public Assistance

Calling upon and assisting police officers are acts that link informal and formal mechanisms of social control. In this paper, we draw upon data from a survey of seven London electoral wards to investigate some of the factors predicting public willingness to assist police. We find that such cooperation is associated, first, with high levels of public trust in police; second, with confidence that local residents will intervene on behalf of the collective good; and third, with heightened concerns about disorder and the loss of authority and discipline in society. We conclude with the idea that cooperation may be influenced not only by peoples’ relationships with police, but also by their (real and imagined) relationships with each other. Notably, police may garner public cooperation when social cohesion is perceived to be high and when there seem to be challenges to the established moral order.

Analysis of the Informal Social Control Mechanisms in Rural Families of New Valley Governorate تحلیل آلیات الضبط الاجتماعی غیر الرسمی فی الأسرة الریفیة بمحافظة الوادی الجدید

تلعب آليات الضبط الاجتماعي غير الرسمي دورا کبيرا فى استقرار الأسرة، ودعم المعايير والقيم السلوکية داخلها، وتقليل الانحرافات التى قد تنشأ بين أفرادها فى ظل الاضطرابات السياسية والاجتماعية والاقتصادية التى شهدتها البلاد فى أعقاب ثورتين زلزلتا کيان المجتمع المصري. واستهدفت الدراسة الحالية: 1) رصد أسباب الخلافات التي قد تنشأ داخل الأسرة الريفية بمنطقة الدراسة، 2) دراسة آليات الضبط الاجتماعي غير الرسمي المستخدمة داخل الأسرة الريفية بمنطقة الدراسة، (وذلک من خلال تحديد الأطر القانونية والبشرية والمکانية التى يتم فيها حل الخلافات الأسرية، وتحديد آليات الضبط الاجتماعي غير الرسمي المستخدمة في ضبط سلوک أفراد الأسرة، و3) تحديد العوامل المؤثرة في آليات الضبط الاجتماعي غير الرسمي المستخدمة داخل الأسرة الريفية. ولقد جمعت البيانات الميدانية من عينة قوامها 162 مبحوث من أرباب الأسر في قرية المنيرة التابعة لمرکز الخارجة بمحافظة الوادي الجديد تمثل نحو 23% من إجمالي أرباب الأسر بالقرية، وذلک باستخدام استمارة استبيان بالمقابلة الشخصية أعدت لتحقيق أهداف الدراسة جمعت خلال الفترة من نوفمبر 2015 وحتى يناير 2016. واستخدمت التکرارات والنسب المئوية والمتوسط الحسابي والمتوسط المرجح (الوزن النسبي) وإختبار مربع کاى لعرض وتحليل النتائج. وتشير النتائج إلى رصد ستة أسباب رئيسية للخلافات الأسرية وهي: عدم اتفاق الزوجين حول بعض القرارات الأسرية حيث احتل قمة الأسباب بوزن نسبي (48%). وتشير النتائج إلى قيام الزوجين بحل مشاکلهم بأنفسهم بنسبة 92.6%، ويعد منزل الزوجين أو محل إقامة الأسرة هو المکان الأکثر شيوعا لحل الخلافات القائمة بين الزوجين بنسبة تزيد عن 92%. کما أوضحت النتائج أن الشرع والتعاليم الدينية جاء على قمة الآليات التي يستخدمها الآباء في التوجيه والتأثير على أفراد الأسرة بنسبة بلغت 91.7%. وعلى الجانب الآخر، نجد أن الترهيب والتخويف و العادات والتقاليد الموروثة قد وقعا في المرتبتين الثامنة والتاسعة من حيث الاعتماد عليها واستخدامهما من قبل المبحوثين للتأثير في أفراد الأسرة بنسبة بلغت 62.9% و58.3% لکل منها على الترتيب. وباستخدام اختبار مربع کاي أوضحت النتائج وجود علاقة بين أغلب الخصائص الأسرية وآليات الضبط الاجتماعي غير الرسمي التى تتبناها الأسرة فى ضبط سلوک أبنائها.

Geographies of crime and collective efficacy in urban Ghana

ABSTRACTGeographies of Crime and Collective Efficacy in Urban Ghana. Territory, Politics, Governance. The quest to understand how urban neighbourhood characteristics impact on crime has become an important theoretical and policy-relevant component of contemporary criminology thinking and a potential gauge for the relative value of informal and formal mechanisms of social control. This renewed interest and vigour stems, in great part, from recent works which use social disorganization theory as a spring board to examine the mediating effects of collective efficacy on crime-growth rates. The recent preeminence notwithstanding, the situation in less-developed countries remains under-researched and poorly understood, a situation partly attributable to the dearth of official disaggregated data at the community level. This paper addresses this gap in knowledge by drawing on our empirical study in Accra, Ghana. Our analytical results reveal that crime opportunities are neither uniformly nor randomly organized in space and time, and provide consistent support for lower levels of violent crime in neighbourhoods with higher levels of collective efficacy. While raising concerns about a rigid dichotomy between ‘safer’ and ‘incubator’ crime communities, we also caution that such practices can mislead policy-makers and preclude attempts at devising practical preventive interventions.

Associations Between Long-Term Gang Membership and Informal Social Control Processes, Drug Use, and Delinquent Behavior Among Mexican American Youth.

Research has found that among juveniles weak ties to informal social control entities such as parents, school, and conventional peers increase the probability of the initiation and continuation of deviant behaviors such as drug use and crime. Given the weak ties of formal social control mechanisms in highly disadvantaged communities, informal social control mechanisms are often an important deterrent that reduce or moderate engagement in deviant behaviors among serious and persistent offenders. This analysis examines the association between long-term gang membership and adolescent informal social control processes, drug use, and delinquency. This research is based on data from a study of 160 Mexican American male gang members between the ages of 16 and 20. Findings suggest that among gang members in this context, commonly studied informal control mechanisms such as the family and schools do not function to deter long-term gang membership that is associated with serious criminal and violent behavior and drug use. The implications for future research on desistance or continuation of antisocial behavior across the life course are discussed.

What is the Difference between Slave Patrols and Modern Day Policing? Institutional Violence in a Community of Color

Do performances of brutality have to be part of institutional social control in African American communities? Are these communities haunted by historical beliefs, practices, and stereotypes that once disenfranchised them? More important, if so, why in a post-civil rights era do African Americans receive abuse from our institutional sentinels – the police? Why do our guardians utilize informal and formal social control mechanisms, similar in nature, type, and in some instance in kind to slave patrols? This article examines criminologists’ analyses of policing in the African American community. Despite a substantial amount of work addressing the complaints of violence and distrust in the Black community, policy-makers as well as police departments have ignored their findings. Does the will exist to bring about a different form of social change in the configuration of justice or does African American marginalization persist as one of the strongest elements of social stratification.

Modeling the Relationship between Natural Disasters and Crime in the United States

This research explores the relationship between disaster and crime in the continental United States to investigate the question of whether disasters of different magnitudes differentially affect crime rates. Three sociological theories inform the analyses. First, sociology of disaster researchers, using the therapeutic community hypothesis, have long asserted that disasters reduce criminal activity both during and after the event. Second, criminologists using social disorganization theory assert that disaster may increase the likelihood and occurrence of crime. Third, researchers using routine activity theory suggest that disaster may increase or decrease criminal activity, depending on how a disaster restructures formal and informal mechanisms of social control and criminal opportunity. The research utilizes geographic and longitudinal analyses of 14 years of county-level data on sociodemographic predictors of crime, property and violent crime rates, and disaster impacts. Using hierarchical linear modeling, findings indicate that higher crime rates are associated with larger disaster magnitudes. This research and results represent the first county-level geographic and longitudinal analysis of disaster and crime for the continental United States.

“Masked crusader”: a case study of “crime-fighting” activities by a “real-life superhero”

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine informal social control, vigilantism, and bystander intervention with reference to the Real-Life Superhero (RLSH) movement/community. Design/methodology/approach – This is a qualitative case study in which an in-depth semi-structured interview was conducted with a member of the RLSH community. Findings – This paper conceptualises RLSH activity as a novel approach to informal social control and bystander intervention, whilst revealing the inaccuracy of the media-imposed “vigilante” stigma attributed to RLSHs. Research limitations/implications – Clarifying the goals and methods of RLSHs as striving to be pro-social and law-abiding in nature creates an avenue for dialogue between RLSHs and local justice agencies to establish a working partnership for community safety, thereby mediating interactions between informal and formal agents of social control. Practical implications – Justice agencies to engage with all individuals and groups who are performing community safety/crime prevention functions in a more effective and inclusive way. To ensure formal and informal mechanisms of social control, and the wider community, recognise, and legitimise the RLSH movement in community safety policy and practice. Reconsider the use of the term “vigilantism” and how it is it applied to individuals and community groups involved in community safety policy and practice. This case study presents a unique approach to community safety and crime prevention that can be extended within this public safety philosophy and practice. Originality/value – This study is a contribution to a small but growing body of research concerning the RLSH movement/community.

Pagando penas y ganando el cielo. Vida cotidiana de las reclusas de la cárcel El Buen Pastor 1890-1929

La cárcel del Buen Pastor de Bogotá durante el período de hegemonía conservadora ilustra la política penitenciaria y los dispositivos formales e informales del control social de la época reunidos en una misma institución. En un intento de reconstruir la historia institucional, en el presente artículo se muestran las prácticas cotidianas del encierro penitenciario femenino a partir de un diálogo entre el institucionalismo y la criminología crítica en donde la normatividad penal, la religión y el control social convergen en un mismo escenario y con el mismo objetivo, frenar la criminalidad.

Addressing the Needs of Juvenile Offenders: A Study of the Greene County Missouri Teen Court Model

Over the past several years, the teen court concept has been gaining popularity as a cost-effective alternative to traditional juvenile court proceedings for youth offenders. Relying on informal mechanisms of social control, Teen Courts are seen as a beneficial alternative to formal criminal justice intervention that have more positive consequences in terms of positively impacting the lives of juveniles. To date, the empirical data pertaining to how teen courts operate and their effect on changing the behaviors of young offenders is relatively limited in the research literature. This study provides a meta-analysis of some of the major evaluation studies of Teen Court, as well as examines data gathered on the Greene County Missouri Teen Court Model.

A multilevel analysis of gender, Latino immigrant enclaves, and tobacco use behavior.

Research suggests that immigrant enclaves positively influence health behaviors such as tobacco use through supportive social networks and informal social control mechanisms that promote healthy behavioral norms. Yet, the influence of social cohesion and control on tobacco use may depend on smoking-related norms, which can vary by gender. This study examines the influence of neighborhood Latino immigrant enclave status on smoking and cessation among Hispanic men and women. Data from the Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey was combined with census data to assess the relationship between immigrant enclaves, gender, and smoking using multilevel regression. The effect of the Hispanic enclave environment on smoking differed by gender. Living in an enclave had a harmful effect on tobacco use among Hispanic men, marginally increasing the likelihood of smoking and significantly reducing cessation. This effect was independent of neighborhood socioeconomic status, nativity, and other individual demographics. Neighborhood immigrant concentration was not associated with smoking or cessation for Hispanic women. Research, interventions, and policies aimed at reducing smoking among Hispanics may need to be gender responsive to ensure effectiveness as well as health and gender equity.

Bridging Structure and Perception

Applying Robert Sampson’s (2012) work on interdependent spatial patterns in a new setting, we link structural characteristics of the neighbourhood to public beliefs and worries about neighbourhood violence via two intermediate mechanisms: (1) collective efficacy and (2) neighbourhood disorder. Analysing data from face-to-face interviews of 61,436 individuals living in 4,761 London neighbourhoods, we find that the strength of informal social control mechanisms and the extent of low-level breaches of common standards of behaviour communicate information about the prevalence and threat of violent crime in one’s neighbourhood. Moreover, collective efficacy partially mediates many of the statistical effects of structural characteristics of the neighbourhood on beliefs and worries about violent crime. Theoretical implications of the findings are discussed.

Possibilities for and limits to enforcing tax compliance measures on ‘irregular’ workers

This article is a contribution to ongoing studies of tax compliance by Australian taxi-cab operators and their drivers. The limits of the dominant academic literature and the industry-specific legislation on tax conformity will be assessed. The article’s core premise is that social and economic activities (legal and illicit) of cab drivers are embedded within unique networks of social relations. Cab drivers are subjected to a multitude of structural arrangements and informal social control mechanisms, which influence their attitudes and actions with regard to tax compliance. Regulatory initiatives towards diminishing non-compliance in the Australian taxi-cab industry continue to ignore the concept of mixed embeddedness and the interrelatedness between compliance rules, enforcement practices and broader legislative framework. It will be argued that changes to the employment status of Australian taxi drivers can produce a more expedient way for curtailing the deeply entrenched tax non-compliant modus operandi within this particular sector of Australia’s transport-services industry.