Institutions Of Social Control Research Articles

Fábulas da vida obscura: imagens técnicas e anonimato

<p>A partir do final do século XVIII, o homem comum é cada vez mais objeto do olhar não só das instituições de controle da ordem social, mas também da técnica, da ciência e da arte. O esforço de desvelamento visando neutralizar a força ameaçadora das massas urbanas, no entanto, conviveu sempre com a contrapartida das estratégias de ocultamento, como as conspirações, os complôs. Considerando que, com o avanço das tecnologias da comunicação, a oposição entre exibir e ocultar tornou-se cada vez mais tênue, o artigo discute o alcance da dicotomia visibilidade/invisibilidade quando se trata de estabelecer relações entre as práticas culturais e a política.</p>

Developing Space

Venezuela, a Latin American rentier state, went from experiencing 11 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 1983 to 44 in 2002. My dissertation project examines why this significant increase in social violence took place by analysing the relationship between slum development and the withering of institutions of social control in the country after the 1970s. This article however only discusses the conceptual framework behind the dwindling of institutions of social control. The hypothesis of this article (and that of my dissertation) is that a Durkheimian anomic gap was fomented in the Venezuelan slums because transition to modernity (rural-to-urban migration) did not allow recreating institutions that promoted norms of social interaction, which reduce the possibility of violent conflict between people. It concludes by reviewing the tentative methodology that will be applied in my dissertation to confirm or dismiss the aforementioned hypothesis.

The transformation of pro-violence norms: an integrative review of the literature

Abstract A significant body of research argues that social structural arrangements influence the development of norms and behavioral scripts governing the use of interpersonal violence. Most of this research focuses on violence that is ‘expressive’, honor based, or used to resolve interpersonal disputes. What is not well understood is how social structural arrangements influence the evolution of pro-violence norms and behavioral scripts related to violence that is more instrumental or predatory in nature. In this analysis, we provide an integrative review of extant literature which suggests that over time, community-level structural deterioration compromises the ability of age-linked institutions of social control to supply people with pro-social strategies of action. Subsequently, norms and behavioral scripts governing the use of interpersonal violence may be ‘contextually transferred’ from honor-based conflict situations to situational contexts involving more instrumental and predatory forms of violence. This interpretation is more consistent with the cultural attenuation thesis than the cultural heterogeneity thesis, but takes a much different view of culture than either approach.

Procedural justice, minorities, and religiosity

The current research explores six hypotheses derived from the well-known procedural justice-based model of legitimacy in two different religious groups in Israel, and adds to the model the effect of religiosity on the perceived legitimacy of rules and institutions of social control. Our results, based on data from a representative sample of 1,216 Israeli Jews and Arabs, provide general support for the hypotheses. We found that the social order is perceived as less legitimate by the Arab minority compared with the Jewish majority, and by highly religious members of the Jewish majority compared with those who are less religious.

‘Misfortune's Image‘: The Cinematic Representation of Trauma in Robert Bresson'sMouchette(1967)

This paper asks questions about 'trauma' and its cultural representation specifically, trauma's representation in the cinema. In this respect, it compares and contrasts the work of Robert Bresson, in particular his 1967 masterpiece, Mouchette , with contemporary Hollywood film. James Mangold's 1999 'Oscar-winning' Girl, Interrupted offers an interesting example for cultural comparison. In both Mouchette and Girl, Interrupted the subject matter includes, amongst other traumatic experiences, rape, childhood abuse and suicide. The paper ponders the question of whether such aspects of trauma can ever be authentically represented on film; or, whether, on the contrary, through the deployment of cultural stereotypes, cinematic representation tends rather to reproduce the very forms of structural power which are, in the first place, trauma's primary cause. Bresson emerges from this analysis in a favourable light for, whereas Mangold stereotypes victims of trauma and represents traumatic experience itself as inevitable and over-determined, Bresson always retains for the victim a sense of critical agency. By contrasting key scenes from both films, the paper suggests that contemporary popular cinema (the 'Hollywood-ized' form), working in tandem with institutions of social control, such as psychiatry, does not subvert but, in fact, reproduces patterns of structural power. This argument has particular significance for the cultural representation of women. The paper is theoretically framed by Simone Weil's reflections on both 'representation' and 'structural power'.

Participação, cidadania e políticas públicas: a construção da saúde em espaços de organização popular

Este trabalho avalia como as organizações populares discutem as políticas públicas de saúde com base na análise da participação popular e da construção da cidadania em Florianópolis, no estado de Santa Catarina. O trabalho foi desenvolvido com instituições e organizações de controle social. A estratégia metodológica utilizada foi a de pesquisa qualitativa, tendo como técnica de análise o discurso do sujeito coletivo. Os discursos demonstram que os sujeitos têm uma compreensão de saúde com elementos que remetem a um conceito biologicista, mas que também avançam para um conceito ampliado. Observou-se que a cidadania não se limita a conquista de direitos apenas, mas estende-se para a luta por sua efetivação. Nesse sentido, a participação surge como um dever a ser exercido pelo coletivo.

Complaints and Their Researchers

“Reading newspapers, watching television, taking part in public meetings, and also listening to the ‘popular voice,’ one can have an impression that Poland is a country full of frustrated, manipulated, ignored people who have been pushed to the margin and deprived of the respect they deserve,” claim the authors of the book Cudze problemy (Problems of Others) in 1991. From this perspective, it is impossible to overestimate the role played in the system of “popular democracy” by institutions of social control, worker/peasant inspections, bureaus of letters and complaints, and also by books of complaints and requests, which were supposed to act as substitutes for nonexistent democratic institutions. This article, based on a historical Old Polish tradition of laments and supplications, will contextualize the articulation of injustice in the trade discourse popularized in the period of the Polish People’s Republic through books of complaints and requests.

Emotions behind Bars: The Regulation of Mothering in Argentine Jails

This article considers how the contemporary Argentine nation is produced through the regulation of mothering in the federal penitentiary system. The analysis is based on legal narratives of mothering and on women’s social exchanges with female guards. To explore the emotional dimensions of social justice, this article understands prisons as objects of public feelings and as affective economies where emotions circulate. It argues that, through the regulation of mothering in institutions of social control, the nation-state disciplines particular modes of emotional life to foster gendered illusions of belonging for young migrant women and girls. Penal legislation splits mothering into two periods: Until children are four years old, women are regarded solely as biological reproducers of the nation, and mothering is allowed in prison yet exclusively defined as a biological exchange between the bodies of mother and child. However, after the child reaches age four, the fear of moral contamination incarnated in these women constructs them as undesirable agents of cultural transmission to the next generation. The effect is the removal of their children from prison. These two models conceive the future generation’s well-being as dependent on women’s bodies until the children are four years old and, after that, on the fantasy of a nuclear, heterosexual family outside prison. The paradoxical position of incarcerated women vis-à-vis the nation is policed by guards who regulate prison’s affective economies, reducing women’s access to income and goods, shaping the technologies of punishment applied to them, and limiting the forms of agency and social transformation available.

The Center Holds Quite Well: An Ethnographic Study of Social Structure and Control in Jehovah’s Witness Religious Organization

Religion has long occupied a singularly prominent position among the various institutions of social control. Evidence suggests, however, that the American religious milieu has changed in recent decades. Several historically fringe religions have grown in terms of power and influence while traditionally dominant religious institutions have deteriorated. One of the fastest growing religious organizations is Jehovah’s Witness. Despite its increasingly powerful role in American society, we know very little about how Jehovah’s Witness operates as a system of social control. This paper presents the findings of an ethnographic study of the mechanisms with which Jehovah’s Witness’ construct and control deviance. The results demonstrate that Jehovah’s Witness operates according to the principles of functional systems theory. Witnesses are isolated from other social systems, which are deemed evil, and those who stray are shamed and labeled. Growth is maintained through careful evangelism processes that minimize threats to the organization and socialize core values to willing participants.

Russian Spiritual Christianity and the Closing of the Black-Earth Frontier: The First Heresy Trials of the Dukhobors in the 1760s

Russia’s expansion to the south in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries encouraged the development of new, dynamic religious movements, including Spiritual Christianity. Represented today by the two important Russian religious traditions of the Dukhobors and the Molokans, Spiritual Christianity first appears in archival documents from the 1760s in the black-earth provinces of Voronezh and Tambov. Holding to a radical eschatology that predicted the imminent return of Christ, these original Spiritual Christians rejected the priests, sacraments, and icons of the Orthodox Church, and instead introduced the practice of venerating one another, for each person was created in the true image of God. The remoteness of Tambov and Voronezh initially made the provinces more hospitable to different religious ideas and practices in the seventeenth century. But as the frontier closed in the black-earth region, new institutions of social control, such as the Tambov diocesan consistory, began policing religious and cultural practices in Tambov and Voronezh. At the same time, the closing of the frontier also led to the decline of the smallholders, who lost their service rank and were increasingly integrated into the state peasantry. This unhappy social group comprised a large percentage of the Spiritual Christians, who so decisively rejected the state church. After Russia’s victory over the Ottoman Empire in the Russo-Turkish War, many Spiritual Christians moved to the new frontiers of New Russia.

Desafios do controle social na atualidade

O artigo pretende fazer uma abordagem dos desafios do controle social na atualidade, analisando a sua formulação no processo de redemocratização da sociedade brasileira, bem como os seus impasses a partir dos anos 1990. Finaliza com os debates na atual conjuntura e apresenta como novidade a criação dos fóruns estaduais, municipais e da Frente Nacional contra a Privatização da Saúde, considerados também como mecanismos autônomos de controle democrático do controle social institucionalizado.

Seasons of Change: Arab Spring and Political Opportunities

Seasons of Change: Arab Spring and Political Opportunities

The Humiliation of Law: Legal Theory and Epistemic Fruit

Epistemic purposefulness should be the normative driver in evaluating legal theory, by which I mean legal theory should be useful as a tool for investigating the phenomenal world without arbitrary limits to such investigation. Heuristically we can see that law is about norms and institutions of social coordination and control. Legal positivists take the epistemic purposefulness of legal theory as given, and argue that the existence of law is quite different from its merit or demerit. (In so doing most positivists intend to reject natural law only as legal theory, and not as an exercise in thinking about political morality, which it can validly remain). However, positivism generally falls short in its normative commitment to epistemic usefulness by limiting the range of phenomena in which it is interested to those of the 'state.' By leaning on the municipal/international legal order for a determination of the existence of states positivists fall into a vicious circularity. Taking Hart’s description of a rule of recognition seriously, and deepening an understanding of that, we are forced into an appreciation of the ways in which legality is rooted in the broader, extra-legal social order. Taking the epistemic commitments of positivism seriously and acting like scientists, (anthropologists, say), we can be nothing but legal pluralists. Because discourse around law is often honorific, claiming that law is the provider of good things, being epistemically serious about 'law' may ultimately have a salutary effect in dampening these honorific claims.

The Systemic Model of Crime and Institutional Efficacy

The systemic model of crime has received considerable empirical attention from criminologists; yet, an often-neglected component of the theoretical framework is the role of social institutions as a source of both formal and informal social control. Accordingly, the current study builds on recent research that considers the importance of institutional strength for the reduction of criminal behavior; in particular, the authors assess the impact of social-structural characteristics on the treatment program integrity (i.e., institutional efficacy) of 38 halfway house programs in Ohio. The authors' results indicate that communities suffering from concentrated resource deprivation have a more difficult time creating and maintaining strong institutions of public social control. The implications for criminological theory and correctional policy are discussed.

Social Deviations, Labelling and Normality

Social Deviations, Labelling and Normality This paper discusses the issues of labelling, normality and social deviation. I focus on the sociological and socio-psychological aspects of these topics in light of their importance for pedagogy. Labelling mainly concerns the ways in which the formal and constitutive institutions of social control, including schools, respond to behaviour. Mainly children and young people are "marked" or labelled according to both their existing and presumed patterns of deviant behaviour. School, as a social institution, expects its students to be normal. It has the power to define normality and, moreover, a network of social control to achieve it. However, from the perspective of the school it is very important not to prematurely label pupils negatively during the selection process. On the contrary, school should enable as many pupils as possible to contribute successfully towards the requirements of a knowledge society. Research indicates that there is a correlation between a child's school performance and the perceptions and expectations held by the teacher. Recent studies, concerning for example violence at school, have shown how strongly the aggressive behaviour of pupils is connected to the teacher's behaviour. The theory of labelling is concerned with the fundamental question of why some individuals and groups are branded as deviating from norms more often than others. Stigma is a relative phenomenon; it is the result of successful labelling, delivering a punitive and disapproving response. In order to better understand labelling, the concepts of social norms and social deviance also require clarification.

The Endless Campaign: How the Tort Reformers Successfully and Incessantly Market Their Groupthink to the Rest of Us

Neo-conservatives often employ the theme of personal responsibility to marginalize plaintiffs seeking compensation for mass torts. For example, the tort reformers use techniques of blaming the victim successfully in defending tobacco products liability claims. This groupthink about corporate victimhood deflects attention away from the true victims of defective products, negligent medicine, or unreasonably risky activities. Similarly, neo-conservatives redefined the term to signify caps and other limitations on recovery for injured plaintiffs in an effort to improve the functioning of the American civil justice system. Tort law's remarkable ability to continually adapt to old causes of action to new threats and dangers makes it an important institution of social control. A strong regime of tort law ensures that not even multi-billion dollar industries, such as those represented by the tort reform movement, are beyond the reach of the law. Tort law is, as it has always been, forward-looking with the ability to confront new social problems and conditions. The tort reformers endless campaign of misinformation threaten to diminish the ability of our civil justice system to evolve to meet the emergent hazards of the twenty-first century.

Socio-political implications of the fight against alcoholism and tuberculosis in Colombia, 1910-1925

The emergence of a modern state in Colombia and the centralization of political and administrative power in Bogotá began to take shape during the latter decades of the nineteenth century. The state had a central role within the overarching modernisation discourse that sought to create a common national identity. One of the tasks assigned to the state by the national project was that of implementing policy for regulating public health and strengthening social control institutions. Such objectives should be analyzed as part of larger political centralization processes and the desire to create "ideal" citizens. Public health and sanitary campaigns implemented by government officials during this period targeted vice, immorality, illness and ignorance under the umbrella of social reform programmes. Government officials, hygienists and medical doctors continually placed emphasis on eradicating or regulating alcoholism and tuberculosis from 1910 to 1925, with the hopes of avoiding a national crisis. This paper examines how alcoholism and tuberculosis became central themes in the fears expressed by Colombia's ruling class at the time regarding the broader social decay of the nation. As intellectuals and public officials sought solutions to these ills, their explanations alluded to the disintegration of morality and values and the degenerative effects of vice, addiction and unsanitary conditions.

Assessment of Socio-Economic Characteristics and Quality of Life Expectations of Rural Communities in Enugu State, Nigeria

This study examined the social, infrastructural and economic conditions prevalent in some rural communities of Enugu State, Nigeria, where recent oil and gas prospecting activities have generated concerns for the environment and quality of rural life. Mixed but complimentary methods of data collection employed include consultations with key stakeholders, focus group discussions, questionnaire survey, field observations, key-informant interviews and secondary sources. Existing socio-economic and infrastructural conditions, citizens’ perceptions of oil and gas activities, and quality of life (QoL) expectations of study communities were documented. Six major units of analysis (or levels of aggregations) with the aid of qualitative and quantitative methodologies were used to describe both empirical and /or secondary data. The study revealed large population sizes and even higher population densities, with the economic base in the study area being agriculture. Findings of the study indicate that despite some negative socio-environmental perceptions, citizens’ receptiveness and attitude towards the projects were patently positive. QoL expectations of the communities were embedded in environmentally responsible, culturally sensitive and socially responsive operation of oil companies. Agents and institutions of social control and well- being were also appraised to highlight their QoL contributions in the area.

Negative life events and self-control as correlates of self-assessed re-offending probability among Finnish prisoners

This article examines the correlates of self-assessed re-offending probability (SARP) in a sample of Finnish short-term prisoners. The research focuses on the role of factors related to social control when individual self-control is held constant, and explores how selected prison activities relate to SARP. The associations between social control and re-offending probability manifest some erosion when self-control and criminality are factored in, a finding that replicates prior studies. However, several variables capturing a person’s ties to social control institutions remained robust correlates of SARP. Having many siblings, living in a nuclear family during childhood, parental supervision during childhood and youth, and avoiding negative events in adulthood appear to reduce the number of offences projected to the future. In prison, work participation, participation in alcohol abuse treatment, and remorse for past crimes are associated with reduced SARP. We draw on cross-sectional data combining a quantitative survey ( N = 351) and qualitative interviews ( N = 37).

Disproportionate Minority Confinement: A Historical Look at Racial Incarceration

The incarceration of African Americans is not a phenomenon that occurred post the civil rights era but has been a practical fact of criminal justice administration since data on incarceration has been kept. Before crack cocaine and three strikes; before the war on drugs; before the war on poverty and the welfare state; before children born out of wedlock and the rise of single female head of households; before sentencing guidelines and getting tough on crime; before the world wars; and before the revolutionary war - African Americans have been disproportionately incarcerated in the United States. World and American history teaches us that the criminal justice system is not only an institution of retribution, rehabilitation, incapacitation and incarceration (the four theories of punishment) but is an institution of social control. This paper will review the historical rise in the incarceration of African Americans in prisons as well as some of the key explanations and proposed solutions to disproportional minority confinement.