Concept of Social Control and Its Relevance to the Prisons Debate (From Problems of Long-Term Imprisonment, P 97-114, 1987, Anthony E Bottoms and Roy Light, eds. -- See NCJ-108254)

• NCJ Number: 108257
• Author(s): P Young
• Date Published: 1987
• Length: 18 pages
• Sale Source: Avebury Publishing Co
• Publication Type: Legislation/Policy Analysis
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: *This document is currently unavailable from NCJRS.

Annotation

This paper examines the recommendations of the British Control Review Committee with respect to the management of long-term and disruptive inmates within the context of the literature on social order and social control.

Abstract

It is suggested that the Committee's recommendations for reform used rather limited conceptualizations of order and control and paid insufficient attention to the informal aspects of the maintenance of order and control and their relationship to formal control mechanisms. It is argued that control should not be thought of solely in terms of coercion. Rather, social control theories suggest that the most effective form of control is that which facilitates rational and voluntary recognition of rules. The most stable forms of control are those in which individuals feel they have a stake. A prison regime based on this notion of control would require considerable change in the attitudes of both staff and inmates. It would require more active participation by inmates in decisions about day-to-day operations and the acceptability of various behaviors. Staff would be required to perceive their authority in a new and more open way, and the de facto negotiations that already take place between inmates and staff would become de jure in the sense that they are no longer viewed as concessions. 13 references.