Social Control And The Middle Class

A great deal of fictional films and literature deal with the concept of society. Writers have played around with the idea of societies that are different from the world we know. While some portray this in optimistic ways and others darker, what these works have in common is the idea of social control – wherein people are forced to conform to means that are believed to benefit their society.

It was suspected during the time period that overcrowding was the cause of the increased crime rate. People saw that the population growth—must like the popularity of gin—coincided with the rise crime. As London became an industrial city it needed a more unskilled workers to power its “textile, iron, metal goods, and pottery production” factories (“Crime and Punishment” par 2). This caused unskilled workers from “small rural towns” and “villages” into the city in hopes of finding work ("Crime and Punishment," par 1). This may seem like a good idea, but unfortunately the population of the city rose quicker than expected and thus hadn’t had an adequate amount of time to adjust to the booming population growth—over 400 percent in just 50 years ("Crime and Punishment," par 1).

Social control is when a person unites to society that prevents them from violating rules therefore; if the bond weakens, they are free to commit delinquent acts. Travis Hirschi, a sociologist, argued that the social bond a person maintains with society contains the commitment to the pursuit of conventional activities, such as

Social control is techniques and strategies used for preventing deviant human behavior in any society. All levels of society such as family, school, bureaucratic and government has some form of social control. Examples of family social control include obeying your parents rules, doing your homework and chores. School includes standards they expect of students such as being on time, completing assignments and following school ground rules. The bureaucratic organization emphasizes the rules and procedures among their workers. The government expresses social control through law

Individuals within a society are grouped into certain rankings that is based on their wealth, income, race and education known as the social stratification. Sociologist use this to determine the social standings of individuals within a society. Social stratification can also appear in much smaller groups. These groups such as the work place, schools, and businesses can “take the form of a distribution of power and authority down the ranks”. (Cole, 2017) The Caste system is also another form of stratification that one does not get a choice in. They are born into it and regardless of their talents will hold positions that are given to them their whole life. Social mobility is the ability for individuals to move about their social standings.

Since the 19th century, law enforcement and punishment has developed rapidly into the justice system we rely on today. Obscure laws that had become irrelevant in an industrial and post-industrial era were fast being replaced, and despite its lack of existence at the beginning of the 1800’s, policing standards are, today, high. The necessity for this drastic change in approach to crime has stemmed from the needs of industrial Britain, and the increased awareness of the public, and government, and their perception of crime and punishment. Rather than individual cases having a direct impact on these changes, in general they provide an insight as to the reactions of the public at the time, and along with the myriad of other cases, allow us

After reading the article “The Meaning of Social Control” by Peter Berger I agree that social control is present in our daily lives trying to get people to conform in different situations. There are several different kinds of social control from violence, to gossip to even being shunned from a community. In the article it even states, that social control “...refers to the various means used by a society to bring its recalcitrant members back into line. No society can exist without social control (Berger 1).” This quote means without social control people wouldn’t be able to conform to any specific situation which can lead to a lot of issues. Even though conformity in general is perceived as a bad thing it can also be used for good. Like the example given when a police officer gives a person a ticket it teaches the person to not speed or they would get into trouble.

Social class is a division of a society based on social and economic status which can include levels of wealth, success, power of authority, and influence. Status is can be defined or grouped having common economic, cultural, or political interests.

According to Gregory Mantsios many American people believed that the classes in the United States were irrelevant, that they believed we reside(ed) in a middle class nation, that we were all getting richer together, and that everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed in life. But what many believed, was far from the truth. In reality the middle class of the United States receives a very small amount of the nation 's wealth, and sixty percent of America 's population receives less than 6 percent of the nation 's wealth, while the top 1 percent of the American population receives 34 percent of the total national wealth. In the article Class in America ( 2009), written by Gregory Mantsios informs us that there are some hu

These competing values might very well contribute to a certain measure of social control as well as social coercion.

The killer of the middle class in the USA! GLOBALIZATION!! The direction the billionaires have brought this nation and the middle class in the US are sick of getting taken advantage of, sick of no jobs and getting screwed in trade and at the border. Open borders agenda is a part of it allowing open travels to work and jobs to bring up developing countries economies at the expense of hard working Americans! North Atlantic Free Trade Association Clinton backed (NAFTA) - NAFTA sent the jobs of U.S. autoworkers to Mexico, a developing country, where wages are significantly lower than those in the U.S. A few years later, some of those same jobs were relocated to third-world countries in East Asia, where wages are even lower. In both cases, the auto

Almost every American adults in the United States of America has to fill out a tax return to see if those still owe the government some money, or if those will get some back from the government. A recurring thought in the mind of many of these adults is,” How can my taxes be this high”. The middle class is supposed to be living comfortably and not have to live their lives worrying about money. But, in today’s United States the middle class has to worry about money every single day. The upper class is almost being penalized for earning too much money based on the percentages that they have to hand over to the government. The businesses that once were able to create jobs are now having to cut jobs because of the astronomical percentages

From the 19th century to the 20th, crime control state agencies have become instilled with ‘penal welfarism’ and rehabilitation. However since then they’ve been dominated by risk management, incapacitation and retribution. In clarifying this change Garland; the formal organisations of crime control have a tendency to be responsive. Garland states “too often our attention focuses on the state’s institutions and neglects the informal social practices upon which state

Informal social control is defined as the way one “a form of social control that develops independent of formal institutionalized structures created for the explicit purpose of guaranteeing conformity to social norms” (Burfeind &Westermann, 1991, 35). For example, in America family does not have the same level of influence on someone’s life as it does in Japan and China. In Japan family is such an integral part of life that individuals are absolutely dependent on their family and vice versa (Burfeind &Westermann, 1991, 38). In China, there is a similar level of dependence and responsibility to family making their influence and feelings a prominent form of social control. Next, in America money is a steeply influential form of social

As Mills understands the concept of the social makeup of reality, he points out that people are bound by the effects of historical change and the contradictions that been implemented within the institutions of a society. Through social control, Mills addresses how the need for information has gained the attention of people to the point where it overwhelms people’s lives. Societies are able to maintain social control by “keeping people in line” as they ultimately keep themselves in line and follow this instructed form of action that “is typically expected and approved within the social system” (Mills, 32.) However, with maintaining social control, there’s the dilemma of attempting the people of a society desire to do what is initially expected of them. Through the use of the Sociological Imagination, people are better able to understand the idea of social structure and how social control is maintained through this process. The “Sociological Imagination” allows individuals to obtain an understanding of the historical context