Social Psychology Of Group Identity

Theories of Social Control

Discuss about the Social Psychology of Group Identity.

Deviation as social behavior and delinquency as a constant phenomenon in society has been debated historically and its consequent social control. The conception of the natural crime of Rafael Garazo who in his book that gives the name to that nascent discipline “The Criminology” published in 1885, in which he commented referring to the dangerousness of the human being: Fear is the psychic, subjective activity, which progresses from a weakness to a lack of feelings of piety and probity, which makes it increase in degrees of danger and social maladjustment management (Gerstenfeld, 2006).

Theories of Social Control Surge towards the 1960s several theories of control, which attempt to explain crime on the basis of pressures (situations of conflict, poverty and social repression, inequality combined with inciters as attractive objects for crime, subcultures that reinforce the delinquent attitude, influence of the media that favor criminal behavior and individual impulses or frustrations. “Reckless called this incomplete discourse the theory of containment, for that the individual had elements or forces that contain people so that they do not commit crime: self-control ability, education, attachment to moral standards and the construction of a good self-concept. Other theorists such as Sykes and Matza elaborated the theory of neutralization and drift, given that most young people do not rejects frontally the conventional social norms, when transgressed they can resort to a series of mechanisms of neutralization or exculpation: they deny the responsibility, for not being able to do it better; deny the victim disqualifying it, appeal to undue loyalties, defense of the need for their conduct, defense of a value, denial of justice; the “world does it,” etc (Healey, 2006).

The most widely spread and studied Theory of Social Control or Social Links of Travis Hirschi, formulated in 1969 in his book “Causes of Delinquency”. After a field study on juvenile delinquency, based on information collected from the youth themselves, their parents, school and other people close to them, concludes that the genesis of criminal behavior would not be found in the acquisition of disvalor and criminal rules, but in non-existence – or rupture – with social ties that are contrary to delinquency: “Criminal actions occur when the attachment of individuals to society is weak or broken.” Thus, Durkehim’s postulates when he defined anomie as referring to “detachment from norms, loss of social solidarity management , weakening of collective consciousness, moral convictions, then generates social disintegration”  (Inciardi, 2010). 

Theory of Consensus

Theory of Consensus If we collect the above, we will have a series of positions, tendencies or theories that start from the thesis that moral and legal normative integration would guarantee social harmony; that individual and collective attachment to moral foundations, values, principles and legal norms, is essential to maintain a coherence in the social fabric. The positive differential association according to Sutherlan; containment forces such as education and the internalization of values ??as Reckless’s contention theory states, in order to form an adequate self-concept that would dissociate us from or depart from criminogenic factors as Hirschi put it well in his theory of social bonds. In such a way that society as projected by Durkehim must be amalgamated with moral values ??as the only dykes of contention that would alienate the social individual from criminal behavior (Merino, 2013).This is called Theory of Social Consensus, a discourse that is postulated as the union of criteria to establish the behaviors or behaviors conventionally accepted in the society, as well as the actions that must be criminalized.

The social order is therefore based on consensus and the law represents the protection of the basic values ??of the whole national structure or system (status quo). Thus the State guarantees in pluralistic society a neutral application of laws, putting the general interests of society before individuals or groups. Criminology would then examine (as it has been doing) the causes of criminal behavior that separate certain people from the consensus. For these individuals are the minority elements of society that do not adapt to the guidelines that society and the state seek for harmonious coexistence, and consequently develop a pathological reality that must be repressed (Merino, 2013).

The informal social control of crime has been an efficient mechanism until the mid-twentieth century, and given the social reaction: deprivation status, labeling or labeling approach, marked social injustices, wild differences in the redistribution of wealth , exploitation and class consciousness, this mechanism has worn away and there is only formal social control, a way in which the consensus society has taken refuge to keep distance with the stigmatized subject as a delinquent potential. It is through laws, prosecution management, police, courts and detention centers how control is exercised over individuals or social groups considered potential offenders, because of their social class stigma fundamental.IV.

Theories of Conflict (Radical Criminology, Critical Criminology and New Criminology) The social control of criminal behavior within the framework of the class struggle, the confrontation between sectors and diverse social groups with conflicting or conflicting interests has been included. From Enrico Ferri in 1884 to Karl Marx at the same time: The first came to the conclusion that it was not poverty itself but the unequal distribution of wealth that determines the level of delinquency; and the second explained and quoted verbatim: “In the social production of his life men enter into certain relationships (Consensus theory, 2012). Necessary, independent of their will … All these relations of production constitute the economic structure of society, the real basis on which a legal and political building rises and respond to certain forms of social consciousness.

Theories of Conflict

The productive type of material life ultimately determines the vital social, political, and spiritual process. It is not the consciousness of man that determines his being, but, conversely, it is his social being that conditions his conscience. “Marx’s arguments have been projected forcefully throughout the twentieth century, and although he does not propose a program of criminal policy American authors such as Chambliss in 1975 and Quinney in 1972, also Taylos, Walton and Young in 1973 (The New Criminology), structured a Marxist criminological thought: they impel the latter as a premise: “Power uses all resources and mechanisms within its reach, including the law itself and justice, to strengthen and maintain its dominant position in society (Consensus theory, 2012).

This would imply that non-dominant groups would become preferential objectives of legal control ” The law is merely the ideological facade of universal armed justice to protect the powerful in the pursuit of their own private interest” In those seventies XX, arises within the framework of the theories of the conflict, new criticisms of Traditional Criminology, as an explanatory causal science paraphrasing Jimmy Steward; and a good number of criminologists are exposed to the analysis of social control and justice mechanisms as a paradigm of Critical Criminology, a new epistemological tendency of criminology, without implying a new science; because it is simply a vision of the problem of social conflict that adheres to the defense of the dominated classes as victims criminalized and repressed by the Criminal Law, instrument of the State and the dominant groups of the Society (Eagly, Baron & Hamilton, 2010). Critical criminology considers that it is society and the mechanisms of social control, which criminalize and seek to maintain positions of social and political privilege. The tendency is to criticize this tendency to marginalize those who disagree with the ideology of those who hold power and manipulate criminal management, with consequent structural injustices. It also criticizes the position of Traditional Criminology to consider the offender as  an abnormal and pathological individual; and not a normal citizen that social pressures or circumstances have influenced him as criminal factors and delinquency (Eagly, Baron & Hamilton, 2010).  Criminology Critical distance away from the formalism of the Classical School, in which the offender is simply the individual who violates the law, and who defines the offense with the formal logic that it is a legal fact; and the positivists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries on the analytical observation of the delinquent: The classics worried about crime, the positivists for the delinquent.

Critical Criminology

Thus Critical Criminology seeks to make the analysis not of the individual, but of society, criminality, and even more of the structures of power. Some essayists argue that it is a question of passing from a micro-criminology to a macro-criminology, seeing the whole to observe as incident of in individuals; correct society, make it fair, correcting social inequalities. The method of this modern tendency is eminently sociological  (Stroebe, Kruglanski, Bar-Tal & Hewstone, 2012). It is interesting to observe that for critical criminology, the figure of social control is not merely a response to crime, but a factor generating deviant behavior. In short, this trend seems to mark that society or its dominant groups are by their hegemonic attitude criminalizing, defining or formulating the crime; and that the delinquent is the dominated. This seems to be the perspective of the two tendencies of Critical Criminology: the labeling approach and Marxist thought. Some Postulates of Conflict Theories Consider that crime is a function of existing conflicts in any society, without which such conflicts must necessarily harmful or dysfunctional. The social order of a plural society does not rest on a supposed consensus, but on dissent. Since conflict is inherent in society itself, conflict in the present era is antagonistic and conflictive; part of the dynamic evolution of the peoples.v Conflict is functional, since it generally contributes to positive social change; conflict does not express a pathological reality, but rather the structure and dynamics of the social process. Law represents the values ??and interests of the ruling classes, not the general interests of society. Criminal justice integrates the mechanism of social control and manage the application of the laws in accordance with the interests of the ruling classes. Deviant behavior is a reaction to the unequal and unjust distribution of power and wealth in society. To conclude I must again mention this Spanish author who does the following reflection on the theories of conflict: In general it can be admitted that the most positive contribution of theories of conflict lies in the critical demystification of the “consensual” paradigm. With remarkable realism they have emphasized that modern society is a plural society and therefore necessarily “conflictive”. And that conflict can contribute decisively to integration and social change, as the consensus itself. A certain conflict can explain certain manifestations of criminality, that seems indisputable. Now every criminal fact must not be relegated to a conflict existing in the social system; this would be an unfounded generalization (Davies, Croall & Tyrer, 2010).

References

Consensus theory. (2012). [Place of publication not identified].

Davies, M., Croall, H., & Tyrer, J. (2010). Criminal justice. New York: Pearson Longman.

Eagly, A., Baron, R., & Hamilton, V. (2010). Social psychology of group identity and social conflict. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Gerstenfeld, P. (2006). Criminal justice. Pasadena, Calif.: Salem Press.

Healey, J. (2006). Criminal justice. Thirroul, N.S.W.: Spinney Press.

Inciardi, J. (2010). Criminal justice. Boston: McGraw-Hill Higher Education.

Merino, N. (2013). Criminal justice. Farmington Hills, MI: Greenhaven Press.

Stroebe, W., Kruglanski, A., Bar-Tal, D., & Hewstone, M. (2012). The social psychology of intergroup conflict. Berlin [u.a.]: Springer.