Social Control, Deterrence, and Perspectives on Social Order

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Abstract
Six basic conceptual questions about social control are posed, and alternative answers are assessed by reference to the deterrence doctrine and to two contending perspectives on social order, functionalism and Marxism. The Parsonian and Malinowskian varieties of functionalism suggest an unmanageably broad conception of social control. At the other extreme, a focus of social control studies on either the deterrence doctrine or the Marxist perspective would be unrealistically narrow. Something can be said for focusing social control studies on attempts at the prevention of deviance, but a conventional definition of deviance would preclude (1) the analysis of revolutionaries as agents of social control and (2) the postulated control exercised by a dominant economic class over legal officials.

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