Social Control And Incarceration: A Social Problem Of Crime

Crime happens to many people, many good people too. Over the years, incarceration has

been becoming worse and worse, it’s a social problem that needs to be fixed. “Criminals” are

sent to prison to be punished and to be prohibited from committing crimes again. And those who

have gone to prison before may discourage others from breaking the law in order to avoid prison.

Currently, almost two million people are in prisons and/or in jails and the majority of the people

who are put into federal prisons are because of drugs. As for state prisons, the majority are put

into prison because of violence. In “Trends in U.S. Corrections” a survey was taken during the

time from 1925 till 2011 about the populations in state and federal prisons. In 1925 it was

recorded that

With social control there are two categories that classify those mechanisms; the first is

formal social sanctions which are rules or laws that prohibit deviant criminal behavior and the

second is informal sanctions which are unspoken rules and expectations about people’s behavior.

Social control and criminality is impacted by race and class because certain groups of people

such as the homeless, youth, colored people, etc. are often targets by the law enforcements. In a

video Conley interviews Victor Rios to discuss about his perspective on social control. Rios

believes that social control uses “metaphors from the criminal justice system” to prevent criminal

activity and to solve everyday problems. For example, there are a lot of laws that go against the

homeless which regulates control over them. Laws that prohibit them from sleeping on benches

to asking people for money or food is illegal and punishable. Social control is like a decoy to get

rid of the people who are unfortunate.

By examining the number of colored people that are being used as profit for prisons