LAW, SOCIETY & SOCIAL CONTROL - 2023/4

Module Overview

This module explores how law, policing, and community-based modes of social control relate to the institutional and interactional orders of developed Western societies having Common Law jurisdictions. In so doing it examines how individuals and groups seek to influence the behaviours of others and are also subject to regulatory forces that shape their own conduct. It considers the ways that these processes can give rise to crime and social deviance and pre-figure the efforts of agents of social control. Students are encouraged to critically engage with the concept of social control and to reflect on how it illuminates contemporary sociality and our present normative apparatus.

 

Module provider

Sociology

Module Leader

MCCARTHY Daniel (Sociology)

Number of Credits: 15

ECTS Credits: 7.5

Framework: FHEQ Level 7

Module cap (Maximum number of students): N/A

Module Availability

Semester 2

Prerequisites / Co-requisites

n/a

Module content

Indicative content includes:

• The concept of social deviance and social control


• Histories of social control


• Consensus and conflict accounts of normative frameworks


• The emergence of law


• Determinist, ecological and subcultural aetiologies


• Deviancy amplification and the ‘War on Drugs’


• The symbiosis of syndicated crime and ‘legitimate’ business


• The role of discretion in law enforcement


• The ‘appliance of science’ to criminal investigation and detection


• Soft control: probation and the ‘what works’ debate


• Community control in multi-agency frameworks

Assessment pattern

Alternative Assessment

NA

Assessment Strategy

The assessment strategy is designed to provide students with the opportunity to demonstrate

1.    A comprehensive understanding of the dynamic relationships between law, civil society and the State.

2.    A developed critical insight into how the various mechanisms of social control are socially and culturally manifested in institutions and social practices.

3.    A detailed understanding of complexities involved in studying the wider context of crime and the criminal justice system, and be able to form original connections between these through use of a range of theories and concepts.

 

Thus, the summative assessment for this module consists of:

An essay of 3,000 words. To plan the essay, the last quarter hour of every session is made available for individual students to consult the lecturer. Students are free to use this to discuss their plans for the essay and the lecturer will offer advice. This time can also be used to discuss other relevant matters.

Module aims

• Have a comprehensive understanding of the dynamic relationships between law, civil society and the State.
• Have a developed critical insight into how the various mechanisms of social control are socially and culturally manifested in institutions and social practices.
• Have a detailed understanding of complexities involved in studying the wider context of crime and the criminal justice system, and be able to form original connections between these through use of a range of theories and concepts.

Learning outcomes

Methods of Teaching / Learning

Students are encouraged to bring their own experiences and perspectives to bear on the topics at hand, both spontaneously and prompted by the lecturer or by other participants. Queries and observations based on out-of-class reading are particularly welcome. This is a subject benefiting from a deep and wide-ranging literature, as well as being prominent in everyday news coverage, and the way to get the most out of the weekly sessions is to embrace this wealth of materials and to thoughtfully relate what one has read to one’s own circumstances and life experience.

Indicated Lecture Hours (which may also include seminars, tutorials, workshops and other contact time) are approximate and may include in-class tests where one or more of these are an assessment on the module. In-class tests are scheduled/organised separately to taught content and will be published on to student personal timetables, where they apply to taken modules, as soon as they are finalised by central administration. This will usually be after the initial publication of the teaching timetable for the relevant semester.

Reading list

https://readinglists.surrey.ac.uk
Upon accessing the reading list, please search for the module using the module code: SOCM026

Programmes this module appears in

Please note that the information detailed within this record is accurate at the time of publishing and may be subject to change. This record contains information for the most up to date version of the programme / module for the 2023/4 academic year.