Changing patterns of social controls and self-controls. On the rise of crime since the 1950s and the sociogenesis of a 'third nature

Bibliographic Data

ID8401910
AuthorsCornelis Wouters (corresponding author)
Year1999
Volume39
Issue3
Pages416-432
Publication date1999-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe British Journal of Criminology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0007-0955 • E-ISSN: 1464-3529
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/bjc/39.3.416
OpenAlexW2095770071
LanguageEN
Citations received16
References cited16

Among the authorities which lost much of their more or less automatic ascendancy since the 1950s is the psychic authority of conscience. Yet this change has received scant attention. To some extent, the same goes for the question of why crime rates in western countries rose considerably between the 1950s and 1980s, stabilizing at a relatively high level from then on. This paper will attempt to connect these two changes by suggesting an hypothesis and an approach which concentrate on some important connections between social and psychic changes over these decades. It will also focus on major changes in moral concern about crime. This approach draws on Elias's theory of civilising processes (Elias 1994) and on my own work on 'informalisation' The latter concept refers to the relaxation of the social codes -usually referred to as 'permissiveness' -in combination with increasing social demands on self-control; it implies a change in the patterns of social control and self-control and also a higher level of reflexivity on the part of individual people. In accordance with this approach, the central hypothesis of this paper is that in most social relationships, as authoritarian social controls have been relaxed and as more calculative and flexible self-controls have come to be socially demanded, more -even most -people came more readily to consider the possibility of becoming involved in criminal activities. This has made these acts more likely in general, and more likely in particular to be committed by those sections of the population that are relatively deprived. The paper is suggestive rather than definitive; its hypothesis might be the subject of future empirical research.

Authoritarianism · Conviction · Criminology · Emancipation · Political science · Politics · Population · Psychic · Reflexivity · Social control · Social science · Sociology · Crime Patterns and Interventions · Crime, Deviance, and Social Control · Homelessness and Social Issues · Law · Medicine · Psychology · Social Psychology

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