Informal Social Control Essay

Throughout this paper, I will argue that through a systematic process of connected laws and policies, concentrated incarceration formulates a cycle of harm that subdues entire disadvantaged communities. Looking at human capital, social network and social capital, family functioning, child development, and informal social control, I will discuss the ways in which zero tolerance policing has destroyed the ability of urban communities to thrive in society, essentially creating the criminals they aim to imprison. In this way, as illustrated by Randol Contreras, Paul Butler, Matt Taibbi and Todd Clear, pro-social control policy makers shape the path for coercive mobility forcing individuals into correctional institutions, and directly impacting the way their communities of origin operate. The way in which society polices crime has a direct relationship to the groups of people it intends to criminalize. I will use the War-On-Drugs as a prime example of the ways in which law enforcement agencies produce the negative social outcomes within communities of color. Impoverished neighborhoods are being torn apart in The War-On-Drugs where even the smallest offenses are criminalized to great extents. In the case of drug possession, it often results in longer sentences than violent crimes like assault, burglary, auto theft and rape (Butler 46). The incarceration numbers are staggering, Butler reports that over 1.89 million people were arrested on drug charges in 2006 (46). Aggressive policing is often associated with the “Broken Windows” policy theory. This includes policies like stop-and-frisk that allows police officers to search a person for any “reasonable suspicion” that may lead to the prevention of a crime. It is said to be in search of illegal guns but in 2011 when over half a million people were stopped, 88 percent of which were Black or Latino, only 0.02 percent of those stops actually lead to the discovery of a gun (Taibbi 57). With numbers this disproportionate, it is clear to me that minorities are being targeted in these police tactics. This style of policing aims to stop unlawful behavior before it happens yet it seems to be unlawful in its existence stripping citizens of their civil liberties. Aggressive policing is not limited to stop-and-frisk. It is also defined by criminalizing actions like loitering and panhandling, although sometimes this can be in connection to a stop-and-frisk moment (58). Oddly enough, crime has actually gone down over the last few decades while incarceration rates have increased significantly. Human capital, the skills and other personal resources such as education, intelligence, job and social aptitude used to obtain employment, is weakened when a person gets incarcerated (Clear 76). People are better able to obtain employment when they have human capital as a resource. Unfortunately, human capital is low in poor neighborhoods. Clear writes that “communities rich in human capital tend to be places where street crime is rare”(76), however in low-income neighborhoods crime is frequent. Clear also writes that “the existence of a criminal conviction is itself a debilitating factor for ex-prisoners, since felony convictions can make ex-prisoners ineligible for housing assistance, welfare and certain types of employment” (76). This means that a felon is more likely to have had little human capital going into a correctional facility, and is less likely to be able to obtain …show more content…
This process takes a toll on the community as well by damaging its informal social control which Clear says is “the most powerful source of public safety…that suppress[es] deviance” (83). Informal social control functions in two ways, that from the family level and other “strong tie” relationships and on a parochial level which includes “weak tie” relationships from jobs, church or other social groups. Informal social control is a shared sense of what is right and what is wrong, defining social expectations and public norms (84). When a family is focused on either the exit or the entrance of a family member, they lose focus on their other relationships in an effort to accommodate the changes in their home. When a number of families in a community are experiencing the same types of transformation, there is a lack of investment in other community members on a large scale (84). Therefore the neighborhood has no connection to itself. There is strength in numbers and in this situation there is a lack of numbers and a lack of