NCJ Number
205753
Journal
The Prison Journal Volume: 84 Issue: 2 Dated: June 2004 Pages: 228-247
Editor(s)
Rosemary L. Gido
Date Published
June 2004
Length
20 pages
Annotation
This article explores the relationship between people’s assessments of informal and formal social controls and how this relationship is conditioned by their exposure to incarceration.
Abstract
Numerous studies have been conducted analyzing people’s attitudes toward formal social controls and informal social controls. However, little research has been done on how formal and informal social controls are related. This study explored the relationship between people’s assessments of informal and formal social controls and how this relationship was conditioned by their exposure to incarceration. More specifically, the study investigated how exposure to incarceration directly influences people’s assessments of both forms of social control and how attitudes about formal controls influence people’s assessments of informal social controls. In addition, the research investigated the hypothesis that the linkage between demographics and attitudes can be partially explained by the differential exposure to incarceration experienced by these groups. Data were obtained through a telephone survey of residents, age 18 years and older, in Tallahassee, FL, between January and March 1997. Demographics of the sample (n=1,364) were: 52 percent were female, 24 percent were African-American, and the median age was 29 years old. The two dependent variables were low opinion of informal control and low opinion of formal control. The independent variable was respondents’ experiences with incarceration, either knowing someone who had been incarcerated or having been incarcerated themselves. A dummy variable measuring whether a respondent had been a victim of crime was included in the survey because the researchers felt that it was possible that victimization could influence respondents’ attitudes. Analysis of the data found that exposure to incarceration had no direct effect on attitudes toward formal controls, and it made people less likely to have negative opinions of informal controls. In contrast, the study also found that attitudes about the two forms of control were linked and that exposure to incarceration produced a negative opinion of informal controls indirectly through its impact on attitudes toward public control. This indirect effect was conditioned by exposure to incarceration. For people who had not been exposed to incarceration, the link between attitudes towards formal and informal social controls supports Black’s (1976) theory of law, which states that as informal social control deteriorates, formal controls increase. For people who had been exposed to incarceration, the link supported the current research, that people with low assessments of formal controls would be more likely to have low assessments of informal controls. In addition, the study found that race was an important factor. Blacks were more likely than non-Blacks to have a low opinion of informal social control only if they had not been exposed to incarceration. The implications of these findings are potentially quite significant. Increasing public control may have the unintended consequence of decreasing the importance of informal social controls, thereby increasing crime, disorder, and overall neighborhood dissatisfaction. 3 figures, appendix, 5 notes, and 53 references