Informal social control, or the reactions of individuals and groups that bring about conformity to norms and laws, includes peer and community pressure, bystander intervention in a crime, and collective responses such as citizen patrol groups. The agents of the criminal justice system exercise more control when informal social control is weaker (Black, 1976).
Famous quotes containing the words informal, social and/or control:
“We are now a nation of people in daily contact with strangers. Thanks to mass transportation, school administrators and teachers often live many miles from the neighborhood schoolhouse. They are no longer in daily informal contact with parents, ministers, and other institution leaders . . . [and are] no longer a natural extension of parental authority.”
—James P. Comer (20th century)
“That children link us with the future is hardly news. . . . When we participate in the growth of children, a sense of wonder must take hold of us, providing for us a sense of future. Without the intimation of concrete individual futures, it is hardly worth bothering with social change and improvement.”
—Greta Hofmann Nemiroff (20th century)
“Just as men must give up economic control when their wives share the responsibility for the family’s financial well-being, women must give up exclusive parental control when their husbands assume more responsibility for child care.”
—Augustus Y. Napier (20th century)