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 a majority of women do not wish for any important change in their social and civil condition, merely proves that they are the unreflecting slaves of custom.”
—Lydia M. Child (1802–1880)
“Being a parent is such serious business that we dare not take it too seriously. Children are inherently funny. So are parents. We all are at our funniest when we are desperately struggling to appear to be in control of a new situation.”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)