Social Control: Informal, Legal and Medical
James Chriss


There has been a revitalization of interest in social control over the last decade, and this volume contributes to renewed attempts to explain and conceptualize social control in all its diversity. It provides a broad conceptualization of social control which is unique. Rather than concentrating solely on law and legal control (the criminal justice system), there are also treatments of informal control (socialization, group formation and the controls exerted in everyday life) as well as medical control (norms regarding health and illness, particularly with regard to notions of 'normal' behaviour). This volume brings together cutting edge analyses - both theoretical and empirical - of social control from leading scholars in the fields of sociology, criminology, and related social sciences. "Perspectives on Social Control" is of interest not only to sociologists and criminal justice practitioners, but also to medical professionals (primarily for the focus on medical control or medicalization), as well as a wide array of scholars from a variety of disciplines concerned with the socialization process and the pressures toward conformity exerted by social groups in everyday life.