Compare Social Control Methods - Essay Example

Additionally, Geert Hofstede’s Cultural Index has also been applied while making the comparative analysis of the societies under examination. Social control is viewed to be the system applied for regulating the activities of the individuals within a political set up. In simple words, it is the mechanism observed by the political authorities for the eradication of individual and collective criminal behavior and deviancy for the protection and welfare of the citizens. Actually crime is aptly stated as a social phenomenon that exists in every social establishment of the world since the known human history.

Theories have been articulated and researches have been conducted in order to explore the reasons behind committing of crimes on the one hand, and devising the methods to purify the society from offences on the other. Though theorists suggest political, social, economic, psychological and ethno-racial motives behind the involvement of the individuals into offences of different kinds, yet no society could be able to eliminate such harmful activities from the very face of its culture. Somehow, different societies have established different social control methods for the maintenance of peace and order. . 07: 231) Thus, fear of being cursed, rebuked, penalized and punished serve as powerful social control; the same is applied to Pakistan and Israeli cultures.

Social, political and religious institutions including family, peers, church/mosque, classrooms, workplace, cultural values, religious faiths and law enforcing agencies are the methods of social control in the contemporary era. Pakistan is a south Asian Muslim state, where an overwhelming majority claims to be following the Islamic cult, laws and norms. Though the Pakistanis cite religious beliefs in everyday activities, yet they seldom observe these teachings in their true spirit. On the contrary, western statutes of law have been in vogue to formally regulate the activities of the people.

Moreover, social norms, cultural values, taboos, traditions, customs and conventions are also prevailing as the regularity authority for the informal social control. These traditional institutions, including arbitrary councils work at local levels, which are headed by the religious and political personalities, and determine the punishments for the law breakers. Hence, in the societies where the individuals observe strong family and tribal bonds, the crime rate observes significant decline. Social control theory aims to state that strong social bonds cause the inhibition of delinquency, whereas weak social bonds offer little resistance to offending.

(Booth, Farrell and Varano, 2008:1) The same is the case with Pakistani society, where women involved into extra marital sexual union and adultery have fear of being killed at the hand of one or more male family members including father, brother, husband, in-laws and tribe. Similarly, provincial and linguistic affiliations and bonds forbid the people to inflict offensive attacks upon