Modes and Patterns of Social Control: Implications for Human Rights Policy

Abstract

Modes and Patterns of Social Control: Implications for Human Rights Policy is the latest report of the International Council on Human Rights Policy. This report looks into the human rights implications of contemporary patterns of social control: how laws and policies construct and respond to people, behaviour or status defined as "undesirable", "dangerous", criminal or socially problematic. The report highlights common patterns of criminalisation, segregation, and surveillance – and how they are shaped by political economy, notions of risk and danger, and regimes of policy transfer. It explores the human rights implications of questions such as: How changing ideas of crime, criminality and risk are shaping social policy? Why does incarceration continue to be a preferred sanction? How are public health and urban governance being reshaped into regimes of discipline and punitiveness? How do contemporary policing and surveillance practices order and organise social relations? Despite the significant amount of research conducted around some of these themes, a considerable gap exists between those engaged in research and theory and those engaged in human rights advocacy and policy. This report seeks to bridge that gap. Drawing on research across five policy areas – infectious diseases, urban spaces and the poor, policing, migrants, and, punishment and incarceration – and a case study of the Roma in Europe, it is relevant to human rights advocates and professionals working in diverse policy areas. The report invites consideration of the value of a social control perspective in engaging with the policies and practices of relevant institutions in these areas. It underlines challenges and ways forward for human rights policy and advocacy with respect to: ideas of crime and criminality, penal sanctions, non-criminal sanctions and ‘soft’ controls, protection and victim rights, privatisation, surveillance, and policy transfer regimes. It is hoped that Modes and Patterns of Social Control provides a basis to mount a more robust human rights challenge to political and social forces that shape contemporary modes of social control through a dialogue between human rights advocates, critical social scientists, social policy analysts, experts, and policy makers.