Informal Social Control
Definition
The regulation of behaviour through neighbours noticing, commenting on, or reporting on one another, rather than through police or courts.
Related terms
- Beat System
- The division of a police jurisdiction into fixed local patrol areas, each assigned to an officer expected to build familiarity with residents;...
- Collective Efficacy
- A concept developed by Robert Sampson referring to the combination of social cohesion among neighbours and their shared willingness to intervene in...
- Community-Based Crime Prevention
- Any prevention approach that relies on residents themselves, rather than police or situational design alone, to reduce crime and disorder in a...
- Community Policing
- A policing model that builds sustained partnerships between officers and residents through foot patrols, neighbourhood liaison, and joint problem identification. Emphasises prevention...
- Mohalla Committee
- A local resident committee, prominent in Mumbai and Bhiwandi from the early 1990s, that meets periodically with a beat constable to flag...
- Neighbourhood Watch
- A scheme in which residents of a street or small area agree to watch out for suspicious activity, report it to the...
- Selection Bias
- A distortion that arises when the group being studied is not a random sample of the wider population; in Neighbourhood Watch research,...