Julie Parker
SOC 313
Olson
09.13.09
A man was indentified through a soft form of social control, cameras. The man, Chad Schaffner, was identified and arrested in Missouri after a retired state trooper recognized him. Shcaffner is facing numerous charges from armed burglary to theft. Many of the locations were banks where cameras lay above cahier and teller booths. Still frames from the tapes with Schaffner’s info was broadcasted on local news channel and posted on billboards and flyers.
Cameras have been used for years to deter and indentify criminals and their activity. With their presence, people avoid deviant acts because there are, “eyes in the sky”. This is a soft form of control because there is coercion involved. The coercion is that the cameras have this silent message that someone is watching you. If someone is watching you, then chances are you will become kind of paranoid. With hard evidence, it is most likely you will be convicted of a crime caught on tape.
Another interesting tactic that was used to indentify Schaffner was the broadcasting, billboards and flyers. This kind of broadcasting caught public attention to the situation. If you scroll to the third picture of the article, it shows the billboard with Schaffner’s picture and info. Nowhere does the billboard say what Schaffner has done, just simply, “armed and dangerous”. With this endorsed with the FBI’s government seal, it’s for sure that Scaffner is a, “bad” man. Therefore the community is now on their witch-hunt. This is a great form of social control, where the community is shown a picture, labeled dangerous and coerced to believe that this man will hurt you.
Granted Schaffner was caught on tape, I’m just bringing up the idea that we want the government to know what’s best in identifying potential harmful situations. We want to feel secure with cameras and we are (well the majority of society) okay with certain levels of control .
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