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Exploring Relations Among Forms of Social Control: The Lynching and Execution of Blacks in North Carolina, 1889–1918

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

Charles David Phillips
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Abstract

Official and unofficial forms of social control are usually considered substitutable responses to individual acts of deviance. This analysis of the lynching and execution of blacks in North Carolina indicates that these two forms of social control, one official and the other unofficial, served not simply as substitutes, but also as complements during much of the latter part of the nineteenth century. Only after the disenfranchisement of the black population did the relationship between official and unofficial killing begin to imply substitution. This relationship, and its transformation following disenfranchisement, are more easily understood from a social conflict perspective than from an approach that emphasizes social control as a response to individual deviance. These results imply that future inquiries into relations among forms of social control might profit from an increased sensitivity to the dynamics of macrosocial conflict.

Type
Research Article
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 21 , Issue 3 , 1987 , pp. 361 - 374
Copyright
Copyright © 1987 The Law and Society Association.

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Footnotes

The author thanks Jack Donnelly, Catherine Hawes, Herbert Hirsch, Michael Lienesch, Joe Oppenheimer, Nell Painter, and the reviewers of the Law & Society Review for their comments and criticisms. Research assistance from Etsuko Jennings, Kelley Mortimer, Elizabeth Nealon, and Nancy Stark is also gratefully acknowledged. The University Research Council of the University of North Carolina provided funds in support of this research.

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