 Dear students, in this module, we are going to discuss two important aspects of social control, formal and informal mechanism of social control. Formal social control involves the use of law and institutions to regulate the behavior. In Pakistan, for example, the formal mechanism of social control is enforced through legal system and different through different government organizations or through different government institutions. For example, police and center intelligence agencies and balancing the informal and formal social control is important for promoting a just and equitable society, as well as ensuring the individual rights and freedom. So, formal mechanisms of social control are acting mostly on the public spaces or public spheres where the jurisdiction of informal social control is restricted to certain aspects in which these formal institutions of social control do not exist. So, external means of control refer to the use of outside forces to regulate the human behavior. So, this can include law, formal institutions and social norms. So, in Pakistan, for example, the legal system, the government institutions serve as the external means of social control. Whereas, when we talk about the informal mechanism of social control, your institutions like family, school, they play as well as the peer group, they play a role as informal mechanism of social control. For example, and when you are in home and if you are having a deviant behavior, your family would react. It is not the case that they would call the police if you are considering the theft, the minor theft, or if you are considering the telling a lie as a deviant behavior, they would not call the police, rather they will define a mechanism for you as a mechanism of social control. Maybe they would punish you informally, but that does not mean that they would involve those formal organizations of social control. So, in a nutshell, these two mechanisms of social control are acting differently within the different cultural and social contexts.