The traditional model of controlling deviant behavior has as a defect a certain arbitrariness of power. To reduce the pressure of the “power-subordination” relationship, it is necessary to consider social control in the context of the interests of social actors who, in the process of searching for social identity, choose different modes of behavior (sometimes deviant) and fall into the field of vision of controlling institutions. This could be facilitated by the development of ideas about social control as a symbolic means of communication. In the process of communication, meanings are formed. These meanings structure reality, give it a certain meaning and direction. In the communication specific discourses are created. These discourses organize daily (professional) practices. In discourses, there are also ideas about the image of the deviant. The article presents the results of studying the discourses of subjects of preventive social control, in which the violators of social norms from the youth environment are positioned differently. Representatives of police, secondary schools and social protection institutions acted as experts. Analysis of the results of the study showed that discourses differ depending on the degree of formalization and departmental affiliation of the subject of control. There is a shift in emphasis in the characteristics of violators of norms from the purely negative to multidimensional, and sometimes contradictory. In addition, the approach to the consideration of the grounds for the formation of certain characteristics of violators of social norms. Refs 16.