Lesson 6 – Social Structure
Theories
Robert Wonser
Introduction to Criminology
Crime and Delinquency
1
Introduction
• Individual-level theories cannot easily
account for crime
• Social structure (environment)
• Evaluates why some locations and
groups have higher crime rates
2
The Legacy of Durkheim
• Durkheim emphasized the importance
of structure
• Impulses held in check by
• Socialization
• Social ties
• Social norms
3
Durkheim
• Anomie, normlessness
• Periods of rapid social change
• Norms become less applicable
• Lead to higher suicide rates
• Low social integration
4
Social Disorganization and
Human Ecology
• Society changing in the 1800s
• Move from rural to urban areas
• Changing nature of relationships
• Social pathology, those human actions
which ran contrary to ideals of residential
stability, property ownership, sobriety, thrift,
habituation to work, small business
enterprise, sexual discretion, family
solidarity, neighborliness and discipline of
the will.
5
Chicago School of Sociology
• Chicago used as a laboratory
• W.I. Thomas and Florian Znaniecki
• Social disorganization
• Robert E. Park and Ernest W. Burgess
• Human ecology - study of the relationship
between humans and their natural, social, and
built environments.
• Concentric zones
6
Clifford R. Shaw and Henry D.
McKay
• Studied crime in Chicago
from 1900-1933
• Delinquency high in inner
zones of city regardless of
which immigrant group or
minority lived there
• Delinquency decreased as
one moved away from the
inner city
7
Inner City Explanations
• Social disorganization created a climate
where:
• Informal social control was weak
• Deviant values emerged
• Adolescents grow up among
conflicting values
• Higher crime rates not due to biology
or psychology
8
Evaluating Social
Disorganization
• Popular theory
• Had numerous methodological
problems
• Use of official records
• Circular reasoning
• Focus on poor criminals
• Underestimates of social organization
9
Social Disorganization Revival
• Mid-1980s
• Recent research uses victimization and survey data
• Focus on:
• Collective efficacy defined as social cohesion among
neighbors combined with their willingness to intervene on
behalf of the common good, is linked to reduced violence.
• This hypothesis was tested on a 1995 survey of 8782
residents of 343 neighborhoods in Chicago, Illinois.
Multilevel analyses showed that a measure of collective
efficacy yields a high between-neighborhood reliability
and is negatively associated with variations in violence.
• Residential mobility
10
Other Ecological Work
• Extreme poverty
• Economic deprivation
• Concentrated disadvantage
• Relative deprivation
• Theory of deviant places
• It’s not “kinds of people” but “kinds of
places”
• Neighborhood density
11
Anomie/Strain Theory
• Based on work of Durkheim, Robert K. Merton
• A lack of harmony (anomie) between goals and
means results when too much emphasis is place on
goals and/or means
• In America, too much emphasis on goal of economic
success
• American Dream
• This emphasis results in criminality when the means are
lacking
• Based on inability to attain societal goals, people
choose a mode of adaptation
12
Modes of Adaptations
13
Evaluating Anomie/Strain
Theory
• Questions about emphasis on poor
• Does not explain violent crime
• The role of thrill seeking
• Ignores link of alcohol/drugs
• Fails to explain one adaptation over
another
14
Institutional Anomie Theory
• To achieve the American dream, people
eagerly pursue economic success
• Key values
• Achievement
• Individualism
• Strain concepts focus on difference
between
• Educational aspirations
• Occupational aspirations
15
Economic Dominance, the “American Dream,”
and Homicide: A Cross-National Test of
Institutional Anomie Theory
• A cross-national study finds that homicide is more common
in countries that valorize the free market, emphasize
individual achievement, and fetishize money.
• While none of the theoretical predictors exhibits a
statistically significant direct effect on homicide, findings
suggest that homicide occurs most often in countries
where free-market principles and practices drive the
economy and where core cultural commitments are
oriented toward achievement, individualism, fetishism of
money, and universalism.
• Mixed results provide only limited evidence in support of
the American exceptionalism thesis.
16
General Strain Theory
• Robert Agnew
• Adolescent strain results not only from
failure to achieve economic goals, but
from failure to achieve noneconomic
goals
• For example: destructive social
relationships
• Negative affect states (anger)
17
Subcultural Theories
• Albert K. Cohen
• School Failure and delinquent
subcultures
• Focus on lower-class boys
• Focus on thrills
• As such, delinquency does not stem
from anomie
18
Delinquent Subcultures
• Cohen kept Merton’s conception of
strain
• Goals involve making favorable
impression on others and self-esteem
• The school experience of lower-class
boys makes it difficult to achieve these
goals
19
Delinquent Subcultures
• Status frustration
• Strain
• Hedonism
• Maliciousness
20
Evaluating Cohen’s Status
Frustration Theory
• Emphasis on males
• New focus on gang research
• Only emphasized lower-class crime
• Linkage between schools and crime
• Failure to explain why some poor
students do not become delinquent
21
• Victor Rios’ youth control complex argues
that the punishing arm of the state (the prison
system) and the nurturing arm of the state
(the education system) work together to
criminalize, stigmatize, and punish young
inner city boys and men.
• Reduce boys’ criminal involvement? Get a
romantic interest, for girls, it’s the opposite.
22
Focal Concerns
• Walter B. Miller
• Focus on lower-class subculture
• The focal concerns of these children:
• Trouble
• Toughness
• Smartness
• Excitement
• Fate
• Autonomy
23
Evaluating Focal Concerns
• Received withering criticism
• Ignoring effect of economic deprivation
• Emphasis on blaming the victim
• Similarity of values between poor and
middle-class
• Circular reasoning
24
Differential Opportunity Theory
• Richard Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin
• Anomie/strain failed to account for
selection of adaptive roles
• Cloward an Ohlin suggested differential
access to illegitimate mean
• Illegitimate opportunity structure
• Based on neighborhoods
25
Differential Opportunity
• Neighborhood deviant activities effect
• Social organization
• Types of subculture
• Criminal
• Conflict
• Retreatist
26
Evaluation of Differential
Opportunity
• Popular
• Prompted anti-poverty programs in the
1960s
• Gang specialization debunked
• Neglected
• Middle-class values
• White-collar crime
27
Subculture of Violence
• Marvin Wolfgang and Franco Ferracuti
• Explains high level of violence among
poor, urban males
• Resorting to violence/aggression is
socially approved to deal with certain
stimuli
28
Evaluating the Subculture of
Violence
• Very controversial
• Findings across demographic subgroups
• Race
• Urban areas
• Circular reasoning
• Growing body of research supports
basic theme with more emphasis on
structure
29
The Code of the Street
• Elijah Anderson
• Code emerges from young, urban, African-Americans’
despair and alienation
• “At the heart of the code is the issue of respect--loosely
defined as being treated "right," or granted the
deference one deserves.”
• “This hard reality can be traced to the profound sense
of alienation from mainstream society and its institutions
felt by many poor inner-city black people, particularly
the young. The code of the streets is actually a cultural
adaptation to a profound lack of faith in the police and
the judicial system.”
30
Structural Theories and Gender
• Gender rarely studied in structural
theories
• Males are the primary focus
• Economic marginality hypothesis
• Few subcultural areas that focus on
females
31