Sociological Theories of
Drug Use/Abuse
• Structural Theories: Anomie, Unequal
Opportunity, Social Disorganization (Durkheim,
Merton, Agnew, Messner and Rosenfeld, Shaw and McKay, Bursick)
• Social Process Theories: Socialization (Matza, Hirschi)
• Social Reproduction Theory: Human, Social, and
Personal Capital (Hagan and McCarthy, Birmingham School)
• Dimensions of Social Organization: Race, Class,
and Gender (numerous contemporary researchers)
Social Structural Theories:
Anomie, Strain, Social
Disorganization
The focus of these theories is a stratified society
and the unequal distribution of wealth and
status as causes of crime.
– Anomie- state of normlessness, absence of social
integration
– Disorganized neighborhoods and crime
– Inability to achieve social success (unequal
opportunity) and crime
– Poverty and crime
Unit 2 - 2
Durkheim and Anomie
• Anomie= absence of social ties that bind people to society,
state of where norms about good and bad have little
salience in people’s lives. Outcome of advanced
Capitalism and ideology of individualism (latter 20th
century U.S.)
– Who are you responsible to? Example of crime and responsibility.
– Weakening of social ties destabilizes society and leads to chaos.
– Collective good versus individual self-interest? Did Durkheim
believe functional society’s had to chose between these two things
or did he advocate balance between them? Why?
Merton and Strain
• Access to opportunities is largely a function of one’s status set, which
defines a person’s position in the social structure. Status set includes
occupation, neighborhood, age, sex, race, education, religion
• One’s location in the social structure does not fully determine
opportunities for goal achievement or the individual’s perceptions of
opportunities. Individuals do not determine whether they are strained
or frustrated in isolation; they compare themselves to others in order to
ascertain this.
• Strain= Discrepancy between goals and means in society and unequal
access to their legitimate attainment.
• Modes of Adaptation= accept goals and means (conformist), accept
goals and reject means (innovator) etc.
Merton and Strain: Disparity
Between Goals and means to obtain
them = anomie or strain.
• Modes of Adaptation:
– Conformist- accept both goals and means
– Innovator- accept goals, reject means and use
illegitimate
– Retreatist- rejects both but remains inactive
– Rebel- rejects both but tries to create new
General Strain Theory
• Adding and emotional component to Merton and Durkheim (social
psychological) strain results when youth place a high value on
monetary success, do not view adherence to legit norms as a source of
status or prestige, and feel they won’t be able to achieve monetary
success through legitimate channels. This predicament creates
negative affect (e.g., anger) for some and can foster criminal
adaptations.
• Strain can result from:
– Prevention of achieving positively valued goals.
– Removing or threatening to remove positive phenomena one possesses
– Presenting or threatening to present one with noxious or negatively valued
stimuli
Social Disorganization Theory
• Crime not evenly distributed geographically. Why?
• Concentric zones- crime varies in proximity to urban core.
• Why? Poverty, ethnic heterogeneity, urban decay,
residential instability.
• These four factors disallow residents to exert informal and
formal social control in their neighborhoods that would
prevent crime.
• Role of social control by non-CJ agencies is critical.
Citizens can prevent crime through bonding and
community investment.
Social Process Theories:
Social Control Theory
• Close associations with
important institutions
and individuals control
behavior.
• People are born “bad”
and must be controlled
to be “good.”
Unit 2 - 8
Social Control Theories (cont.)
• For Hirschi, delinquency should be
expected if a juvenile is not properly
socialized
• Proper socialization involves the
establishment of a strong moral bond
between the juvenile and society
Social Control Theories (cont.)
• This bond to society consists of:
 attachment to others
 commitment to conventional lines of
action
 involvement in conventional activities
 belief in the moral order and law
Interactionism and Labeling
Theory (cont.)
• Note that labeling theorists attempt to
explain only what Lemert called "secondary
deviance”
• Secondary deviance = the commission of
crime after the first criminal act, with the
acceptance of a criminal label
Interactionism and Labeling
Theory (cont.)
• Secondary deviance begins with an initial
criminal act, or what Lemert called
"primary deviance"
• The causes of initial criminal acts are
unspecified
Interactionism and Labeling
Theory (cont.)
• If society, especially official agents of the
state, reacts negatively to an initial criminal
act, the offender will likely be stigmatized,
or negatively labeled
Social Reproduction Theory
• We acquire at birth and accumulate through life unequal shares of
various types of capital that alter and determine our life chances.
• In less advantaged community and family settings, parents who lack
abundant social and cultural capital are less able to endow or transmit
opportunities to their children. Children must adapt to these
disadvantaged circumstances and often do through illegal pursuits.
• Schools and other institutions reproduce social class position.
Channel people to certain lifestyles, goal attainment.
• Four types of Capital:
– Financial (tangible forms of material wealth such as money, credit, investment,
and assets)
– Human capital (degrees, education, skills, training, and experience)
– Social capital (benefits from relationships individuals have with or resources
they get from others)
– Personal capital (the desire for wealth, risk-taking propensity, willingness to
cooperate, and competence-- see McCarthy and Hagan 2001).
Shortcomings of Extant Theory
• Failure to distinguish drug use from abuse
• Over-reliance on individual sciences and factors
and neglect of structural causes or connection
between the two types.
• Peer concept too narrowly defined and argument
for it circular. Focus on subcultures.
• Focus solely on behaviors, not other variables, like
drug identity.
Anderson’s CI Theory
• Definition of Abuse; (1) a pattern of regular
and heavy use over a significant period of
time, (2) a set of drug-related problems (at
work, or with interpersonal relationships,
one’s own health, and formal social control
agencies), (3) previous and failed attempts
to terminate drug consumption, and (4) selfidentification as having a drug and/or
alcohol problem.
Anderson’s CI Theory
An underlying premise of the theory is that individuals are
motivated toward drug-related identity change because of
marginalization (personal and social) and socially-defined
problems with existing identities (ego identity discomfort
and lost control in defining an identity) in childhood and
early adolescence. Certain meso-level, (e.g., identification
with drug subcultural groups), and macro-level
phenomena, (e.g., economic opportunity, educational
opportunity, and popular culture), that they encounter
provide an opportunity structure for that change.
Anderson’s CI Theory Continued
• Identification with a drug subcultural group provides an
opportunity to resolve socially-defined identity problems.
Cultural-identity theory maintains that the higher an
individual scores on the identity change motivational
concepts, the more likely it he or she will identify with
drug subcultural groups and experience drug-related
identity change. Furthermore, the theory also maintains
that individuals exposed to environments with high risk
levels on the three macro concepts will have more
opportunity to identify with drug subcultural groups and
will be at increased risk for drug abuse.
Anderson’s CI Theory Continued
•
•
•
Material Symbolism. Drugs can function as a mechanism to pursue
economic and leisure activities, especially the marketing of illicit ones. Drug
sales can furnish one with status and prestige with respect to things such as
economic well-being (money and possessions, property) and fashion and other
popular culture artifacts.
Affect Control. This is perhaps the best documented function of drugs for the
abuser and is most closely tied to the theory’s micro-level concepts. It refers
to consuming drugs to deal with feelings, usually negative, about the self
and/or others in one’s immediate environment or in the larger society. Drugs
often quell ill feelings or provide an escape from them.
Identity Creation. This function of drugs features a new definition of the self
that is that is likely related to both material symbolism and affect control.
Drug euphoria helps facilitate negations of existing identities and
reconstructions of new identities for her addict respondents. These new self
definitions were typically viewed as more positively.