Shaw and McKay

Juvenile Delinquency in Urban Areas 1942.



Mapped addresses of delinquents (court
records)
Zone in transition stable and high delinquency
rates over many years
Implications of these findings:
1. Stable, despite multiple waves of immigrants!!
2. Only certain areas of the city Something about
this area causes delinquency
Social Disorganization

What were the characteristics of the zone in
transition that may cause high delinquency
rates?





Population Heterogeneity
Population Turnover
Physical Decay
Poverty/Inequality
Why might these ecological characteristics lead
to high crime rates?
Explaining high crime in the zone of
transition
1. Social Control

Little community “cohesion,” therefore, weak community
institutions and lack of control
2. Cultural Transmission of Values

Once crime rooted in a neighborhood, delinquent values
are passed trough generations of delinquents

Example
Social Disorganization 1960-1980

Fell out of favor in sociology in 1950s


Individual theories gained popularity
Criticisms of Social Disorganization




“Official Data”
Are these neighborhoods really “disorganized?”
Cannot measure “intervening variables”
“Chicago Specific” (not all cities grow in rings)
Modern S.D. Theory

Interest rekindled in the 1980s



Continues today with “ecological studies”
reborn as a pure social control theory (left behind
“transmission of values)
Addressing criticism


“Concentric rings” not necessary, it is simply a
neighborhood level theory
Ecological characteristics do affect a
neighborhoods level of informal control
Sampson and Groves (1989)
Using British Crime Survey Data (BCS)
ECOLOGICAL
CHARACTERISTICS
•Population turnover
•Poverty / inequality
•Divorce rates
•Single parents
SOCIAL CONTROL
•Street supervision
•Friendship networks
•Participation in
organizations
Sampson (1997)

Replicated results in Chicago

Areas with “concentrated disadvantage,” (poverty,
race, age composition, family disruption) lack
“collective efficacy”



Willingness to exercise control (tell kids to quiet down)
Willingness to trust or help each other
Lack of collective efficacy increases crime rates
Modern Social Disorganization Theory
Review of Social Disorganization

Macro (Neighborhood) level theory


Explains why certain neighborhoods have high
crime rates
Theory of “Places,” and not “People”

Not all people who live there are “crime prone,” in
fact most are law-abiding
Related “ecological” ideas

William J. Wilson (Concentrated Poverty)


The “Underclass” or “Truly Disadvantaged”
Cultural Isolation no contact with “mainstream”
individuals/institutions

Little respect for “life,” hypermaterialism, violence as
“normative”
S.D. as an explanation for high rates of
African American offending

“Non-Southern” blacks


High proportion of the current members of the
“Zone in Transition.”
Why not move like ZIT residents (immigrants)


Housing Segregation
Loss of Manufacturing Jobs
Related “ecological” ideas II


Stark’s “Deviant Places”
Criminal “Hot Spots”
Social Ecology Policy Implications (1 of
5)
▪
Targets
▪
▪
▪
Ecological factors
Social cohesion
Informal social controls
Social Ecology Policy Implications (2 of
5)
▪
Chicago Area Projects (CAP)
▪
Mobilize local informal social organization and
social control—creating “community committees”
▪
Overcome influence of delinquent peers and
criminal adults
▪
▪
▪
Assign detached local adults to neighborhood gangs
▪
Improve sanitation, traffic control, and physical decay
Recreational programs designed to provide youth with
associations with conventional peers and adults
Produced mixed results
Social Ecology Policy Implications (3 of 5)
▪
Neighborhood watch programs
▪
▪
Only successfully implemented in
neighborhoods that are cohesive
Moving to Opportunity program
▪
▪
Moving everyone out of poverty-stricken
neighborhoods not realistic
Urban-renewal projects
▪
Cabrini Green and other high rise “projects”

New “mixed” ownership (section 8, partial subsidy,
private ownership)
Social Ecology Policy Implications (4 of
5)
▪
Implications for criminal justice system
▪
Community policing
▪
▪
▪
▪
Active role working with neighborhood residents to
identify and solve community problems
Reduces fear of crime
Little evidence of reduction in criminal behavior
Mass Incarceration
▪
High levels of incarceration within a neighborhood might
contribute to social disorganization
Social Ecology Policy Implications (5 of
5)
▪
▪
Weed-and-seed strategy
Federal initiative
▪
▪
▪
▪
Target chronic violent offenders for
incapacitation
Bring human services to the area
Promote economic and physical revitalization
Produced mixed findings
Review of Social D / Ecological
Explanations

Theory of Places—Macro Level



Neighborhood (Social D)
Hot spots
Social D



Ecological Factors
Intervening Factors (collective efficacy)
Explanation of high crime rates among African
Americans
Anomie or “Strain” Theories
Merton
Agnew
Messner and Rosenfeld
Durkhiem’s Legacy
Rapidly Changing
Society
“Industrial Prosperity”
Anomie
(Norms are Weakened)
The Anomie/Strain Tradition
Human Nature as
Insatiable; must
therefore cap or control
Social Ties Important
The Social Disorganization
and “Informal Control”
Robert K. Merton



Social Structure and Anomie (1938)
From Durkheim: Institutionalized norms are
weakened in societies that place an intense
value on economic success
Applied this to the United States

The “American Dream”
Conflict: Means and Goals

Cultural Goal in U.S.?



This goal is universal
(The American Dream)
Institutionalized Means?


Due to the social structure in the U.S., the
means are unequally distributed
Segment of society with no way to attain goal
Strain Theory (Micro Level)
MODES OF
ADAPTATION
CULTURAL INSTITUTIONALIZED
GOALS
MEANS
1. Conformity
+
+
2. Innovation
+
-
3. Ritualism
-
+
4. Retreatism
-
-
5. Rebellion
+/-
+/-
Criticisms of Merton’s Strain Theory




Is crime a “lower class” phenomena?
Cannot explain “expressive” crimes
Weak empirical support
Why do people “adapt” differently?
Agnew: General Strain Theory
Overhaul of Merton’s Strain Theory
Three sources of strain


1.
2.
3.
Failure to achieve valued goals
Removal of valued stimuli
Can’t escape noxious stimuli
Agnew (GST)

StrainNegative Affective States



Anger, fear, frustration, depression
In lieu of “Coping Mechanisms,” anger and
frustration can produce delinquency
StrainNeg EmotionalDelinquency
Agnew (GST)


Tests of GST are more favorable
Is this theory a theory of “Strain” (in a
sociological sense) or a theory of “STRESS?”
(in a psychological sense)
CRIME AND THE AMERICAN DREAM
Messner and Rosenfeld
The Legacy of Merton

In “Social Structure and Anomie”:



“Modes of Adaptation” (micro)
Discussion of why U.S. might be crime prone
(macro) than other countries
Messner and Rosefeld, in the 1980s,
revisited the macro part of the theory
Elements of the
“American Dream”





Achievement
Individualism
Universalism
The “fetishism” of money
These elements encourage “Anomic
conditions”
THE AMERICAN DREAM
PRODUCES ANOMIE


MERTON: Pursuit of financial success is
“limited only by considerations of technical
expediency.”
Lombardi: Winning isn’t everything, it’s the
only thing.
Institutions in Society

Social institutions as the building blocks of
society.




The Economy
The Polity
The Family
Education
Key Issue for M & R



These institutions sometimes have conflicting
goals and values.
All societies can therefore be characterized
by their distinctive arrangements of
institutions
The U.S.? Economy Dominates: we are a
“MARKET SOCIETY”
Indicators of Economic Dominance



Devaluation of non-economic institutional
functions and roles
Accommodation to economic requirements
by other social institutions
Penetration of economic norms into other
social domains
Implications of Economic Dominance

Weak institutional controls




Family and School are handicapped in efforts to
promote allegiance to social rules
Single parent families
Poorly funded schools
“Weak institutions invite challenge”
Culture, Social Structure, and Crime
Rates
CULTURE
SOCIAL STRUCTURE
The American
Dream
Economic Dominance
ANOMIE
Weak Institutional
Controls
HIGH CRIME RATES