Chicago School

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Chicago School

• The Beginning
• of
• American Criminology

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CHICAGO SCHOOL OF CRIMINOLOGY

• Research to explain crime and/or juvenile
  offenders that combined two different data bases
• Social Ecology

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Cont

• Combined life histories of juveniles with the
  geographic and social distribution of juvenile
  offenders and their offending rates.

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SOCIAL ECOLOGY

• Examination of different areas of a city that
  studied the interrelationships and
  interdependencies of human communities to
  discover the forces that define the activities of
  each.

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SOCIAL ECOLOGY
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office building
schools
city government
factories
neighborhood
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SHAW AND McKAYS BOOK, JUVENILE DELINQUENCY and
URBAN AREAS

• Good account of crime and urbanization.
• Tried to answer many questions, of which I
  consider this one, to be the best.

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THE QUESTION

• Do juvenile delinquency rates vary with the
  economic, social and cultural characteristics of
  local communities?

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Cont

• The answer provides the foundation for their
  theories.

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SOCIAL DISORGANIZATION THEORY

• Focus social characteristics of a community the
  cause of crime/delinquency.
• Structural approach
• Macro

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SOCIAL DISORGANIZATION THEORY

• Crime/delinquency resulted b/c of breakdowns of
  social control in families, neighborhoods, and
  communities due to physical changes, leading to
  disorganization.

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Cont

• Physical changes (external social forces) rapid
  industrialization, urbanization, and mass
  immigration

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FAMILY BREAKDOWN OF CONTROL
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WHATS CAUSING LOSE OF CONTROL?
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INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

• Primary force altering physical changes in
  Chicago.
• Physical changes altered the traditional
  community setting

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Cont

• Traditional values and norms changed as people
  adapted to the new social environment.
• Exploitation by landlords of new immigrants.

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ZONE OF TRANSITION
Industry needing more land
landlord putting the squeeze on new immigrants
cheap housing
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EFFECTS ON INCREASED POPULATION

• Mass immigration and less housing, population
  growth expands outward, creating suburbs.

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professional/clerical
industrial workers
workers
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COURT AND POLICE DATA

• Examination of data discovered a pattern of
  delinquency.
• Delinquency decreased as one moved further from
  the zone of transition into the suburbs.

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Cont

• High areas of delinquency exposed to conflicting
  sets of values by criminal adult role models.

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ADULT ROLE MODELS

• Influential in making delinquency a social
  tradition in the zone of transition.
• Legitimate means of success were blocked or
  limited, therefore, an environmental factors for
  delinquency to become a tradition was established.

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IMPORTANT POINT

• High rates of delinquency not related to ethnic
  backgrounds of offenders.

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IMPORTANT POINT

• Related to high turnover rate of differing ethnic
  groups coming into the zone of transition causing
  a lack of identification with the community and
  neighborhood.

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IMPORTANT POINT

• This supported the premise that social
  disorganization was an underlying cause of
  delinquency.

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IMPORTANT FACTORS ABOUT SOCIAL DISORGANIZATION
THEORY

• Areas closest to the factory zone was the least
  organized part of the community.

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Cont

• Suburbs had a higher degree of organization.

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QUOTE FROM SHAW AND MCKAY

• Delinquency rates were for these groups
  high...because of other aspects of the total
  situation in which they lived.

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Cont.

• Therefore, delinquency is directly related to
  economic and social processes in the growth of
  Chicago.
• Pattern can be seen in most industrialized
  cities, including Waterloo.

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DELINQUENCY RELATED TO OTHER SOCIAL PROBLEMS

• Crime/Delinquency not a separate problem.
• Related to high rates of truancy, infant
  mortality, tuberculosis, and mental disorders.

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DELINQUENCY RELATED TO OTHER SOCIAL PROBLEMS

• Zone of transition had the highest rates of
  repeat offenders, and highest number of juveniles
  arrested after becoming adults.

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CATALYST OF ECONOMY

• Shaw and McKay add an economic aspect to their
  theory, finding the occupational structure was
  more of an influence than the social life of a
  community.

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Differential Opportunity Structure

• New theory called differential opportunity
  structure due to the conflict between values and
  norms.
• Cultural transmission theories get their base
  from here.

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NORMS
VALUES
CONFLICT
NORMS
VALUES
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RECENT FINDINGS OF SOCIAL DISORGANIZATION THEORY

• Communities characteristic of
• limited friendly networks,
• unsupervised teenagers,
• low participation in community organizations,
• had high rates of delinquency.

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RECENT FINDINGS OF SOCIAL DISORGANIZATION THEORY

• Deteriorated neighborhoods with dense populations
  had weaker ties to primary groups of youth,
  leading to disorder.

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DIFFERENTIAL ASSOCIATION THEORY (EDWIN SUTEHRLAND)

• Symbolic Interactionist perspective examining the
  interaction between individuals and their
  environment.
• Combination of environmental and social process
  theories.

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DIFFERENTIAL ASSOCIATION THEORY (EDWIN SUTEHRLAND)

• Strain theories and economic inequality.
• Social process and the environment.

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SOCIAL PROCESS THEORYS RELATIONSHIP WITH
ENVIRONMENTAL/STRAIN THEORYS

• Suggest that crime/delinquency is a result of
• improper socialization
• conflict with social institutions
• criminal behavior

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SOCIAL PROCESS THEORYS RELATIONSHIP WITH
ENVIRONMENTAL/STRAIN THEORYS

• A process of interaction with ones environment.

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EDWIN SUTHERLAND

• Theorized that criminal behavior is learned from
  others a product of social interaction.
• 9 propositions

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EDWIN SUTHERLAND

• Criminal behavior is not inherited, but learned
  in a process of communication, verbal and
  nonverbal, in small intimate groups.

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Additional Information on Sutherlands Theory

• Degree of criminal behavior is dependent upon the
  intensity and frequency of contact with the
  intimate group.

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A process of socialization similar to
programming a computer