Structural Theories of Crime

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Structural Theories of Crime

• 1. Social Structure
• 2. Social structure and crime

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What is social structure?

• How it is different from any other structure?

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How many of you..

• Watched a movie
• Talked to a friend
• Washed clothes
• Went shopping
• Took a bus to school/drove a car
• Thought about your exam grade

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In the course of a typical week we must function
as

• Student
• Friend
• Sister/brother
• Commuter
• Client
• Coworker

Social Interactions
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Social Interactions

• Social Interactions are the ways in which people
  respond to one another
• Necessary for the transmission and reproduction
  of culture
• Need not be face to face
• Basis for social structure

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Social Structure

• Social structure refers to that way in which a
  society is organized into predictable
  relationships
• Schemas in our mind - give us this knowledge
  how to behave
• We learn these schemas
• Examples line to get on a bus

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Crystal Structure (crystal system)

• The atomic arrangement of the atoms of an element
  when it is in its solid state

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What is social structure?

• Social structure refers to that way in which a
  society is organized into predictable
  relationships

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What is social structure?

• Social structure refers to that way in which a
  society is organized into predictable
  relationships
• Constellation (or arrangement) of statuses,
  roles, norms, and values
• A particular social setting/interaction has its
  own structure
• Ascribed/achieved status

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Social Statuses
Ascribed Statuses
Daughter
Sister
Hispanic
Female
20 Years
Person
Student
Friend
Employee
Dormitory resident
Classmate
Achieved Statuses
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Family

• Family structure (single/never married
  single/divorce married separated widowed etc)

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Stratification - example of structure

• One example of social structure is the idea of
  social stratification," which refers to the idea
  that society is separated into different strata,
  according to social distinctions such as a race,
  class and gender
• Social treatment of persons within various social
  structures can be understood as related to their
  placement within the various social strata

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Social classes in the USA
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Class Characteristics (Upper class)

• Upper-upper class (wealth is inherited rather
  than earned (old money)
• Lower-upper class (depend on earning rather than
  wealth (new rich), exceptional accomplishments
  (the athlete who accepts a million-dollar
  contract to play in a big leagues, the clever
  computer programmer who designs the a new program
  that sets a standard for the industry

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Class Characteristics (Middle class)

• Upper-middle class comfortable house in a
  fairly expensive area, several cars, some
  investments, college education, and postgraduate
  degree. Many work in white collar fields
  medicine, engineering, law, or business executives

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Lower middle class

• Lower-middle class might work as bank tellers,
  middle managers, sales clerks or highly skilled
  blue-collar jobs (electrical work or carpentry)

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Class Characteristics (Working class)

• Working class - mostly blue-collar occupations,
  live in lower-cost neighborhoods, few working
  class people can afford college education for
  themselves and their children

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Class Characteristics (lower class)

• Lower class low-prestige jobs that provide
  minimal income. Only some complete high school,
  college degree is usually out of reach. Large
  number lives in deteriorating areas, in rental
  housing, work two or three jobs
• Minorities
• Single (female headed) parents
• About 15 of population (40 mil.) 1994
• Poverty line--12,812 (1991)-- 15,141
  (1994)--16,400 (1997)--17,050 (2000).

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How to measure Social Class?

• Objective Measures (the researcher makes a
  determination about an individual's class
  position)
• Education
• Occupation (prestige ranking)
• Income
• Wealth
• Residence (sometimes)
• Subjective Measure (individuals opinion)

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Objective measure of social class

• Prestige refers to the respect and admiration
  with which an occupation is regarded by society
• National surveys are used to assign prestige
  ranking to more than 500 occupations (90 to 10
  scores)

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What are the most and least prestigious
occupations?

• Make a list of three or five occupations

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Prestige Ranking of Occupations (high)
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LIFE-CHANCES AND S.E.S.

• HEALTH AND MEDICINE
• ACCESS TO CULTURE
• SOCIALIZATION (different orientations for
  children)
• POLITICAL ORIENTATION
• DATING/MARRIAGE
• CLUBS ORGANIZATIONS
• CHILD REARING
• NUTRITION
• SERVING IN ARMED FORCES
• RESIDENTIAL LOCATION

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Class and Life Chances

• Education upper 1/5--79 go to college, bottom
  1/5-- 30
• Health Infant mortality--70 higher in poor
  families, poorer more likely to suffer from
  serious illness (physical and psychological)
• 15 of population has no health insurance and
  this is NOT the same group as the POOR

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Class and Life Chances

• Life expectancy 5-7 years less (environmental
  factors, occupation, nutrition)
• Poor--target of lotteries and alcohol advertising.

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Class and Life Chances

• Crime poorer--more likely to be victims
  (especially violence, including robbery
• If accused--more likely to spend time in jail),
  more likely to receive harsher sentence.
• Military poorer--more likely to serve and get
  shot.

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Social Structure Theories

• Explain crime by reference to the institutional
  structure of society
• Agents are passive
• Social structure is imposed on them

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Social Structure Theories

• Explain crime by reference to the institutional
  structure of society
• Social structure theorists view members of
  economically disadvantaged groups as being more
  likely to commit crimes (structure made them
  disadvantaged)

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Social Structure Theories

• Crime is seen largely as a lower-class phenomenon
• Criminality of middle class is generally
  discounted as less severe, less frequent, and
  less dangerous

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Social Structure Theories

• Social Disorganization Theory
• Theory of Anomie (Mertons Theory)
• Institutional Anomie Theory
• Relative Deprivation Theory
• Theory of Focal Concerns
• Theory of Delinquent Subcultures (Cohen)
• Theory of Differential Opportunities

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Social Disorganization Theory

• Crime is caused primarily by social factors
• The city is a perfect natural laboratory (Chicago
  reflects society as a whole)

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Social disorganization definition

• Social disorganization is defined as an inability
  of community members to achieve shared values or
  to solve jointly experienced problems (Bursik,
  1988).

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CONCENTRIC ZONE THEORY

• Park and Burgess (1920s)
• They saw cities as consisting of five zones (CBD
  - Central Business District, transition,
  workingman, residential, and commuter)
• Their "zonal hypothesis" was that delinquency is
  greatest in the zone of transition

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Shaw and McKay (1930s)

• They never said that poverty causes crime
• They only said that "poverty areas" tended to
  have high rates of residential mobility and
  racial heterogeneity that made it difficult for
  communities in those areas to avoid becoming
  socially disorganized

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Shaw and McKay's Model
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Sampson and Grove (1989)
Residential Mobility Low Economic Status Racial
Heterogeneity Family Disruption Population
Density/Urbanization
Unsupervised teen-age peer groups Low
organizational participation Spare local
friendship networks
Crime
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Residential mobility

• When the population of an area is constantly
  changing, the residents have fewer opportunities
  to develop strong, personal ties to one another
  and to participate in community organizations

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Ethnic diversity

• According to Shaw and McKay (1942), ethnic
  diversity interferes with communication among
  adults. Effective communication is less likely in
  the face of ethnic diversity because differences
  in customs and a lack of shared experiences may
  breed fear and mistrust (Sampson and Groves,
  1989).

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Family disruption

• Sampson (1985) argued that unshared parenting
  strains parents' resources of time, money, and
  energy, which interferes with their ability to
  supervise their children and communicate with
  other adults in the neighborhood
• The smaller the number of parents in a community
  relative to the number of children, the more
  limited the networks of adult supervision will be
  for all the children

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Economic status

• Areas with the lowest average socioeconomic
  status will also have the greatest residential
  instability and ethnic diversity, which in turn
  will create social disorganization (Bursik and
  Grasmick, 1993)
• Many studies have found that urban neighborhoods
  with high rates of poverty also have greater
  rates of delinquency (Warner and Pierce, 1993).

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Population density

• High population density creates problems by
  producing anonymity that interferes with
  accountability to neighbors

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Collective efficacy and neighborhood safety

• Robert Sampson (1990)
• Concept of collective efficacy captures trust
  and cohesion on one hand and shared
  expectations for control on the other
• Collective efficacy is associated with lower
  rates of violence