Shaw and McKay

1
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

2
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?

3
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

4
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)

5
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

6
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

7
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

8
Modern Social Disorganization Theory
9
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

10
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

11
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

12
Related ecological ideas II

• Starks Deviant Places
• Criminal Hot Spots

13
Social Ecology Policy Implications (1 of 5)

• ? Targets
• ? Ecological factors
• ? Social cohesion
• ? Informal social controls

14
Social Ecology Policy Implications (2 of 5)

• ? Chicago Area Projects (CAP)
• ? Mobilize local informal social organization and
  social controlcreating community committees
• ? Overcome influence of delinquent peers and
  criminal adults
• ? Assign detached local adults to neighborhood
  gangs
• ? Recreational programs designed to provide youth
  with associations with conventional peers and
  adults
• ? Improve sanitation, traffic control, and
  physical decay
• ? Produced mixed results

15
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)

16
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

17
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

18
Review of Social D / Ecological Explanations

• Theory of PlacesMacro Level
• Neighborhood (Social D)
• Hot spots
• Social D
• Ecological Factors
• Intervening Factors (collective efficacy)
• Explanation of high crime rates among African
  Americans

19
Anomie or Strain Theories

• Merton
• Agnew
• Messner and Rosenfeld

20
Durkhiems Legacy
Rapidly Changing Society Industrial
Prosperity Anomie (Norms are Weakened)
Human Nature as Insatiable must therefore cap
or control Social Ties Important
The Anomie/Strain Tradition
The Social Disorganization and Informal Control
21
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

22
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

23
Strain Theory (Micro Level)
24
Criticisms of Mertons Strain Theory

• Is crime a lower class phenomena?
• Cannot explain expressive crimes
• Weak empirical support
• Why do people adapt differently?

25
Agnew General Strain Theory

• Overhaul of Mertons Strain Theory
• Three sources of strain
• Failure to achieve valued goals
• Removal of valued stimuli
• Cant escape noxious stimuli

26
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

27
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)

28
CRIME AND THE AMERICAN DREAM

• Messner and Rosenfeld

29
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

30
Elements of the American Dream

• Achievement
• Individualism
• Universalism
• The fetishism of money
• These elements encourage Anomic conditions

31
THE AMERICAN DREAM PRODUCES ANOMIE

• MERTON Pursuit of financial success is limited
  only by considerations of technical expediency.
• Lombardi Winning isnt everything, its the
  only thing.

32
Institutions in Society

• Social institutions as the building blocks of
  society.
• The Economy
• The Polity
• The Family
• Education

33
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

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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

35
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

36
Culture, Social Structure, and Crime Rates
CULTURE The American
Dream ANOMIE
SOCIAL STRUCTURE Economic Dominance Weak
Institutional Controls
HIGH CRIME RATES