Structural Theories of Crime

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Structural Theories of Crime

• 1. Social Structure
• 2. Disorganization Theory

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What is social structure?

• Constellation (or arrangement) of statuses,
  roles, norms, and values
• How is it different from any other structure?
• Does everything have structure?
• Friendship, classroom, gangs, intimate homicide

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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 is flexible
• A particular social setting/interaction has its
  own structure
• Ascribed/achieved status

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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
• 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

• They see economic and social disenfranchisement
  as fundamental cause of crime
• Structure causes crime

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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

• Disorganization Theory
• Strain Theories
• Cultural Deviance Theory (combined the effects of
  the first two)

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Social Disorganization Theory

• Crime is caused primarily by social factors
• Official statistics are OK, but fieldwork is
  better (acceptance of official arrest data)
• The city is a perfect natural laboratory (Chicago
  reflects society as a whole)
• Components of social structure are unstable
  (conflict, anomie, social disorganization)

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Social Disorganization Theory

• Instabilities and their effects are worse for the
  lower classes (lower class crime focus)
• Human nature is basically good but subject to
  vulnerability and inability to resist temptation

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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) saw cities as consisting
  of five zones
• Zone I - Central buisness
• Zone II - Zone of Transition
• Zone III - Working Class Homes
• Zone IV - Middle Class Homes
• Zone V - Commuters

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CONCENTRIC ZONE THEORY

• Crime rates were then monitored for each of these
  geographic regions.
• The highest crime rate was found to be located in
  the zone that had been labeled Zone II (zone of
  transition)
• Zone II was marked by a high level of transition,
  people moving in and out of the area
• It was hypothesized that this "zone of
  transition" led to social disorganization.

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CONCENTRIC ZONE THEORY

• They defined social disorganization as "the
  inability of a group to engage in
  self-regulation" which is a social control
  theoretic formulation
• Their model of the city tested well in most
  modern planned cities

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Shaw and McKay (1930s)

• Inspired by Park and Burgess
• They collected their data from over 56,000
  juvenile court records with covered a period of
  time from 1900-1933.
• They found that delinquency occurred in the areas
  nearest to the business district
• Those areas were characterized by a high
  percentage of immigrants, non-whites, lower
  income familes
• High-delinquency areas had an acceptance of
  nonconventional norms, which competed with
  conventional ones

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Shaw and McKay (1930s)

• Were concerned about the three D's of poverty
  Disease, Deterioration, and Demoralization
• 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

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Collective Efficacy

• Informal Social Control peers, families,
  relatives, neighbors
• Formal Social Control schools, churches,
  volunteer organizations