criminology chapter 06

CRIMINOLOGY

TODAYAN INTEGRATIVE INTRODUCTION

sixth edition

By FRANK SCHMALLEGER

Pearson Education, Inc.

CRIMINOLOGY

TODAYAN INTEGRATIVE INTRODUCTION

sixth edition

By FRANK SCHMALLEGER

Pearson Education, Inc.

Chapter 6Social Structure

Theories

Criminology Today: An Integrative Introduction, 6/eFrank Schmalleger

Copyright © 2012, 2009, 2006, 2004, 2002, 1999, 1996 by Pearson Education, Inc.Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458 • All rights reserved

3

Major Principles of Sociological Theories• Social groups, social institutions, the arrangement of society, and

social roles are the focus of criminological study

• Group dynamics, group organization, and subgroup relationships form the causal nexus from which crime develops

• Society’s structure and its relative degree of organization or disorganization are important factors contributing to the prevalence of criminal behavior

• Specific behavior of a given individual cannot be predicted, but statistical estimates of group characteristics and of the probability that a member of a given group will engage in a specific type of crime are possible



4

Major Principles of Sociological Theories• Social structure theories examine

institutional arrangements within a social structure and social processes as they affect socialization and have an impact on social life

• Macro focus: stress types of behavior likely to be exhibited by group members



5

Key Sociological Explanations of Crime• Social structure theories:

Crime is the result of an individual’s location within the structure of society

• Social process/social development theories: Crime is the end product of various social processes.

• Conflict theories: Crime is the product of class struggle



6

Definition of Social Structure Theories

• Look at formal and informal economic and social arrangements of society as the root causes of crime and deviance

• See the negative aspects of social structure as producers of criminal behavior

• Highlight arrangements within society that contribute to low SES of identifiable groups as significant causes of crime



7

Types of Social Structure Theories

• Social disorganization theory (ecological approach

• Strain theory

• Culture conflict theory (cultural deviance theory)



8

Social Disorganization Theory

• Associated with the ecological school of criminology

• W.I. Thomas and Florian Znaniecki – Found crime rates rose among displaced

persons– Suggested cause was social disorganization

resulting from immigrants’ inability to successfully transplant norms and values from home cultures into the new one



9

Chicago School

• Social ecology movement– Focused on how the structure of society adapts to the quality of

natural resources and to the existence of other human groups– Developed disease model based on social pathology

• Aspects of society may be somehow pathological and produce deviant behavior among groups and individuals who are exposed to such conditions

• Social disorganization and pathology may arise when a group is faced with significant social change

• Robert Park and Ernst Burgess – Saw American cities caught up in swift social change – ideal focus

for study of social disorganization– Viewed cities as having five concentric zones, each with unique

characteristics and populations



10

Chicago’s Concentric Zones

Figure 6-1



11

Shaw and McKay• Applied concentric zone model to the study of juvenile

delinquency

• Found offending rates remained constant over time within zones of transition– Criminal activity associated with urban transitional zones– Typified by social disorganization, turmoil, lower property values,

poverty, lack of privacy

• Cultural transmission: Traditions of delinquency are transmitted through successive generations of the same zone

• Key contribution of ecological school: society has a major influence on human behavior



12

The Criminology of Place

• Environmental criminology– Emphasizes the importance of geographic location and

architectural features as they are associated with the prevalence of victimization

– “Hot spots” of crime

• Broken windows thesis (Wilson and Kelling)– Physical deterioration and unrepaired buildings lead to

increased concerns for safety among area residents– Led to increase in “order maintenance policing” and

crackdown on quality-of-life offenses



13

The Criminology of Place

• Defensible space– The range of mechanisms that combine to bring an

environment under the control of its residents– Architectural changes that enhance barriers, define

boundaries, and remove criminal opportunity can reduce the risk of crime

• Location can be as predictive of crime as the lifestyles of victimized individuals or social features of victimized households

• Places can be criminogenic



14

Strain Theory

• Strain:The pressure that individuals feel to reach socially determined goals

• Anomie (Robert K. Merton)A disjunction between socially approved means to success and legitimate goals

• Crime results from attempts to achieve legitimate goals through illegitimate means



15

Goals and Means Disjuncture

Table 6-1



16

Relative Deprivation

• Messner and Rosenfeld blame crime on inconsistencies in the American Dream

• Relative deprivation:The economic and social gap that exists between rich and the poor who live in close proximity

• Distributive justice:An individual’s perception of his or her rightful place in the reward structure of society

• Types of relative deprivation– Personal– Group



17

General Strain Theory (GST)

• Robert Agnew reformulated strain theory into a comprehensive perspective

• Crime seen as a coping mechanism enabling those who engage in it to deal with the socioemotional problems generated by negative social relations



18

Central Propositions of GST

• Strain refers to events and conditions that are disliked by individuals

• Strains increase the likelihood of particular crimes primarily through their impact on a range of negative emotional states

• Those strains most likely to cause crime (a) are perceived as high in magnitude or (b) as unjust; (c) are associated with low self-control; and (d) create some pressure or incentive to engage in criminal coping



19

Central Propositions of GST

• The likelihood that individuals will react to strains with criminal behavior depends on a range of factors influencing the individual’s (a) ability to engage in legal coping, (b) costs of crime, and (c) disposition of crime

• Patterns of offending over the life course, group differences in crime, and community and societal differences in crime can be partly explained in terms of differences in the exposure to strains conducive to crime

• Crime can be reduced by reducing individuals exposure to strains that are conducive to crime and reducing their likelihood of responding to strains with crime



20

General Strain Theory

• GST expands upon traditional strain theory– Widens focus to include all types of negative relations

between individual and others– Strain may have a cumulative effect on delinquency– Gives a more comprehensive account of adaptations to

strain– More fully describes wide variety of factors affecting

choice of delinquent adaptations to strain

• GST has been further refined to incorporate the possible existence of biological factors that may make some individuals particularly susceptible to effects of strain



21

Culture Conflict Theory

• Thorsten Sellin– Root cause of crime found in different values about what

is acceptable or proper behavior– Conduct norms provide the valuative basis for human

behavior and are acquired early in life through childhood socialization

– Clash of norms between variously socialized groups results in crime

• Types of culture conflict– Primary: a fundamental clash of cultures– Secondary: smaller cultures within the primary one clash



22

Subcultural Theory

• Subculture:A collection of values and preferences communicated to participants through a process of socialization

• Subcultural theory:Sociological perspective emphasizing the contribution made by variously socialized cultural groups to the phenomenon of crime



23

Focal Concerns

• Walter Miller identified existence of a lower class culture:– A long established, distinctively patterned

tradition with an integrity of its own– Behavior that upholds lower class norms may be

seen by the middle class as deliberately nonconforming

• Violation of middle-class norms is a byproduct of actions primarily oriented to the lower-class system



24

Focal Concerns

• TroubleGetting in, staying out, dealing with trouble

• ToughnessConcern with masculinity

• SmartnessAbility to outsmart or con others and avoid being duped

• ExcitementSearch for thrills

• FateThe concept of luck, being lucky

• AutonomyTaking care of oneself, not getting pushed around



25

Delinquency and Drift

• Sykes and Matza

• Members of delinquent subcultures also participate in the larger culture

• Offenders use neutralizing self-talk to mitigate shame and guilt associated with violating social norms



26

Techniques of Neutralization

Figure 6-2



27

Delinquency and Drift

• Delinquents tend to drift between crime and conventional action – choose the most expedient

• Use techniques of neutralization to keep from being alienated from larger society

• Soft determinism:Delinquents are neither forced to make choices nor entirely free to make choices



28

Violent Subcultures

• Ferracuti and Wolfgang

• Violence is a learned form of adaptation to problematic life circumstances

• Learning to be violent takes place within the context of a subculture emphasizing violence over other forms of adaptation

• Group’s value system constitutes a subculture of violence



29

Violent Subcultures

• Southern subculture of violence– Certain violent crimes may be more acceptable in

the southern U.S. than in northern parts of the country

– Violence may be a traditional tool to maintain social order

• Black subculture of violence– Created by generations of white-on-black violence– Seek status through ability to harm, intimidate,

dominate others



30

Differential Opportunity Theory

• Cloward and Ohlin (1960) - blended subcultural thesis with strain theory

• Two types of socially structured opportunities for success– Legitimate – Illegitimate

• Members of lower-class subcultures may be denied access to legitimate opportunities



31

Differential Opportunity Theory

• Illegitimate opportunity structure– Pre-existing subcultural paths to success not

approved of by the wider culture

• Delinquent behavior results from– Ready availability of illegitimate opportunities– Replacement of cultural norms with expedient

subcultural rules



32

Delinquent Subcultures

• Criminal subcultures:Criminal role models readily available

• Conflict subcultures:Status through violence

• Retreatist subcultures:Drug use and withdrawal from wider society



33

Types of Lower Class Youth

• Type I:Desire entry into middle class by improving their economic position

• Type II:Desire entry to middle class but not improvement in economic position

• Type III:Desire wealth without entry to middle class

• Type IV:Dropouts who retreat from mainstream through drug and alcohol use



34

Reaction Formation

• Albert Cohen– Youth held accountable to norms of wider

society through “middle class measuring rod” of expectations

– Not everyone is prepared to effectively meet such expectations

• Reaction formation:The process in which a person openly rejects that which he wants, or aspires to, but cannot obtain or achieve



35

The Code of the Street

• Elijah Anderson– Contemporary street code stresses a

hyperinflated notion of manhood resting on the idea of respect

– Street culture’s violent nature means a man cannot back down from threats

• Decent vs. street families



36

Gangs Today

• Modern gangs are involved in serious and violent crimes

• Gangs can be big business– Traditional criminal activities– Drug dealing

• Distinctions between gangs and violence

• Co-offending especially prevalent in the lives of gang members



37

Policy Implications of Social Structure Theories• Chicago Area Project attempted to reduce social

disorganization in slum neighborhoods by creating community committees

• Mobilization for Youth provided new opportunities and tried to change the fundamental arrangements of society, addressing the root causes of crime

• War on Poverty tried to reduce crime rates by redistributing wealth in American society



38

Critique of Social Structure Theories

• Some argue the inverse of the “root causes” argument – suggest poverty and social injustices are produced by crime

• If so, addressing poverty and social inequity as the root causes of crime is and ineffective crime prevention strategy



39

Critique of Ecological Theories

• May give too much credence to the notion that spatial location determines crime

• Seems unable to differentiate between social disorganization and the things it is said to cause

• Many crimes occur outside of socially disorganized areas



40

Critique of Strain Theories

• Original formulation less applicable to modern society

• Delinquents do not report being more distressed than other youth



41

Critique of Subcultural Theories

• Seen as lacking in explanatory power

• Seen as tautological (circular)

• Hs been criticized or being racist



42

Other Critiques of Social Structure Theories• Social structure theories link low SES to high

delinquency – not supported by empirical studies

• Overemphasis on environments creates bias against looking elsewhere for possible causes

• Cannot predict which individuals, or which proportion of given population, will turn to crime

criminology chapter 06

Documents