Social Disorganization Theory - Term Paper Example

SOCIAL DISORGANIZATION THEORY OF THE OF INSITUTION Several theories exist that are used to explain the emergence of a criminal behavior. This paper will briefly examine the theory of social disorganization and its implications on policy. The theory came into prominence in the 1940’s and was propagated in Chicago by Shaw and Mckay while studying juvenile delinquency in Chicago neighborhood (Inderbitzin and Bates, 2013). Inderbitzin and Bates (2013) explain that this theory mapped social disorganization to conditions prevalent to urban slum areas. The social disorganization theory was popular in the 1940s and 1950s.However its prominence began to wane out as theories started move from the concentrating on groups, to individual processes. The social disorganization theory became disliked by many criminologists. Even so, this theory reemerged in 1980s. Studies done by Bursik (1986; 1988), Sampson and Groves (1989), and Wilson (1990; 1996) assisted in reinvigoration, and partially reformulating and extending, the social disorganization theory. A number of criticisms leveled at the theory were addressed (Bursik, 1988). Moreover, the range of the theory was recalibrated and extended to encompass concepts beyond the macro-level components originally formulated by Clifford Shaw and McKay Henry in the year 1942. These new ideas have been incorporated into the theory, and they enhance its efficiency. Specifically, recent research has particularly tested for the intervention mechanisms, or variables that mediate between crime rates and social disorganization variables. Social Disorganization Social disorganization has been defined as the incapacity of local communities to achieve collective goals of their residents or solve common problems.(Bursiki 1988, Kornhauser, 1978.p.63)Disorganized communities have informal social controls that are broken which encourage emergence of criminal culture which causes crime. These communities are inefficient in fighting crime. Important assumptions of this theory include: communities are characterized along a dimensions of organized to disorganized(Kubrin, 2000), significance of following rules, ethical morals and regulations, different social units, and this includes cities, neighborhoods, schools, etc. These social units have the capability of promoting law abiding behaviors. The theory focuses on the link between neighborhood structure, social control, and crime. According to the theory lack of residential house ownership, poverty, ethnic heterogeneity coupled with weak social networks reduce the neighborhood’s ability to control people’s behavior in public. Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay(1942),discovered that high delinquency rates were common in certain Chicago neighborhoods, and for a lengthy period of time despite racial and ethnic composition .These finding lead to conclusion that the ecological conditions of the neighborhood shape crime rates above the characteristics of individual residents. Some social disorganization theorist believed that bad traditions emerged from some communities and were transmitted from one generation to the following. According to the theory communities that experience high residential turnover should expect high crime rate. This is because the turnover results to weak social ties and little informal control. Kubrin (2000) has formulated a basic social disorganization causal model as exogenous neighborhood characteristics lead to social ties lead to informal social control which eventually led to crime. Social Disorganization Theory in a Nutshell.(a) Neighborhood Characteristics: Residential Mobility, Mixed land use, heterogeneity, low income/unemployment.(b). The above characteristics are more observed in areas near the central business district, and occurrences are few when moving outside the central business district. (c). These characteristics are able to prevent a social control breakdown in these neighborhoods. (d) Crime normally moves in gangs. (e). Criminal behavior is always transferred from one generation to another. This is because young people learn from older people, who are living within the same neighborhood. The social disorganization theory has been criticized on many fronts. (a) Stability-Some criminal experts find it hard to believe that there exists stability in criminal behaviors despite the constant change in the neighborhood, (b) Tautology: Many criminal researchers have used the concept of crime rate in a location to depict a socially disorganized neighborhood. Presence of crime rate in a given neighborhood was likely to result to an increase in crime (c) Police Records: The use of official police information may depict these locations as under police surveillance, and this is not an indication that they are crime hot spots. (d)Replications: There are researchers who have carried out similar studies, and come out with different results. (e)Neighborhood: How is a neighborhood defined and how does one obtain data at the neighborhood level. Further criticism has been labeled against the theory that it does not attempt to explain why most youths from bad areas are not criminals neither does it explain why some youths from ‘good’ areas engage in criminal behavior. Studies and Empirical Evidence of Social Disorganization There have been numerous research and studies which have been carried out, and they support the provisions of the social disorganization theory. Osgood and Chambers (2000) studied four non metropolitan counties. They used crime reports as dependent values and Census measures of residential instability, ethnic heterogeneity, female headed households, poverty, unemployment, proximity to metropolitan areas, and population at risk as the independent variables. Osgood and Chambers (2000) concluded that social disorganization theory does apply to rural settings because they found significant levels of residential instability, ethnic heterogeneity, and female-headed households. Warner and Pierce (1993) used police calls as a measure of crime. Data was collected from 60 Boston neighborhoods in 1980. The data based on complainant reports of crime,not on official police reports. The rates of assault, robbery, and burglary were attributed to residential mobility, poverty, structural density, and racial heterogeneity, and their corresponding interactions. Smith and Jarjoura (1988) explain that each social disorganization variables is able to predict the rates of crime, and poverty is the strongest and persistent cause of crime. This is because areas which have a high rate of poverty are considered crime prone areas. Smith and Jarjoura (1988) found out that poverty argument the impact of this theory on crime. In a research conducted by Warner and Roundtree (1997, they sampled 100 Seattle census tracts and investigated the effect on poverty, residential stability, racial heterogeneity, and interaction in regard to burglary and assault. Their findings showed that poverty significantly influences social disorganization. . Sampson, Raudenbush and Earls (1997) gave an examination on the effects of social disorganization in influencing crime and violence through the notion of collective efficacy. The researchers argued that socially disorganized locations are likely to depict a low collective efficacy, and they defined it as the acceptance of local people to intervene for purposes of promoting a common good (Sampson et al., 1997: 919). The authors went on to state that community residents are not likely to intervene in a location where rules are not clear, and people fear and mistrust each other. Furthermore, neighborhoods or locations that are socially cohesive are the most fertile grounds for the realizing social control objectives. The use of aggregated data emanating from a project on Human Development in the neighborhoods of Chicago found out that the traditional social disorganization elements were able to explain 70% of the differences in their collective efficacy measures, these in turn, was able to mediate the direct on crime and violence. Sampson (1986) explains that social disorganization has an effect on youth violence, because of its impact on family stability and structures. For purposes of testing these assertions, Sampson (1986) was able to use three measures of a family structure. The first measure was a percentage of married, separated, and divorced residents. The second measure was the percentage of households headed by a woman. The third measure was single headed homes. The results indicated that the variables which define the structure of a family has a direct significant on the level of crime within the community. Tolan, Gorman-Smith and Henry (2003) employed data from a study of 284 African-American and Latino people, who were living in poor urban areas, for purposes of testing a developmental-ecological model that explains violence. The results indicated that parenting activities normally mitigate on the relationship their children have, with gang activities. Sun, Triplett and Gainey (2004), used American data, tested an extended model of social disorganization that included the theoretical paths which are advocated by scholars such as Sampson and Groves (1989). Their model predicted that neighborhoods with low high residential mobility, socio-economic status and racial heterogeneity, family relationships should have a sparse local friendship networks, and low organizational participation can increase the rates of crime occurring within a region. Sampson and Groves (1989) carried out an investigation on the effects of informal social control policies. They used averaged data from the British Crime Survey. Their general agreement is that factors such as ethnic heterogeneity, low economic status, and residential mobility have an effect on the informal control mechanisms of a region. This results to an increase in delinquency rates and crime. Sampson and Grove(1989) analyzed data for 238 localities in Britain, build from a 1982 national survey of 10,905 residents. Results from this research are able to support the idea that social disorganization elements play a role in increasing the crime rates of a particular location. Pratt and Cullen (2005) carried out a study This study was able to include 214 empirical studies that were published between the year 1960, to the year 1999. It contained approximately 509 statistical models, on the rates of crime, and their causes. According to this study, the major causes of an increase in crime rates include poverty, family disruptions, and racial heterogeneity. These are the most dominant causes of crime. However, evidence suggested that the use of the criminal justice system or incarceration was not effective in reducing crime rates. Based on this facts, the social disorganization theory was found to be effective in explaining the occurrence of crime. Policy Implications There are several policy implications from the social disorganization theory. For Pratt and Cullen (2005) the most obvious implication is the likely folly of continued efforts to decrease crime by focusing extensively on the dynamics of the criminal justice system, with the exemption of imprisonment. Social disorganization suggests that private and public investments have to be intensive in the most impoverished areas. The theory implies that family preservation interventions should be funded. This is mainly because a family may gain the capability of resisting the harmful impacts of the concepts of social disorganization on their young ones. Furthermore, strong families need to work together for purposes of reducing the impact of social disorganization within their communities. Social disorganization theory calls for large public firms to become that large public more open to efforts from customers and the neighborhoods they serve. Altshuler,(1970) gives a suggestion that social control is normally least effective when they are imposed by external forces. Community controls are more effective when informal community-level groups are voluntarily placed to external bureaucracies (Figueira-McDonough, 1991). References: Altshuler, Alan A. Community Control, The Black Demand for Participation in Large American Cities. New York: Pegasus,1970.print. Bursik, R.J. Ecological stability and the dynamics of delinquency. In A. J. Reiss and M. Tonry (Eds.), Communities and Crime (pp. 35−66). Chicago: University of Chicago Press,1986.Print Bursik, R.J. (1988). Social disorganization and theories of crime and delinquency: Problems and prospects. Criminology, 26, 519−551. Bursik, R.J. and H.G. Grasmick. (1992). Longitudinal neighbourhood profiles in delinquency: The decomposition of change. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 8, 247−263. Figueira-McDonough, Josefina. (1991). Community structure and delinquency: A typology. Social Service Review, 65, 68-91. Kaylen,T, Pridemore William.(2012) Systematically Addressing Inconsistencies in the Rural Social Disorganization and Crime Literature.International Journal of Rural Criminology, Volume 1, Issue 2 (November) Kornhauser, R. R. (1978). Social Sources of Delinquency: An appraisal of Analytic Models. Chicago: Kornhauser, Ruth Social Sources of Delinquency. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,1978.print Kubrin, Charis E. 2000. “Racial Heterogeneity and Crime: Measuring Static and Dynamic Effects.” Pp. 189-218 in Research in Community Sociology,Vol. 10, edited by Dan A. Chekki Stamford: JAI Press. ———. 2003. “Structural Covariates of Homicide Rates: Does Type of Homicide Matter?” Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 40:139-70 Inderbitzin, M., & Bates, K. (2013). Deviance and social control: A sociological perspective. Los Angeles: SAGE. Kubrin, Charis E. and Ronald Weitzer. 2003. “Retaliatory Homicide: Concentrated Disadvantage and Neighborhood Culture.” Social Problems 50:157-80University of Chicago Press Osgood, D. W., & Chambers, J. M. 2000. Social disorganization outside the metropolis: An analysis of rural youth violence. Criminology 38, 81-115. Pratt, T. C. and F.T. Cullen. Assessing macro-level predictors and theories of crime: A meta-analysis. In M. Tonry (Ed.), Crime and Justice, Volume 32: A Review of Research (pp. 373−450). Chicago: University of Chicago Press,2005 Sampson, R.J.(1986) Neighbourhood family structure and the risk of personal victimization. In R.J. Sampson and J.M Byrne (Eds.), The Social Ecology of Crime (pp. 25−46). New York: Springer-Verlag, Sampson, R.J. and W.B. Groves. (1989). Community structure and crime: Testing social disorganization theory. American Journal of Sociology, 94, 774−802. Sampson, R.J., J.D. Morenoff and F. Earls. (1999). Beyond social capital: Spatial dynamics of collective efficacy of children. American Sociological Review, 64, 633−660. Sampson, R.J., S.W. Raudenbush, and F. Earls. (1997). Neighbourhoods and violent crime: A multi level study of collective efficacy. Science, 227, 916− Tolan, P. H., D. Gorman-Smith and D.B. Henry. (2003). The developmental ecology of urban males youth violence. Developmental Psychology, 39(2), 274−291. Shaw, C. R. and H.D. McKay. (1942). Juvenile delinquency and urban areas; A study of rates of delinquents in relation to differential characteristics of local communities in American cities. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Sun, I. Y., R. Triplett and R.R. Gainey. (2004). Neighbourhood characteristics and crime: A test of Sampson and Groves model of social disorganization. Western Criminology Review, 5(1), 1−16 Read More