Chicago School Views - Crime and Urban Environment - Essay Example

Evaluate the contributions made by the Chicago school to our understandings of crime and the urban environment The definition of and explanations for‘crime’ varies over time and place. Crime – as one understands it – is culturally defined, culturally specific. From a common sense point of view, every person on the planet is a ‘criminal’ given that we perceive a ‘criminal’ to be someone who disobeys the societally agreed laws – usually deliberately, occasionally recklessly. Who amongst us has not disobeyed a societally agreed rule – whether it is keeping our feet off the seats in public transport to knowingly lying about ones received income, in order to evade taxation? The Chicago School of Sociology moved the study of crime away from the basic and overly-simplified Biological and Physiological explanations of the 19th century onwards, promulgated by such positivist theorists as Lombroso1 which sought to explain criminal behaviour through ‘body type’ arguing that pathology was located in the individual. Fortuitously we live in an age where the Human Genome Project has nullified once and for all the idea that criminal behaviour can be explained categorically by ‘body type’. Whilst law enforcers may discriminate against certain physical features, theoretical law does not. Theoretical law concerns itself with the intention (mens rea) of the defendant who must also have undertaken a prohibited action (actus rea)a. It was increasingly apparent that such Biological and Physiological theories did not offer a universal theory for the existence of crime or its perpetrators. For example, those theories had no explanation to offer for ‘white-collar crime’ – undertaken by persons who had – and have - no apparent genetic, social or educational deprivation excuses for their ‘criminal’ behaviour. Edwin Sutherland’s studies in the 1940s of ‘White Collar Crime’ argued that white collar crime was rarely detected or prosecuted, as it appeared to be victimless crime and was committed by high net worth individuals. However in recent years there has been considerable focus on white collar criminals. A pertinent example is the former media mogul Conrad Black who is currently awaiting his turn on the witness stand. Pictures of the defendant clearly indicate that he does not have a low forehead. Besides raising significant counter-arguments to previous universally accepted criminological theories, the Chicago School opened a whole new avenue of empirical sociology research as they examined the impact of environment on behaviour setting out to answer the following question: Why is there significantly more crime in urban areas, often concentrated within specific, predictable neighbourhoods? This is often described as the environmental approach to the study of criminology. Urbanisation and crime seemed to go hand-in-hand. Durkheim is reported to have remarked that the Parisian railway stations had magical properties, given that no sooner did rural workers alight all their religious beliefs disappeared.b The Chicago School of Criminology are lauded for developing qualitative research methods in criminological research. In the 1920s and 1930s ‘Jazz Age’ they undertook studies into the sociology of deviance using a range of different methodologies to provide a richer understanding of crime. Ethnographic researchers felt ‘Free to go out and study those groups in close proximity…. These sociologists and criminologists went into bars, inside gangs, and into the inner sanctums of deviant populations to find out what constituted their realities.’2 Chicago’s population had exploded from 4,100 people in 1833 to over 2 million by 1910.3 Perhaps Robert E Park and Earnest W Burgess’s work is the best known in this field. Their 1925 study The City4 introduced the theory of ‘concentric circles’ upon which the theory of social disorganisation is built. However, it is important to note that the term social disorganisation has a dual meaning. Not only does it attempt to define deviance, it also refers to the state of society in which such behaviour flourishes. Instead of examining criminals, Park and Burgess focused on the characteristics of the city of Chicago, and particularly areas with high criminal activity. They believed that a city could be divided into zones, extending from the inner city (downtown) central business district through to suburbia (the commuter zone) on the fringes of the city. Burgess felt that all major cities radiated out from the centre from the business area in the centre, through to the slum zone of transition and on to the zone of worker homes further out. The next zone was predominantly residential described as the ‘bungalow’ section. On the periphery was the commuter zone. They discovered that each zone was unique in terms of its structure and normative values. The researchers were attempting to find explanations for the increased deviance noted following World War I and the Great Depression. There had been considerable urbanisation and industrialisation within cities during this period, with a resultant increase in geographic mobility as migrants moved out of economically depressed areas, which in turn led to over-crowding in the most popular metropolis. They noticed that even after individuals moved out of certain areas high crime rates continued. This observation led them to deduce that certain neighbourhoods were criminogenic. These researchers undertook ethnographic studies which required them to study individuals and groups over prolonged periods of time within their normal environment. The researchers would systematically gather information about daily activities and attempt to attach significance to these activities. There are 2 major contributions to study methods from the Chicago School5. They applied official data (census reports, housing records, welfare records and crime statistics) to the study of crime, truancy and poverty categorised by geographic area. They went further, and focused on life histories through in-depth interviews and participant observationc. Matza called this the ‘appreciative’ study of delinquency.6 This concrete approach represented a major shift from ‘armchair’ abstract theories, focusing on what was taking place in the real world, and subsequently providing practical and pragmatic policy solutions. Given that life in the city for many people was superficial and anonymous with too many transitory relationships and friendships and conflicting priorities, it was little wonder that over generations the primary social bonds of family became weak augmenting the process of social disorganisation as acceptable behaviour deteriorated to the level of animistic ‘survival of the fittest’. The city itself was viewed as pathological, and the natural response was to react against this perceived danger to survival – usually in ways which wider society considered to be socially unacceptable. This research method is diametrically opposed to quantitative research methods which attempt to prove or disprove a hypothesis. Qualitative researchers believe that it is not possible to study society and social phenomena in the manner undertaken in the natural sciences. These notions have been highly influential in criminology providing insight into such criminal behaviour as drug abuse, prostitution and gang-culture: for example Becker’s 19637 study Outsiders which follows the life-style of cannabis users and the work of Downes examining youth delinquency.8 Unlike quantitative methods, there is no attempt to find causal explanations for criminal behaviour. Indeed many academics and cultural criminologists believe that qualitative research methods are more useful in providing rich insights into the attitudes, belief systems and value systems which underpin human behaviour. Having said this, increasingly researchers use a combined method of both qualitative and quantitative methodologies in order to pre-empt allegations of lack of thoroughness. Theorists divided the city of Chicago into 5 zones. Zone one had the highest delinquency rates and was labelled the zone of transition as it was characterised by high population turnover. In particular, such areas endured poorer, rented housing, a large percentage of recent immigrant groups who had yet to assimilate, societal neglect shown by physical decay, a high rate of transients in the population and higher rates of illegitimacy and ‘absent’ fathers. In short, the residents of the twilight zone had no vested interest in or concerns about the area in which they lived, and saw no value in doing so as they would be fighting a losing battle. Such observations led theorists to argue that the lack of a stable community undercut social responsibility which in turn resulted in social disorganisation. Crime was therefore not purely a result of biological or psychological abnormality within a particular individual, but more likely to be a normal response to highly abnormal environmental conditions. For the sociologists who followed and have further developed the original Chicago School methodologies and assumptions, crime was not located within the individual but due to social circumstances and factors external to the individual. Social disorganisation theorists such as Shaw and McKay9, Thrasher10 and Sutherland11 believed that people responded well and reduced their inherent selfishness when they perceived themselves as stable and integrated into society. This viewpoint suggests that the underlying cause for criminal and/or deviant behaviour is society’s failure to ensure that all persons have equal access and opportunity to enjoy the same degree of stability/integration. The work undertaken by Park and Burgess on the ‘natural urban area’ of Chicago led Shaw and McKay, researchers at the Chicagos Institute for Juvenile Research, to investigate the relationship between delinquent behaviour and geographic zones. Their research included data collected from more than 56,000 juvenile cases recorded between 1900 and 1933. The theory is based on observable patterns of criminal behaviour as Chicago expanded in the 1920s and 1930s. It was noted that patterns of juvenile delinquency could be matched to patterns of urban development. It appeared that there was a higher incidence in delinquent behaviour near the city centre as the industrial and commercial areas encroached on previously residential areas. They concluded that although crime was to be found throughout the city, juvenile delinquency tended to occur most frequently in the zone of transition. Although in general the demographics of the population was not significant in determining whether an area would endure high consistent delinquency rates, it was also generally true that areas which were characterised by low incomes, social deprivation and a high proportion of recent, non-assimilated immigrants (at that time, noticeably non-white immigrants) tended not to have the same norms as zones which were closer to suburbia. Sutherland went further, experimenting with what is now known as differential association. This theory argues that criminal behaviour is a learned response through social interaction from the surrounding subculture. Indeed one of his major contributions was to ‘depathologise’ the social world of the delinquent by questioning the assumption of the existence of a coherent and meaningful to criminals and delinquents. Perpetrators of criminal/deviant actions may have the same goals and desires of non-offenders; they simply have different, unlawful methods of achieving their goals and desires. ‘…a person becomes delinquent because of an excess of definitions favourable to violation of law over definitions unfavourable to violation of law….’d, 12 Sutherland posited that much of what was labelled deviant or criminal behaviour was infact behaviour which was necessary for survival in such ‘deprived’ areas, and therefore could and would be transmitted across generations. The child learns how to commit the crime and to assume the same moral outlook. However he did not confine the ‘learned behaviour’ argument of differential association only to the denizens of the zone of transition. Nor was he particularly impressed with the ‘poverty as a cause of crime’ theory. Sutherland was concerned in addressing crime to include all socially harmful behaviour; particularly it should include the crime of the socially elite. Although environmental theories of criminal and deviant behaviour have not been empirically proven they have been highly influential with UK policy makers, criminologists and urban activists. Indeed, the respected criminologist Treadwell argues that: ‘…American work on youth and crime did not have the same concern with promoting working practices. While sociologists did have a real impact upon political policy, this was perhaps less conscious and deliberate.’13 The application of environmental theories to the prevention of criminal behaviour and delinquency requires society to work within such communities at individual and group level. The objective is to assist residents to form – perhaps for the first time – an attachment to their community and to improve and increase informal social control mechanisms (such as getting to know one another). With the next generation in particular UK policy has focused on re-channelling their exuberant zest for excitement and constant activity into legitimate leisure pursuits which in turn assists them to challenge the stereotypical ‘norm’ of delinquent behaviour transmitted to them by exposure to the socially unacceptable values of their carers. Critique The Chicago School of Sociology provided further insight into studying the relationship between crime and other factors such as economic power and controlling personalities. However the theories are limited since they focused on the locality of crime, as part of social differentiation14, ignoring the much broader repertoire of theories that we now recognise as being important in studying criminal and delinquent behaviour. A major criticism of the environmental view toward criminology is that it is over-deterministic. For example, David Matza15 attacked the assumptions upon which Structural, Subculture and Ecological theories are based. Matza described the various rationalisations that people undertake to underplay feelings of guilt or shame – called Techniques of Neutralisation. He also pointed out that people drift in and out of deviating from the socially accepted norms – called State of Drift. Further, the environmental approach ignores the fact that people are pro-active. It does not explain, for example, why all people living within the zone of transition are not similarly affected by their environment. The theories which are associated with the Chicago School of Sociology have little to say with regard to cultural perceptions of crime, for example the role of media communications in generating moral panics. Nor does the study of the Chicago School of Sociology add much to what we now perceive crime to be, who commits crime and why crime takes place. The Chicago School of Sociology was more concerned with where crime takes place. With hindsight, one questions the fact that the Chicago School did not explicitly explore the now ubiquitously accepted psychological explanations of crime/deviance provided by Freud and Jung, embedded in psychology/psychoanalysis. Nor did it explore the theories of Personality extemporised by Eysenck16 that has generated the consequently prolific studies into criminal profiling. The social disorganisation theory was challenged to the point of its decline as a dominant theory. Whilst it is generally accepted that environmental factors do relate to crime and delinquency the theory failed to distinguish the consequences of crime from disorganisation itself; hence mixing cause and effect17. This was partly due to the earliest social disorganisation theorists having an incomplete definition with which to work. Ironically, Park’s oft quoted exhortation to his students to ‘go get the seat or your pants dirty in real research18’ and become acquainted first-hand with the subjects of their studies has been attacked as lacking academic standards of objectivity. In a well-known study of the period Cressy19 argued that his first objective ‘was to give an unbiased and intimate picture of the social world of the typical taxi-dance hall’ a venue at which customers paid to dance with women. Despite Cressey’s assertion that ethnographic research methods allowed the researcher to operate without ‘the inhibitions and resistance usually met in formal interviews’20 at that time, the research into observer bias was in its infancy and in attempting to give meaning to actions or omissions of the cases being studied, ethnographic observers often imported their own value judgments. Indeed, in direct contrast to Cressey’s viewpoint, Howard Becker argued that it was impossible not to remain ‘uncontaminated by personal and political sympathies’.21 However, Becker did go on to say that researchers should embrace neutrality using their ‘techniques impartially enough that a belief to which we are especially sympathetic could be proved untrue.’ With the exception of Sutherland, the best-known theorists assumed that reported crime was a reliable indicator of the true amount of crime occurring, and that the apprehended perpetrators were representative of all criminals and deviants. Unsurprisingly they concluded that crime and deviancy was perpetrated by the poor. This may be one of the reasons why the theory fails to explain why all social disorganisation does not result in criminal or deviant behaviour or conversely why despite a lack of social disorganisation crime is committed by the wealthy and the powerful. The theory fails to distinguish social change from social disorganisation. Tierney points out that the School ignored the role of organised crime in gambling, prostitution, labour unions and extortion. Nor is there any mention of class conflict or the unequal distribution of power.22 Indeed it is possible to argue that social disorganisation itself is a relative term, a by-product of middle class prejudices. Conclusion Not only did the Chicago School’s legacy enhance research tools for a broad range of disciplines, the research results had the potential to force decision makers to ensure that urban planning was inclusive23 of the needs of the various stakeholders involved. The School is the basis of control theory and subcultural approaches to criminology theory. Although, community empowerment programs (such as Shaw’s ‘Chicago Area Project’ in the 1930s) have trended toward being unsustainable without sustained financial commitment from the tax-payer that is not solely due to the flaws in the research. Indeed the research has been shown to be valuable for a broad range of reasons, not least of all that it refocused researchers on studying function and scale, rather than just pattern and processes.24, 25 In the opinion of Carrabine et al ‘…the unique contribution of the Chicago sociologists was in making the city itself a social laboratory for actual research. And the study of cities and crime has remained important for criminology.’26 References Read More