Criminology: Strain Theory - Report Example

Criminology: Strain theory Introduction The strain theory is premised on the assumption that crime will prevail when a society is in a state of anomie or normlessness; this often occurs when social order is destabilized. However, the social disorganization theory strengthens the above premise and states that social values are only important when society has legitimate means to achieve them. If a mismatch occurs, then social strain will result, so areas with high degrees of crime are often highly deprived and have high strain. Evidence points to the fact that when societies are stabilized, then assault may be eliminated; this will be proved through theoretical explanations and research findings. Theory and evidence Emile Durkheim was the founding further of the social disorganization theory as he came up with the concept of anomie. The above scholar explained, “Anomie was a social condition in which normlessness prevails” (Barlow and Kauzlarich 2009, p.5). If no system of restrain and regulation is prevalent in a society, then people will lack external mechanisms to guide their goal-seeking behavior. Essentially this leads to chaos; therefore, such people will not have any structure that regulates social cohesion. Social disorganization may be understood as a state in which a society or community lacks the ability to regulate itself. Many sociologists have found that a strong association exists between crime and social disorganization, and have looked for evidence to support these assertions. A typical case involves the Chicago studies carried out in the 1900s by analysts from the city’s university who wanted to find out the association between social disorganization and crime. They realized that areas in which crime rates were high also had instances of social disorganization; for instance, a number of them had an overrepresentation of immigrants, were tremendously overcrowded, had abandoned buildings and where mostly poor. Members of these high-crime areas also did not own their homes and had lived in the area for only a short time. Most of them did not know each other and lacked local support mechanisms or community networks with each other. The evidence found by the Chicago sociologists is a strong case for the prevalence of crime in places, which are highly unstable. These researchers stated that such areas lacked an important dimension that was prevalent in low crime areas; social norms. Areas that were located near the central business district were the hardest hit because they often experienced numerous changes along the years. Industry and commerce caused many people in the surrounding areas to leave and enter at high rates; such influxes meant that no standard cultural standards were present, and the economic insecurity of the residents did not help either (Barlow and Kauzlarich, 2009). These characteristics destabilized the area because it was not possible for neighbors to come up with control and educative mechanisms for all involved; lawlessness thus existed. It is thus clear from the above deduction that different forms of crime like assault arise when societies are not stable, so people lack norms to guide their behavior. In Australia, the law recognizes assault as the process by which a person applies force to another either indirectly or directly without their consents. Sometimes this may be manifested as a strike, blow or touch and could even be recognized as such if the person threatens to do so without actually performing the act (Findlaw, 2014). Prevalence of the above form of crime in society can be effectively explained by the social disorganization theory. Baron and Agnew (2013) did an analysis of street children in North American society and found that assault or victimization was one of the most prominent crimes in these areas. The latter authors realized that street assault was disproportionately high in comparison to other areas where street youth were absent. They explained that victimization and violence were common because these individuals lived in areas where no supervision existed so low social control was prevalent. Therefore, the findings on assault in the street show that absence of social control in unstable societies leads to the crime. Baron and Agnew (2013) also found that a cycle of aggression and assault were also prevalent in these sample settings. If a person is victimized, they eventually learn that assault is necessary in order to keep off future attackers as well as to protect themselves from future attached. Such offenses are likely to go up when people legitimate them; they start seeing assault as a means of coping with their social environments. Street youth are highly exposed to assault both vicariously and directly; some may witness the attack of one person against the other, hear screams resulting from these crimes or get the information from their peers. Such exposure to assault causes street youth to do the same in order to exert vengeance on others or at least prevent future crimes from happening. People thus cope with violence by becoming violent themselves because external mechanisms of enforcement are absent. Sub cultural expectations that encourage assault and violence in the street help to reinforce its prevalence; if social controls were established, then street youth would not require physical aggression as a coping mechanism. The above findings thus render support to the social disorganization theory; it is only when society is stable that assault can be meaningfully eradicated. Mazerolle et al (2000) also wanted to study the relationship between deviant behavior like assault and the loss of positive values. They found out that a person was more likely to be violent and hence assaults others if the person was socially strained. In other words, it was established that these individuals lacked the social support and controls needed to cope with difficulties within one environment; therefore, this manifested as crime. Informal control as well as residential interaction has the ability to mediate or reduce the effects of economic disadvantage and poverty, so people are unlikely to engage in assault/ crime when they belong to stable societies. Morenoff, Sampson and Raudenbush (2001) found support for the above statement when they studied criminal patterns in Chicago in the late 1990s. They used the 1990s Census to establish links between violence rates and the neighborhood characteristics of people in the areas. It was found that areas with low homicide rates (72%) were also more likely to exhibit high levels of collective efficacy. Conversely, the reverse was true, if people involved themselves in voluntary associations or at least belonged to local organizations, then it was more likely that there would be high levels of residential cohesion. This coincided with an increase in homicide levels thus proving that when societies were more stable, they were likely to have less violent crimes. Assault as a crime is less severe than homicide, but it does prove the point by showing that some form of association exists between the two concepts. Even perception of crime has a deep association with the extent of crime prevalent in any respective society (Nash and Bowen, 1999). The latter authors studied associations between perceptions of informal social control and perception of crimes in a certain neighborhood. It was found that when people had a high perceived level of informal control amongst themselves, they were more likely to perceive less crime. Nash and Bowen (1999) explain that this association may be due to certain macro and micro factors that affect communities. On the macro level, people need community organization in order to minimize crime or dislocation and thus the poverty associated with it. Conversely, on the micro level, unstable societies do not have social workers or other social representatives that can work with families in order to minimize their exposure to crime. This was true even in societies where crime rates were relatively high; therefore, collective efficacy through social agents greatly assists in minimization of crime rates like assault. Sometimes certain factors are symptomatic of a socially unstable society, and one of these is drug-market activities; if associations can be found between drug-markets as a symptom of instability and assault, then it can be ascertained that social instability leads to the prevalence of this crime. Martinez, Rosenfeld and Mares (2008) did an analysis in the city of Miami to establish this link; their hypothesis was that an association exists between aggravated assault rates and drug activity (as an indicator of social disorganization). The latter authors found that areas in which drug activity was high tended to have high cases of aggravated assault and other violent crime. Additionally, it was found that places with high drug activity also happened to exist in residential areas where immigration was low and ethnic heterogeneity was also low. While racial composition had minimal effect on drug taking, this did not undermine the fact that it affected manifestation of violent crimes. Martinez, Rosenfeld and Mares (2008) thus postulated that future stakeholders ought to pay more attention to the violence-inducing effects of illegal drug-market activities as these are signs of social disorganization. All the above-mentioned studies mainly dwell on urban communities to prove that social instability leads to heightened violence. However, crime is still prevalent in rural areas, so one must examine studies that have focused on these areas in order to determine whether the social organization theory holds irrespective of geographic location (Bouffard and Muftic, 2006). The above authors focused on the American Midwest, which is a racially homogenous region of farmers, to study this association. Three features are often used in order to determine the structural traits within a certain community, economic advantage, ethnic homogeneity and residential mobility. If these factors are absent, then societies lack ways of exerting informal controls, which reduce deviant behavior; rates of violent crimes like assault are likely to occur. In rural areas, it is often common to find homogenous populations; when other factors are held constant, then social cohesion may prevail. However, economic advantage can occur in urban and rural areas; further, because these cities are racially homogenous and isolated many of them are likely to experience poverty in an isolated manner and marginalized way. Residential mobility is relatively low in rural areas, so one would expect that the degree of stability in rural communities is relatively low. Bouffard and Muftic (2006) found that there was a no correlation between incidences of assault or other violent crimes and poverty in rural communities. This may appear to contradict social disorganization and strain theories because scholars often affirm that economic disadvantage is a symptom of social structural breakdowns. It is thus postulated that high economic disadvantage often coincides with high crime rates; however, this was not found to be true for the study. In fact, rural communities with higher levels of poverty happened to have fewer crime rates. It is easy to explain why Bouffard and his colleague found the above results; economic disadvantage was neutralized by other sources of social stability. The rural communities were usually so poor that they rarely attracted new entrants, so ethnic composition largely remained the same. Residential mobility and ethnic heterogeneity were rarely evident in these rural areas; it also implies that social cohesion was still right. People were more likely to have informal control mechanisms when low residential mobility occurred even if they were poor, so this explains why cases of assault were quite low. In order to have confidence in the association between assault and social instability, it is also imperative to look at motivations for committing assault or violent crime. Assault can be motivated by revenge, racial bias or hate, workplace bullying, personal disagreements among others. Assault done because of racial bias may be problematic to understand because this dimension involves tensions between different categories of people. Therefore, it may contradict the social disorganization theory because more assault may be prevalent when a society is racially homogenous; which is a sign of stability. Grattet (2009) examined neighborhoods in Sacramento on racially-motivated assault cases by taking into account the three indicators of social instability. It was found that there were sufficient associations between racially motivated aggravated assault and concentrated economic disadvantage as well as high residential turnover. However, they found that if they held the above factors constant, assault against in-migration of minorities tended to increase. This shows that sometimes, social organization may not be the only factor; some neighborhoods may defend themselves against racial ‘others. Conclusion Evidence from research proves that a strong association occurs between assault and social instability, so societies must attempt to stabilize themselves in order to fight this crime. This hypothesis was first supported by the Chicago study which found that areas with minimal cohesion were likely to experience more crime. Studies done on assault among street youth indicate that these individuals lack social controls that may make violence an undesirable quality. Further, studies done on collective efficacy and crime have shown that the above are highly related; even analyses on drug activity and assault show that the above are associated. For society to become stable, it needs to posses low levels of residential mobility, economic disadvantage and racial heterogeneity. All cases that appear to contradict the hypothesis usually have mediating factors that keep some indicators of social instability constant and others changing; rural communities are symptomatic of these differences. Overall, it is imperative for societies to focus on collective efficacy in order to minimize instances of assault or completely eradicate them. References Barlow, H. and Kauzlarich, D., 2009. Explaining crime: A primer in criminological theory. Lanham: Rownman & Littlefield. Baron, S. and Agnew, R., 2013. General strain theory and offending over the life course. NY: Jones and Bartlett Learning. Bouffard, L. and Muftic, L., 2006. The ‘rural mystique’: Social disorganization and violence beyond urban communities. Western Criminology Review, 7(3), 56-66. Findlaw, 2014. Assault laws in Australia: Definitions and defenses. [online] Available at; http://www.findlaw.com.au/articles/4274/assault-laws-in-australia-definitions-and-defences.aspx [Accessed 5 Jun. 2014] Grattet, R., 2009. The urban economy of bias crime: A study of disorganized and defended neighborhoods. Social Problems, 56(1), pp. 132-150. Martinez, R., Rosenfeld, R. and Mares, D., 2008. Social disorganization, drug market activity and neighborhood violent crime. Urban Affairs Review, 43(6), pp. 846-874. Mazerolle, P., Burton, V., Cullen, F., Evans, T. and Payne, G., 2000. Strain, anger and delinquent adaptations: Specifying general strain theory. Journal of Criminal Justice, 28, pp. 89-101. Morenoff, J., Sampson, R., and Raudenbush, S., 2001. Neighborhood Inequality, Collective Efficacy, and the Spatial Dynamics of Urban Violence. Criminology, V39(3), pp.517-560. Nash, J., and Bowen, L., 1999. Perceived Crime and Informal Social Control in the Neighborhood as a Context for Adolescent Behavior: A Risk and Resilience Perspective. Social Work Research, 23(3), pp. 171-186. Read More