A critical examination of Robert Sampson's criminology theory of Collective Efficacy - Term Paper Example

Download file to see previous pages Nevertheless, taking into consideration the more wide – ranging social processes which would facilitate to provide meaning to crime, it had turned out to be evident that there was certainly much more to just simply suggesting that a crime was something written in opposition to the law. Studying a criminal act in all its aspect as well as making a distinction of what a crime is was deemed important in every society. This was for the reason that it had enabled people to reflect on the challenges and dangers it presented to people as well as on how people would deal with such unwanted behavior. Crimes in any form were meant to give way to such disorder and disorganization in the society. In this manner, according to Comack and Brickey (1991), society had formulated its own law on having a definite social basis which both functioned to shape and to be shaped by its particular society. Likewise, our society had its own basis on what to consider a criminal behavior. This was in order to uphold a social control. Meanwhile, there were perspectives which had claimed that a criminal conduct was brought about by individuals alone. One among the advocate of this view was Travis Hirschi. However, Robert Sampson, his student, was not interested in perceiving crime at a micro – level (focusing alone on individual characteristics, attitudes and behaviors) point of view but was more captivated at looking at this concept at a macro – level (focusing on characteristics, attitudes and behaviors outside the individual like neighborhood) perspective since crime had used to affect the whole society to the greatest extent (Lilly, Ball and Cullen, 2006). Given this interest, Sampson had developed his own criminology theory of collective efficacy which basically suggested that neighborhood had the capacity to reduce crime through realizing their common values and triggering informal social control (Sampson, 2006). In this regard, the goal of this paper was to critically examine Robert Sampson’s criminology theory of collective efficacy. First, this paper would present an overview of collective efficacy theory. Second, its strengths would be presented. Third, the criticisms on collective efficacy would be provided. In this manner, this would allow to review critically the said theoretical approach to crime. Review of Related Literature This section would first present an overview of the existing literatures related to the topic on criminology theory of collective efficacy. This review aimed at providing a cursory outlook on how to critically examine Robert Sampson’s collective efficacy theory. The books and articles reviewed might not be a representative of the complete array of the information regarding collective efficacy theory on crime. The expediency of these literatures was to understand at a sociological point of view the topic under study. For such a long time, the approach to studying crime had focused on social disorganization. Though because of its various empirical and theoretical limitations together with the much broader structural roots of crime in our society, during the 1970s, individualistic approaches to crime had re – emerged and caused the reduce importance of social – level conceptual frameworks of crime (Bursik, 1988). Nevertheless, such individualistic theories had its own shortcomings for the reason that it could not provide an inference at a macro – level scale to the society. In this regard, instead of focusing on the sort – of – people that would account for crime, the focus had shifted to the sort – of – places explanation. Thus, social disorganization or what was referred to the community’s incapacity to realize shared goals and values, was somewhat ...Download file to see next pagesRead More