Theories of Crime and Significance - Coursework Example

Theories of Crime Socio-Cultural Theories of Crime Criminality is defined as participating in criminal or illegal activities that include the disobedience of rules, laws and regulations set within a legal entity. Government authorities in charge of such jurisdictions can prescribe convictions to the perpetrators of such activities through judicial jurisprudence. While crime violates the set of rules or laws present, not all violations of such laws can be termed as crime/ criminality. For example, breaching of contract may be ranked lower than crime. It may be considered an infraction or a misdemeanor, mainly punishable by fines or warnings. However, crime remains a grave and serious negative aspect of contemporary life, where victims often have their lives cut short or destroyed. Federal statistics paint a bleak picture. According to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports 2009, about 16,300 deaths are attributable to crime annually. Furthermore, 1.4 million more citizens are seriously assaulted, raped or robbed, and about ten million home burglaries are reported. Although reports indicate a decline in crime and criminal activities since 1992, the statistical evidence above necessitates a critical look, not only towards crime and its aspects, but also at root causes and causal factors (Felson, 2010). Certain important questions come up. For example, why is criminal activity so prevalent in America? Why are rates so prevalent in specific communities and not in others? In addition, why do those in affluent social categories still commit crimes, and not only those who are disadvantaged? Why are some people law-abiding, while others are not? Finally, how can such phenomena be examined to build up data and literature crucial for socio-policing and overall state governance? To answer these questions, a look at social context theorization of crime is essential. A majority of American citizens can identify the root causes of crime and criminal activity, such as poverty and poor living conditions. These views are what entail the existent theories pertaining to criminal behavior. Such opinions are drawn less from critical or scientific thought, and more so from inherent perspectives as influenced by personal experiences. Thus, social experience is critical to the perspectives and ideas of a society regarding what entails criminal activity. Reviewing this phenomenon, it becomes clear that the social context at a given place and location contribute to the social view of what entails causal factors of crime and criminal activities. In addition, the experiences endeavored during such dynamic changes of America’s history have shaped the present perspectives, and hence existent theories pertaining to the occurrence of crime and criminal activity. The remainder of this essay will focus on three such related theories pertaining to criminology (Akers, 1994). The Chicago School of Criminology theory, famous between 1920s and 1930s, is based on the rejection of Individualism in the location of sources of causal factors towards crime and criminal activities within an individual person. Instead, it is based on the assumption that crime, similar to other behavioral traits is a resultant social construction. Influenced by the dynamism of the social arena, people’s experiences are also affected. Therefore, the key to understanding crime lies in the comprehension of existent social causal factors. The second theory, called the Strain theory, was first proposed by Robert Merton in 1938 and borrows from the Chicago of Criminology theory. These theories were rooted in the belief of the socio-cultural influence on crime, and aimed to understand crime as a social construct, rather than an individual abstraction. According to the strain theory, the occurrences of crime, especially in city neighborhoods, are aspects of industrial advancement, mostly concentrated in various American cities and neighborhoods. With a rapidly industrializing nation, American cities were becoming the focal point of the nation through their rapid development, sequentially followed by the en masse migration of immigrants to such contexts (Robert & Lily, 2011). Chicago, being a good case study of such situational occurrences, experienced tremendous industrial growth in the 1980s. Unfortunately, a bleaker side to this growth existed, as the newcomers who were former slaves from the South, displaced farmhands, and other immigrants faced harsh new realities. Wages were pitiful and work consisted of twelve-hour shifts, six days a week in poor environmental conditions that jeopardized both their safety and health. In addition, their living conditions were overstretched and deplorable. Thus, populations bulged into teaming slum areas, where living in such deplorable conditions contributed to the perspectives of the proponents of this theory. This was reinforced by the ideas of the Liberal Reform/ Progressive movement in the early 1900s, which criticized the negative adverse effects and human costs brought about by unrestrained American industrial growth. They considered the urban poor to be casualties of the system, robbed of the prospect of a stable future and rewarding lives. As the Progressives voiced their concerns, the poor (especially urban) were pushed by their environmental surroundings to crime, as opposed to being genetically determined to a life of crime. This contrasted the Social Darwinist’s perspective, which categorized the poor and criminal elements as people who possessed biological (human) inferiority belonging to the bottom rung of society. Accordingly, proponents of the Chicago theory believed that a change in the environmental context, to one that nurtured criminal offenders, would reverse such adverse effects (Roberts, 1992). According to Jeffery (1977), the American Age of Reform was founded based on the firm notion that governments could be relied upon in the creation and administration of crucial agencies prerequisite to positive social reform. Their campaign entailed calls for more state guidance and protection towards common universal good through the control of industry greed and provision of welfare programs to the urban poor. This led to further efforts within the arena of Criminal Justice, including the formulation of policies allowing the state to care for individual problems and needs, especially of offenders (Jeffery, 1977). The above were forms of mitigation measures against not only potential crime, but also the existent causal factors. Chicago, as a city, became the focal point of criminology research driven by the city’s status as an emerging industrial, economic and population center, in addition to the existence of the University of Chicago (the oldest sociology research institute since 1892). A city’s organization and development, akin to any other ecological system, is not random; rather, it is organized systematically and thus affects human social behavior in various ways. Empirically, the Chicago theory has been rooted in the observance of various scholars on the impacts and effects of the city of Chicago’s neighborhoods and inner-city urban areas. Through the exploration of urban life and its effect on the occurrence of crime, one is able to view the dynamism of different social processes on the diverse conglomeration of races present within such urban areas (Eggleston, 2002). McKay and Shaw’s (1969) Juvenile Delinquency Theory is a related theorization of social impacts premised on the notions of Burgess’s concentric zone theory, where a city’s growth is patterned on the prevalent social stratification. This is unlike a majority of views that credit growth to randomness and haphazardness. Burgess said that city growth was patterned around a series of concentric rings or zones. Therefore, economic competitiveness influenced the spatial distribution of populations in these zones (McKay and Shaw, 1969). The focal point of the city (central business district) is where commercial enterprises are situated which is serviced by the transportation and railway systems. The concentration of inner-city settlements and ghettos in the transition zone compounded the already negative social situation, as such, areas were polluted from industrial production, and the settlements were chiefly composed of the industrial labor force. By contrast, the outer zone, which was comprised of high-priced residential areas away from the hustle and bustle of the inner areas, was cleaner and safer because the affluence and lack of busy traffic (Kornhauser, 1978). The transition zone proved to be of particular concern, necessitating further studies. Through its concentration of deteriorating tenements, built around industrial complexes, and with the outward push from the CBD, a majority of immigrants, too poor to settle elsewhere, had to contend with its harsh realities and experiences. Hence, Burgess observed that such social patterns had resultant negative consequences. Through a weakening of the family unit and broader communal ties, community cohesion was further weakened, resulting in the variants of social pathologies existent inclusive of criminal activities. With a resultant social disorganization, McKay and Shaw showed that crime rates indeed conformed to Burgess’s model; with the highest rates of crime being concentrated in the transition zones, declining as one progressively moved outwards to the more affluent and secured communal areas. This was particularly true within juvenile populations. Empirically, through the utility of juvenile court statistics, spatial distribution patterns of delinquency throughout the city of Chicago were mapped. This confirmed the premise that delinquency rates were highest in the transition zone, conversely related to both the correspondent distance to the city’s CBD, and the social status of the populations living in these transition zones. Furthermore, crime rates proved to be higher in slums, inner-city neighborhoods and ghettos, with ethnic or racial categorization of dwellers notwithstanding (Mazerolle, 2000). Moving from this zone towards other more affluent areas, the rates of delinquency decreased commensurately. Thus, the inevitable conclusion was that the nature of one’s surrounding environment, and not one’s individual nature within such an environment, standardized the involvement of persons in crime and criminal activities. Cultural and religious factors were other relevant dynamics, though on a much smaller scale. In the affluent areas, the youth were well provided for through concrete, financially stable and morally upright family social settings. On the other hand, families in the transition zone, in addition to other existent conventional institutions, proved to be strained if not already broken. Rapidly increasing and concentrated urban population growth, the resultant transiency, various racial and ethnic populations (heterogeneity), and ultimately, poverty, are responsible for the social disorganization. As a result, juveniles in the latter social setting receive neither the necessary guidance nor the support prerequisite to their wholesome development, hence the lack of social control systems and the resultant increase in delinquency levels among the youth. The upbringing of such youth, and their socio-cultural and religious ideals, affected their behavioral character traits, which also influenced the rates of crime and criminal activity (Jeffery, 1977). The White family, best exemplified through the movie The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia, is a good example of how socio-economic and cultural-social abstracts affect, and hence, influence the general society. The movie – characterized by robberies, shoot-outs, murders, the famous tap dancing culture, drug dealing and pill popping among other negative social vices – is a vivid representation of the White family’s lifestyle. Known for their excessive and wild criminality, they are representative of the tragic side of life on the wrong side of the law, as affected by West Virginia’s abundant poverty, corruption, and the culturally and environmentally destructive coal mining culture. All three of the aforementioned theories are exemplified in the movie about the Whites. The theories are demonstrated by the dramatic increase in population growth because of en masse immigration to West Virginia, by thousands of European and African-American immigrants. The pulling forces being the economic viability of coal mining, which are abundant there, have huge demand from a rapidly consuming American nation. Living conditions, work and health issues, poor wages (cribbing and scripping), and safety issues, among other socio-cultural and economic aspects, plague this area as the coal mining industry dominates the overall lives of all of its labor force. Harassment and other forms of control contribute to widespread poverty among the coal miners and their families. The advent of the First World War, in addition to the push by coal miners’ unions, improved living conditions through increased wages, as mining prospects increased. However, with the end of the war and economic recession, thousands of workers were laid off, especially in the coal mining industry. The already strained social arena was further negatively impacted; leading to a high rate of crime and criminality in the settlement zones of former mine workers. The Juvenile Delinquency theory is characterized by the resultant negative social effects of disrupted family units and the social makeup in this region (Corbin, 1981). The youth, composing a majority of those present in such an arena, live under little or no existent social controls, in addition to lacking welfare programs and influenced by decadent social vices, are left with little option than to indulge in delinquency. The movie exemplifies this in the characters of Brandon (Sue Bob White’s son), who faces possible jail time due to shooting his uncle; and Jesco White, who finds easy life in drugs, sex and money. Other characters include Kirk, Mousie, and Sue Bob, young women who abuse drugs and alcohol in addition to living amoral delinquent lives. Starting with the family patriarch and matriarch, D. Ray and his wife Bertie Mae, the Whites exemplify the criminality outcomes that the theories attempt to explain. He is a poor and rowdy coal miner; she is a tough woman who has learned to deal with all aspects of life as they occur. D. Ray’s family settled in the myriad coal miner settlements and were influenced by and contributed to the environment of criminality. In conclusion, crime and criminality is a hard social abstraction to grasp, let alone mitigate or counter. Based on the theories explored, it is the social environmental context, and not individual attributes, which influences the occurrence of crime and other negative activities. The three theories explored are centered on the industrial aspect of American society, which unfortunately has not resulted in the socio-economic alleviation of various communities dependent on it; thus, resulting in the marked rise of crime and criminal activities in such social arenas. References Akers, R. L. (1994). Criminological theories: Introduction and Evaluation. Los Angeles: Roxbury. Corbin, D. A. (1981). Life, Work, and Rebellion in the Coal Fields: The Southern West Virginia Miners 1880-1922. Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press. Eggleston, E. P. (2002). The onset of adult offending: A neglected dimension of the criminal career. Journal of Criminal Justice: Vol. 30 , 603-622. Felson, M. B. (2010). Crime and everyday life (4th ed.) . Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications Inc. Jeffery, C. R. (1977). Crime prevention through environmental design (2nd ed.). Beverly Hills, California: SAGE Publications Inc. Kornhauser, R. R. (1978). Social sources of delinquency: An appraisal of analytical models. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press. Mazerolle, P. M. (2000). General strain and delinquency: An alternative examination of conditioning influences. Justice Quarterly: Vol. 17 , 753-778. McKay, H. D & Shaw, C. (1969). Juvenile Delinquency and Urban Areas. New York: Harper. Robert J. Lily, F. T. (2011). Rejecting Individualism. In C. R. Shaw, Criminological Theory: Context and Consequences (5th ed.) (pp. 39-59). Washington DC, New York: SAGE Publications Inc. Roberts, A. (1992). Foundation for a general strain theory of crime and delinquency. Journal of Criminology: Vol 30 , 47-87. Read More