Chicago School of Sociology.

Changing America

1.  Urbanization

2.  Immigration:

3.  Organized Crime

Society is stratified --there is an unequal distribution of scarce resources.

• Economic
• Political
• Social Prestige

PREMISE: Social forces operating within the lower class areas push many people into criminal  behavior patterns that would not happen otherwise if they lived in  upper or middle class communities.

THREE BRANCHES:  Social disorganization, Strain and Cultural deviance theories.

A.  SOCIAL DISORGANIZATION

Law abiding behavior is a function, not of individual level forces but of forces operating in  the urban environment.-High risk areas not High  risk people were associated with high delinquency rates

PREMISE:  Social disorganization in slum areas reduced the ability of social institutions  such as churches, schools and families to control  behavior.  Community becomes crime  prone as it develops its own criminal culture that is passed on to later generations.

Robert Park and Earnest Burgess:  Social Ecology:  Study of people and the  relationships to their environment

Chicago concentric Zones

1.  Loop
                            
2.  Transition Zone:
                                          
3.  Working Mans Zone:
                                         
4.  Residential Zone:
                                    
5.   Commuter zone

CLIFFORD SHAW & HENRY MCKAY (1920-1940):   "High risk people, not high risk areas are associated with high crime

  Findings:

• High crime rates were associated with other community problems
• Highest crime rate was around downtown and decrease towards the outskirts
• Crime rates remained stable overtime even though ethnicity changed.  Delinquency was culturally transmitted
• High crime areas contained high percentage of immigrants, nonwhites and low income families

Social disorganization cause by:

• transient population
• Disintegration of the alien culture and clash of cultures

SOCIAL ECOLOGY STUDIES OF LOW INCOME AREAS (1980's)

• Community deterioration:
• Community fear
• Siege Mentality
• Population Turnover: society.
• Weak Social Controls:

Three types of Social Controls:

1. Informal:
2. Internal Networks/Local Institutions
3. External:

• Social Altruism:

B.  STRAIN THEORY

PREMISE:  Crime and Delinquency is a result of the frustration and anger people experience when they are unable to achieve social and financial success through conventional means  

Two options:

• they use deviant methods to achieve their goals or they
• reject the goals and substitute deviant ones

1.  ROBERT MERTON (1938)  Theory of Anomie

PREMISE:  All social and cultural structures are characterized by two elements:
1.  Goals:  which are the aspirations of all societies and
2.  Means:  which are the socially approved ways in which people attempt to attain   the goals

Five Modes of Adaptation

• Conformity

• Innovation:

• Ritualism

• Retreatism

• Rebellion

2.   Institutional Anomie Theory: (Steven Messner, Richard Rosenfeld) 

PREMISE:  We socialize our people to pursue material success at the expense of other  goals and the crime rate is high because our major social institutions are ineffective.

3.  General Strain  (Robert Agnew) 1984

PREMISE: People engage in del behavior because of "Negative Affective States" which are the anger, frustration, and other adverse emotions that result from pressure placed on people by negative and destructive social relationships.

Three Sources of Strain

• Strain caused by the failure to achieve positively valued goals. (ANOMIE)
• Strain can be induced by presentation of negative stimuli
• Strain as the removal of positively valued stimuli from the individual.

Coping with Strain

• cognitive methods
• behavioral

C.  SUBCULTURAL THEORIES (CULTURAL DEVIANCE)    
PREMISE: Crime is a result of an individuals desire to conform to the cultural  values of their immediate environment that are in conflict with those of the greater society.

1.  Albert Cohen (1955) "Delinquent Boys"

PREMISE: Criminal behavior of lower class youth is actually a protest against the norms and values of the middle class culture

Middle Class Measuring Rods

Lower class roles:

• corner boy:
• college boy
• delinquent boy:

Five characteristics of adolescent subcultural behavior

• Non Utilitarian: 

• Malicious:

• Negativistic: 

• Short term Hedonism: 

• Autonomy:

2.   Differential Opportunity Theory:  Lloyd Ohlin and Richard Cloward (1960)

PREMISE:  both legitimate and illegitimate opportunities are differentially available individuals in lower class neighborhoods

Three types of Subculture:

• Criminal Subculture:

• Conflict Subculture:

• Retreatist Subculture: