SOCIAL DISORGANIZATION THEORY

Social Disorganization Theory

The Social Disorganization Theory

Introduction

Social Disorganization theory is one of the most enduring and widely appealing contributions of the early Chicago School in sociology to criminological theory; and it seems as viable and valuable in explaining contemporary crime patterns in U.S. as it did almost a century ago. Yet despite its widespread familiarity and substantial research attention, significant ambiguity persists regarding the specific content contents of the theory, its ideological presumptions, and its theoretical scope.

This paper reviews the evolution of social disorganization theory over the past eight decades, identifying its major variations and developments during that time (including recent elaborations by Bursik, Sampson, and others). In the process, some of the implicit content of this theoretical perspective is highlighted, including: its scope conditions, its presumed level(s) of analysis, its functionalist model of social organization, its conservative conceptualization of community, its close inter-connection with social control theory, and its view of the impact of racial diversity.

The Social Disorganization Theory was one of the most important theories developed by the Chicago School, related to ecological theories. Social Disorganization Theory: linking (directly) high crime rates to neighborhood ecological characteristics, youths from disadvantaged neighborhoods were participants in a subculture in which delinquency was approved behavior and that criminology was acquired in social and cultural settings through a process of interaction.

The Social Disorganization Theory

Thomas and Znaniecki (1918-1920) introduced the idea that a person's thinking processes and attitudes are constructed by the interaction between that person's situation and his or her behavior. Attitudes are not innate but stem from a process of acculturation. Any proposed action will have social importance to an individual both because it relates to the objective situation within which the subject has to act, and because it has been shaped by attitudes formed through a lifetime of social and cultural experiences. This is based on the "four wishes" of the Thomas theorem, viz., "If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences". These four wishes are the desire for new experiences, the desire for recognition, the desire for domination, and the desire for security. Combined with the cultural values of a pre-existing situation, the four wishes give rise to certain attitudes which are subjectively defined meanings and shared experience, strongly emphasised and embodied in specific institutions. The root of new attitudes arises from the formation of new relationships and interaction between the person and the world outside the community. For example, the emergence of economics as an independent sphere reflected the tendency to reduce quality to a quantity in barter transactions and led to the development of money.

Park and Burgess (1925) developed a theory of urban ecology which proposed that cities are environments like those found in nature, governed by many of the same forces of Darwinian evolution, i.e. competition that affects natural ecosystems. When a city is formed and grows, people and their activities cluster in a particular area, i.e. the process of "concentration". Gradually, this central area becomes highly populated, so there ...