Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Social disorganization theory provides an explanation of the variation in crime rates among neighborhoods. It assumes that the basis of criminal behavior lies largely within the structural and cultural conditions of the neighborhood. Socially disorganized neighborhoods are defined as those not having the capacity to regulate behaviors and activities that are inconsistent with neighborhood values. This capacity to regulate behaviors is referred to as the level of social control. Recent social disorganization theory has particularly emphasized neighborhood levels of informal social control. Social disorganization theory was originally developed by Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay in their book Juvenile Delinquency and Urban Areas (1942, revised 1969). In studying the distribution of delinquency among different areas of Chicago in the early 1900s, Shaw and McKay noticed several patterns. First, delinquency rates decreased as one moved from the center of the city outward. Second, a large proportion of “neighborhoods” (square mile areas) that had high rates of delinquency in 1900 continued to have high rates 30 years later. This was particularly remarkable because many of those neighborhoods had undergone tremendous ethnic change during that time period. Further, they found that neighborhoods with high levels of delinquency also had high levels of other problems such as adult crime, truancy, ... log in or subscribe to read full text