Midterm 3: deck 2 Flashcards
-ecology theory
What was another name for social disorganization approach?
-ecology theory
What does ecology theory state?
- urbanization processes generate criminal behaviour
- urban pressures cause them
What was the Chicago School?
- Albion Small created the first sociology department in Chicago
- wanted to understand the natural laws of social existence
- because Chicago was out of control at the time
At the time the Chicago school was being created, how did most people explain crime and deviance?
-individualistic explanations
What did Chicago school theorists begin to notice?
- unique processes took place in communities
- they argued social space was responsible for crime and deviance
What was the Chicago school influenced by?
- Durkheim’s mechanical and organic solidarity
- normative change
- WW1, crash of the stock market, industrialization etc.
What is nativism?
-a collective action where hostility is used to preserve culture
Why did nativism become a concept?
-some people embraced rapid change and some people wanted to go back to the good old days in White dominated America
What did W.I Thomas do?
-found a diary from a Polish immigrant that said immigrating to Chicago during rapid change was hard
What conclusion did W.I Thomas argue?
- constant, rapid social change erodes the existence of social norms
- and the normative order
What three factors made it difficult for Polish immigrants to immigrate to Chicago according to Thomas?
- rural values did not work in the new world
- social controls were difficult to exert
- absence of normative order created an anything goes mentality
What did Sellin say in his book?
-cultural conflicts are a natural outgrowth of processes of social differentiation
What did Burgess and Park come up with?
-the concentric zone model
What was the concentric zone model?
- many circles that describe where crime and deviance will be the worst
- transition zone is the worst and it lessens outwards
What, according to Burgess and Park’s, described the growth of a city?
-the concentric zone model
What was the transition zone?
- run down area of the city
- people leave this area when they have money
- no clear normative order or social rules
What four conclusions did Shaw and McKay draw about the ecological model of deviance and crime?
- social problems were spatially produced
- transition zones had the highest level of social problems
- regardless of the ethnic group living there
- all types of social problems exist
Why has the social disorganization model been heavily criticized?
-it does not apply well to cities
Why might crime be under reported in commute zones?
-because it is easier to hide
What is dilapidation?
-the city being run down
What is disorganization?
- the inability of a community or individual to realize their values
- most people want the same thing but are unable to realize these values
- because of the disruptive forces of social life
What are the disruptive forces of social life?
-mental disorder, prostitution, suicide, alcoholism, infant mortality, delinquency, crime, disease and poverty
Are people in the transition zone innately evil?
- no
- they would behave as anyone would in that environment
- its the space, not individuals, that cause crime and deviance
What does Stark say the transient zone in Chicago is characterized by?
- high density, poverty and transience
- moral cynicism increases crime
What are Stark’s hypotheses?
-too many, in lecture slides tho
What idea is the Chicago area project based on?
- if crimes caused by disorganization
- reorganization may be the solution
- Blockwatch, neighbourhood watch etc.
What are the problems with social disorganization/eoclogy theory?
- didn’t operationalize disorganization
- isomorphism (cause and effect)
- not tested rigorously
- didn’t study corporate crime
What is the problem with operationalizing disorganization?
- what is disorganization and what is difference/diversity?
- Indigenous norms and culture for example
What is the problem isomorphism?
- how would you study disorganized behaviour in the real world
- because if you said it was deviance then deviance would be causing deviance
