Social Structure Perspective Flashcards
Explain social disorganization. How is it like a “disease”? Explain how low cohesion relates to this as well.
- rapid immigration causes swift social change and caused social disorganization.
- views society as an organism and crime or deviance as a kind of disease.
- this theory believes that the root causes of crime and deviant behavior are related to these external factors, such as rapid social change, where there’s not enough for people to acclimatize and adjust to it, social conflict so conflict between groups or different stratas of society, lack of social consensus, so there isn’t homogeneity or collective agreement of what a good society looks like.
- low cohesion is typically an area that is highly transient with lots of rental properties, people do not know each other, there are higher rates of social disorder, crime, vandalism, property crime, poorly maintained homes (very typical of the inner-city climate of the US in the 20th century)
Explain the Chicago school of thought.
Chicago school of criminology: an ecological approach to explaining crime that examines how social disorganization contributes to social pathology.
Greatest contributions of this school were that
1. The use of population statistics, when combined with crime info, provided empirical material that gave scientific weight to ecological investigations
2. Ethnographic information, gathered in the form of life stories, described the lives of city inhabitants.
Explain the concentric zones in the Chicago school of criminology.
- Zone 1: Retail business, light manufacturing Zone 2: factories, new immigrants, deteriorating housing, abandoned buildings
- Zone 3: working class tenements
- Zone 4: middle class families, single family homes
- Zone 5: Suburbs, the commuter zone, single detached homes
- Residents of the inner zones would migrate to the outer zones as their economic situation improved
- Chicago School known for its focus on the impact of environment, as it looked at specific geographical areas
- “Urban transitional zones” typified by social disorganization, turmoil, lower property values, poverty, and lack of privacy
- Currently, some criminologists might use an ecological approach to indigenous reserves, Vancouver’s downtown eastside, the “strip” in Surrey
Broken Windows theory
Broken Windows Thesis: became famous in New York, part of the cleanup and crime reduction strategy of the 1990’s. Paint over graffiti, repair broken windows, send message that people care and there is oversight. Reduce sense of neglect and #’s of distressed properties. Example: Subway systems (Tipping Point excerpt)
• Taps into idea that if nobody cares, and there is no maintenance, it will create permission for people to behave badly.
• What they did in subway system: epidemic of crime occurs.
Explain crime prevention through environmental design
• Crime prevention through environmental design looked at commercial properties and residential areas. Reduce bushes, increase lighting: basically creating a target-hardening approach.
Based on this notion that what is going on in the physical place is going to increase crime.
What did Durkheim mean when he said “anomie”?
A social condition in which norms are uncertain or lacking.
Explain delinquency in strain theory.
• Delinquency, or criminal behavior, is a problem solving strategy in response to a social situation that is frustrating or undesirable. A redevelopment of Durkheim’s concept of “anomie”
• When social conditions become unstable, norms become uncertain/lacking.
• There are ways of achieving status and success, but not everyone has equal access to good employment.
When gulf becomes too wide between what people want and the legal ways to reach that goal, that is when they will begin considering illegal ways.
Explain strain theory and “The American Dream”
• Notion of “American dream.” Everyone has their own house, a good job, white picket fence. Those can conform accept these goals (middle class and upper class). But many people could not achieve these goals. If they can’t conform to this idea, then
1. Innovate, engage in crime or less socially acceptable ways.
2. Conformers (status quo)
Ritualism and Retreatism (no need to remember this for tests and stuff)
What is general strain theory?
Begins to bring in the idea of what was going on in the early life of that person vs those who just wanted to achieve American dream (strain theory)
• Did these people experience homelessness, poor education, poor early life experiences?
• Early life risk factors and criminogenic domains.
Strain at individual level: early life experiences of abuse/neglect, poor school experiences, plus chronic victimization, chronic repeitive “strain” with negative emotions and negative relationships = increase chance of delinquency.
How does general strain theory differ from traditional strain theory?
• Includes all types of negative relations between an individual and others.
• GST maintains that strain is likely to have a cumulative effect on delinquency after reaching a certain threshold.
• Lastly, GST provides a more comprehensive account of the cognitive, behavioral, and emotional adaptations to strain than do traditional strain approaches.
Finally, GST more fully describes the wide variety of factors affecting the choice of delinquent adaptations to strain.
Elaborate on what criminology of place means.
Builds on the contributions of routine activities theory and situational crime prevention. In particular, it emphasizes the importance of geographic location and architectural features in terms of prevalence of victimization.
Such “hot spots” include places like neighborhoods, specific streets, and even individual houses or businesses.
The Chicago school of criminology identified
the tendency of criminal activity to be associated with urban transitional zones, which were typified by social disorganization, turmoil, lower property values, poverty, and lack of privacy
Elaborate on culture conflict theories and how they connect with the Chicago school.
Saw zones of transition, such as volatile zone at center of city, tended to be in flux. Harbored people who were at odds with the rest of society and ended up being areas with higher crime.
• Culture and values of homeland may clash with immigration destination’s culture (i.e. honor killings, female genital mutilation, “incentivizing” is okay in business deals in some cultures, but not North American culture who considers it a bribe)
