Social Structure Social Structure Theories of CrimeTheories of Crime

Chapter 7

Social Structure Theories• Criticism of the Biological Theories – patterns, trends, etc.• Social structure genre provides the purest sociological

explanation of crime and delinquency = popular today. • Depicts crime as a product of characteristics of society.

– family, education, religion, economic, and political institutions

• Assume that crime is primarily a lower-class problem.• Tend to be Macro-level theories – as opposed to Micro• Seek to identify structural flaws that contribute to the genesis of

crime. • Stratification in the social structure• Two main variations of social structure theories:

– Strain theories - reflect the notion that crime is a outgrowth of weaknesses in the social structure

– Social Ecology - analyzes the social and economic conditions of neighborhoods

Strain Theories

• The thrust of these theories is that stress, frustration, or strain, generally a product of failed aspirations, increase the prospects for norm violations = crime.

• Key objectives of strain theories:– the specification of sources of strain– the specification of deviant adaptations

• Most strain theorists reason that the structure of American society creates the greatest pressure within the lower social echelons, and consequently, these theorists focus on explaining lower-class crime.

• Strain also tends to be associated with distorted aspirations, unrealistic desires for attainment, and materialism. (we create this in our culture)

• American dream, materialism, consumerism, etc.

Strain Theories & Anomie – *anomie and strain are distinct but related

Emile Durkheim - Origins of Social Structure Theory– Wrote Suicide (1897/1951) where

he developed the concept of Anomie.

– Anomie – without norms - normlessness

– Examined suicide data from nineteenth-century Europe

– Durkheim’s research on suicide laid the foundation for anomie and strain theory.

– Asserted that extreme social conditions in society lead to normlessness (then suicide = anomic suicide).

Anomie - refers to a state or a condition in society in which the norms are no longer effective in regulating behavior.

- also occurs due to a disjunction between aspirations and one’s ability to achieve

– Durkheim noted a lower suicide rate among the lower classes and suggested that poverty insulated the poor from experiencing anomie, and thus, suicide.

– Unlimited aspirations create pressure for deviant solutions.

Durkheim and anomie contd’

• Durkheim was very interested in solidarity – particularly threats posed to it by rapid social change.– Mechanical – exists in small isolated self-sufficient societies, limited division of

labor, shared experiences, shred common values, strong emotional ties to the group collective = minimal antisocial/deviant behavior., strong informal social controls

– Organic – modern societies, lots of division of labor and specialization, weaker common values, instrumental rather than emotional bonds, weaker social cohesion and weaker informal social controls

**Law plays a role in maintaining solidarity in both types of society.

Durkheim felt that crime was bad but that it was normal and inevitable, even necessary – it promoted individuality, and is a catalyst for social change, uncovers society’s ills. A society w/o crime would be overcontrolled = unhealthy

– the causes of social facts (fluctuating crime rates) should be sought from the social facts preceding it.

All people are said to aspire to maximize their pleasures, but deficiencies in “natural talent” will thwart some from attaining their goals legitimately.

Strain Theory: Robert Merton’s Extension of Anomie Theory

Robert Merton: Strain theory views crime as a normal response to the conditions that limit the opportunities for some individuals to obtain the economic success for which we are all supposed to strive.

Anomie = structural-cultural disjunction and strain, the way people adapt to life in the context of anomie.

The culture of any society defines the goals worth striving for – In U.S. culture we have defined material success acquisition of wealth as “natural aspirations/goals”.

Strain Theories, cont.

Robert K. Merton - Social Structure and Anomie– Examines the goals and means of

society.

– According to Merton, American society has one overriding goal: the acquisition of wealth = “American Dream”.

– The legitimate means for obtaining wealth are differentially available throughout the class structure.

– Material success have been equated to a person’s self worth

– The conflict between the institutionalized means and the disjunction in culturally specified goals is what causes Anomie.

– Merton applied his idea of goals and means to American society.

– Culture and social structure exert pressure on some people to engage in crime.

– Merton identified five modes of adaptation, or different ways in which people respond to this pressure/structural stress.

Diagrammatic Presentation of Anomie/Strain TheoryCultural and Structural Context

ANOMIEDisjunction between goals and means (the ideal and the reality)

Limited access to legitimate means (education, jobs) for some

Middle-class success goals shared by all members of society

Modes of Adaptation

Five modes of adaptation that various people adopt in response to social pressure

Conformity: Accept the success goals of American society, and the prescribed means of attaining them

Ritualism: Rejects the cultural goals, but does not adapt in a criminal manner.

Innovation: Accepts the validity of cultural goals, but rejects the legitimate means of attaining them.

Modes of Adaptation

Retreatism rejects both the cultural goals, and the institutionalized means of attaining them; they are in society but not of it.

Rebellion reject both the goals and the means of capitalist American society, but unlike retreatists, rebels wish to substitute alternative legitimate goals and alternative legitimate means.

Merton’s Individual Modes of Adaptation

Modes of Adaptation Cultural Institutionalized

Goals Means

I. Conformity + +

II. Innovation + -

III. Ritualism - +

IV. Retreatism - -

V. Rebellion + +

Richard A. Cloward andLloyd E. Ohlin - Opportunity Theory

• Extension of Anomie• Membership in a delinquent subculture is key to

delinquency (gang).• Suggest that just as the availability of legitimate means

varies across social groups, so does the access to illegitimate opportunity structures.

• Illegitimate opportunity structures, like legitimate ones, presuppose social organization or integration in order to offer illegal opportunities.

• Those seeking illegitimate opportunities must learn the necessary values and skills to take advantage of the opportunity structure available.

• Identified three types of gangs: criminal, conflict, and retreatist. – Each gang type represents a specific mode of adaptation to

perceived anomie.

Cloward and Ohlin: Group Adaptations to Anomie

Types of Conventional Legitimate Illegitimate

Adaptation Goals Means Means

1.Criminal + - +

2. Retreatist - - -

3. Conflict +- - +

1. Use gang involvement as a means of making money and moving up the ladder – hang out w/ older members and learn from them.

2. Drug users, misfits, double losers

3. Characterized by destructive and violent behavior, physicality is imp.

- gangs arise in disorganized lower class neighborhoods in response to a lack of both legit. and illegit. opportunities

Albert K. Cohen - Reaction Formation• Wrote Delinquent Boys (1955)

• Student of Merton and Sutherland

• Focused on lower-class gang delinquency in urban areas.

• Cohen extended Anomie to explain the origin of delinquent subculture gangs in the face of blocked opportunities for success.

• He asserted that “A subculture in defiance of the larger cultural values can only emerge in the face of the ‘existence, in effective interaction with one another, of a number of actors with similar problems of adjustment’” (Cohen, 1955:59).

• Short-run hedonism – immediate gratification

• Cohen - middle-class ethic = the measuring rod for youth, particularly in the school setting (middle-class measuring rod).– Middle-class behavior is rewarded and lower-class conduct is disapproved of.

– Theory assumes that youth want to “measure up” to the middle-class standards not just monetary status – can’t steal middle class status.

– Those who can’t measure up develop “status frustration” which leads crime and deviance and the expression of “reaction formation”.

– Youth eventually reject what they can’t have…

Subcultural Theories: Albert Cohen & Status Frustration

Much lower-class crime and delinquency is expressive rather than instrumental.

Though no fault of their own, young people lack access to middle-class avenues of approval and self-worth. Because they cannot adjust to what Cohen calls middle-class measuring rods, they experience status frustration.

The real problem for Cohen is status frustration, not blocked opportunity. Lower-class youth desire approval and status, but because they cannot meet middle-class criteria, they become frustrated and the act out = CRIME

Steven Messner and Richard Rosenfeld - Crime and the American Dream

• Maintain that the American Dream is the root cause of the high volume of crime.

• Suggest that the American Dream has created an anomic society, one in which the attainment of goals has superseded the need to conform to legitimate means.

– Anomic societies tend to have relatively weak and/or ineffective social control as a result of the emphasis on ends ($$$$$) rather than means (legitimate job).

– See notes…

Institutional Anomie Theory

American culture tends to devalue the non-economic function and roles of other social institutions.

The answer to the high crime rate in the United States is decommodification = social policies intended to free social relationships from economic considerations by freeing the operation of the other social institutions from the domination of the economy, or to at least gain a certain degree of balance. People today avoid entire occupations due to the compensation

rather than the quality of the work – teachers, nurses, etc. – children today say they want to be bankers, brokers, accountants, etc.

Robert Agnew - General Strain Theory

• We all experience strains in our lives but impact depends on magnitude, recency, duration, and clustering (multiple miseries lumped together). Delinquency can occur through adoption of negative attitude about other people.

• Negative affective states that produce frustration and strain.

• Agnew reminds us that why there is strain is not so much the concern as is how one deals/copes with strain.

• Agnew identifies three main types of strain-inducing stimuli:

– The failure to achieve one’s goals

– The removal of positively valued stimuli

– The presence of negatively valued stimuli

Criticisms of Strain Theories

• The focus on lower-class delinquency.• The neglect of goals other than middle-class status

and financial gain.• The failure to consider barriers to achievement

other than social class.• The inability to account for why only some people

who experience strain turn to criminal activity.

Social Ecology

• The Chicago School

• Concentric zone model

• Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay - Social Disorganization and Cultural Transmission.– Examined the relationships between a number of community variables

and delinquency. Found that areas with high delinquency rates were characterized by:

• A decreasing population

• A high percentage of “foreign born” and “minority” heads of families

• A high percentage of families on relief

• A low rate of home ownership

• Low median rental values

• Contemporary Social Ecology– Social ecology—describes the interrelations of human beings and the

communities in which they live.

Figure 4.1 Zone Map of Male Delinquents in Chicago 1925-1933

Source: Shaw, C., & McKay, H. (1972). Juvenile delinquency in urban areas (p. 69). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Copyright © by the University of Chicago Press. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved.

The Chicago School of Ecology

Shaw & McKay: the majority of delinquents always came from the same neighborhoods regardless of the ethnic composition of those neighborhoods.

Social Disorganization

Social disorganization: The breakdown, or serious dilution, of the power of informal community rules to regulate conduct.

The mix of peoples with limited resources, bringing with them a wide variety of cultural traditions sometimes at odds with traditional American middle-class norms of behavior, is not conducive to developing and/or maintaining a sense of community.

Figure 4.2Diagrammatic Presentation of Ecological Theory

Delinquency and crime

Deterioration of neighborhood and development of delinquent values

Value conflict and decrease in formal and informal social controls lead to SOCIAL DISORGANIZA-TION

Influx of native and foreign immigrants into cities - looking for work and congregating in poorest areas

Social Disorganization A neighborhood in the process of losing its sense of community =

a transition zone. Social disorganization = the loss of neighborhood collective

efficacy. Collective efficacy: The shared power of a group of connected and

engaged individuals to influence an outcome that the collective deems desirable.

The same things that predict the loss of collective efficacy are the same things that predict social disorganization.