"The Truly Disadvantaged" & "The Stick-up Kids" Discussion Post (Chapter 6)

Chapter Six

Social Structure Theory

Learning Objectives

After reading this chapter, students should be able to:

1. Explain the association between social structure and crime.

2. Identify the elements of social disorganization theory.

3. Analyze the views of Shaw and McKay.

4. Understand the various elements of ecological theory.

5. Apply the concept of strain.

6. List and compare the elements of cultural deviance theory.

Lesson Plan

I. Economic Structure and American Society

Learning Objective 1: Explain the association between social structure and crime.

A. Problems of the lower class.

1. Lewis argued that the lifestyle of lower-class areas produces a “culture of that is passed from one generation to the next.”

2. Myrdal described a worldwide underclass that was cut off from society.

3. Lower-class areas have bad housing and healthcare, disrupted family lives, underemployment, and despair.

4. Lower-class people have higher levels of depression, lower levels of achievement motivation, and focus on short-term goals.

B. Child poverty.

1. Poor children are less likely to achieve in school and are more likely to drop out.

2. Poor children are more likely to suffer from health problems.

C. Minority group poverty.

1. Burden of underclass felt most acutely by minority group members.

2. Median family income of Latinos and African Americans is two-thirds of whites.

3. Percentage of racial and ethnic minorities living in poverty is double that of European Americans.

D. Social structure and crime.

1. Social structure theory holds root cause of crime can be traced directly to socioeconomic disadvantages embedded in American society.

2. As neighborhood quality decreases, probability residents will develop problems sharply increases.

3. If people cannot afford goods and services, members of lower class may turn to illegal solutions.

II. Social Structure Theories

A. View cause of crime through lens of poverty, income inequality, hopelessness, and despair.

B. Three independent yet overlapping branches.

1. Social disorganization theory.

a. Crime flourishes in disorganized area in which institutions of social control have broken down and can no longer perform their stated functions.

2. Strain theory.

a. Crime occurs when members of the lower class experience anger and frustration over inability to achieve success.

3. Cultural deviance theory.

a. Combines elements of strain and social disorganization theory.

b. In disorganized neighborhoods, strain locks people into independent subculture with unique values and beliefs.

III. Social Disorganization Theory

2: Identify the elements of social disorganization theory.

3: Analyze the views of Shaw and McKay.

4: Understand the various elements of ecological theory.

A. The work of Shaw and McKay.

1. Began examining Chicago neighborhoods in the 1920s.

2. Concentric zones were transitional inner-city zone where large number of city’s poorest citizens had settled.

a. Crime declines the further from the city center you go.

b. Stable patterns of crime have existed over the past 65 years showing that crime does not move with people.

c. Youths adopt deviant lifestyle from most financially successful people in neighborhood, often gamblers, pimps, and drug dealers.

3. The legacy of Shaw and McKay.

a. Crime is a constant fixture in areas of poverty.

b. Neighborhood disintegration is the primary cause of criminal behavior.

c. Paved way for community action and development programs that have been developed in the last half-century

B. The social ecology school.

1. Similar to structural theory with less emphasis on value conflict.

2. Community disorder – crimes rates are associated with community deterioration in the form of disorder, poverty, alienation, disassociation, and fear of crime.

3. Community fear decreases the quality of life for residents.

a. People living in areas with high crime rates are most likely to experience fear.

b. Victims have higher levels of fear.

4. Siege mentality is when residents in poorer areas begin to become suspicious of authority and outsiders which furthers mistrust/fear.

5. Community change.

a. Poor communities with community stability have low crime rates.

6. Poverty concentration.

a. Concentration effect – most disadvantaged population is consolidated in most disorganized urban neighborhoods.

7. Collective efficacy – mutual trust, willingness to intervene in supervision of children, and maintenance of public order.

a. Informal social control involves on primary level and involves peers, families, and relatives.

b. Institutional social controls such as schools and churches can’t work effectively in a climate of alienation and mistrust.

c. Public social control draws on outside help, such as police, and are better able to reduce the effects of disorganization and lower crime.

8. The effects of collective efficacy.

a. Where collective efficacy is high, crime rates remain low.

b. Street efficacy.

IV. Strain Theories

5: Apply the concept of strain.

A. Theory of anomie.

1. The intersection of culturally defined goals (e.g., wealth) and socially approved means (e.g., education and legitimate work) for obtaining them produce anomic conditions.

a. Poor have less access to legitimate means to obtain goals and thus turn to crime to relieve their frustration.

2. Social adaptations:

a. Conformity: People accept the goals and have the means to acquire them.

b. Innovation: People accept the goals but are unable/unwilling to achieve them legitimately.

c. Ritualism: Pleasure from practicing traditional ceremonies, regardless of whether they have a real purpose

d. Retreatism: rejects both the goals and means of society

e. Rebellion: substitute alternative set of goals and means for conventional ones.

3. Evaluation of anomie theory.

a. Weaknesses include an inability to understand why a person chooses to commit certain types of crime over others, and it does not explain why people age out of crime.

B. Institutional anomie theory.

1. Messner and Rosenfeld argue that the goal and process of achieving the “American Dream” is problematic as it leads to crime among all social classes.

2. Social institutions are undermined in three ways.

a. Noneconomic functions and roles have been devalued.

b. Noneconomic roles become subordinate to and must accommodate economic roles.

c. Economic language, standards, and norms penetrate noneconomic realms.

C. Relative deprivation theory.

1. Neighborhood-level income inequality is predictor of neighborhood crime rates

2. Relative deprivation – envy, mistrust, and aggression resulting from perceptions of economic and social inequality.

3. Relative deprivation is the precursor to a high crime rate.

D. General strain theory (GST).

1. Robert Agnew’s theory explains why individuals who feel stress and strain are likely to commit crimes.

2. Applies to all elements of society, not just crime among the lower socioeconomic classes.

3. Multiple sources of strain – negative affective states.

a. Failure to achieve positively valued goals.

b. Disjunction of expectations and achievements.

c. Removal of positively valued stimuli.

d. Presentation of negative stimuli.

4. Consequences of strain.

5. Coping with strain.

6. Evaluating GST

V. Cultural Deviance Theory

Learning Objective 6: List and compare the elements of cultural deviance theory.

A. Focal concerns.

1. Miller identified unique conduct norms – focal concerns.

1. Trouble.

2. Toughness.

3. Smartness.

4. Excitement.

5. Fate.

6. Autonomy.

2. Cultural transmission.

3. Gang culture.

B. Theory of delinquent subcultures.

1. Cohen argued that lower-class youth delinquency is actually a protest against the norms and values of middle-class U.S. culture.

2. Status frustration leads to youths joining gangs.

3. Middle-class measuring rods.

4. Formation of deviant subcultures.

a. The corner boy is loyal to his peer group and is occasionally delinquent.

b. The college boy embraces cultural and social values of the middle class.

c. The delinquent boy is the most delinquent and adopts values that oppose middle-class values.

C. Theory of differential opportunity.

1. Cloward and Ohlin combined strain and social disorganization principles to portray a gang-sustaining subculture.

2. Differential opportunity holds that youths who are denied the legitimate means to achieve goals will come together to form gangs that provide emotional support.

3. Three types of gangs:

a. Criminal gangs exist in stable neighborhoods and youths are recruited into established criminal gangs.

b. Conflict gangs are created in areas where legitimate or illegitimate opportunities are not available and the focus is on fighting.

c. Retreatist gangs are considered double-failures and are unable to get success through legitimate or illegitimate means.

VI. Social Structure Theory and Public Policy

A. Social structure theory has significantly influenced public policy.

1. Provide public financial aid to help lower-class make ends meet.

2. Improve neighborhood characteristics so they are not disorganized.

3. Implement social service programs, like Head Start.

4. Engage existing community institutions, such as police and schools, to help kids access legitimate growth opportunities.