1. EXAM 1 Performance (After the curve)

2. Emile Durkheim The “Chicago School” Social Disorganization
Social Structure I

3. Emile Durkheim (late 1858-1917)
French Scientist
Suicide
Humans nature: selfish and insatiable
Effective Societies able to “cap” desires
Socialization & Social Ties
Special concern with “Industrial Prosperity”
Coined the Term “Anomie”:
Institutionalized norms lose ability to control human behavior and human needs

4. “Industrial Prosperity” therefore cap or control
Durkhiem’s Legacy
Rapidly Changing
Society
“Industrial Prosperity”
Anomie
(Norms are Weakened)
Human Nature as
Insatiable; must
therefore cap or control
Social Ties Important
The Anomie/Strain Tradition
(Next Week)
The Social Disorganization and “Informal Control” Tradition (Today/Tuesday)

5. Meanwhile, back in America
“Social Pathologists” ( )
Cities as “bad” and “corrupting”
Immigrants as amoral and inferior
Chicago School (1930s)
University of Chicago (Sociologists)
Tie to Durkheim: City/Societal Growth
Worry over lack of integration (and control)

6. Park & Burgess (1925) How does a city growth and develop?
Concentric Zones in Chicago
Industrial zone
Zone in transition
Residential zones

7. Shaw and McKay Juvenile Delinquency in Urban Areas 1942.
Mapped addresses of delinquents (court records)
Zone in transition stable and high delinquency rates over many years
Implications of these findings:
1. Stable, despite multiple waves of immigrants!!
2. Only certain areas of the city Something about
this area causes delinquency

8. Social Disorganization
What were the characteristics of the zone in transition that may cause high delinquency rates?
Population Heterogeneity
Population Turnover
Physical Decay
Poverty/Inequality
Why might these ecological characteristics lead to high crime rates?

9. Explaining high crime in the zone of transition
1. Social Control
Little community “cohesion,” therefore, weak community institutions and lack of control
Borrowed from Durkheim here: humans need to be controlled or deviance and crime will result.
2. Cultural Transmission of Values
Once crime becomes rooted in a neighborhood, delinquent values are passed trough generations of delinquents

10. Social Disorganization 1960-1980
Fell out of favor in sociology in 1950s
Individual theories gained popularity
Criticisms of Social Disorganization
Use of “Official Data”
Are these neighborhoods really “disorganized?”
Cannot measure “intervening variables”
“Chicago Specific” (not all cities grow in rings)

11. Modern S.D. Theory Addressing criticism
Interest rekindled in the 1980s
Continues today with “ecological studies”
Reborn as a pure social control theory (left behind “transmission of values”)
Addressing criticism
“Concentric rings” not necessary, it is simply a neighborhood level theory
Ecological characteristics do affect a neighborhoods level of informal control

12. Sampson and Groves (1989) Using British Crime Survey Data (BCS)
ECOLOGICAL
CHARACTERISTICS
Population turnover
Poverty / inequality
Divorce rates
Single parents
SOCIAL CONTROL
Street supervision
Friendship networks
Participation in
organizations

13. Sampson (1997) Replicated results in Chicago
Areas with “concentrated disadvantage,” (poverty, race, age composition, family disruption) lack “collective efficacy”
Willingness to exercise control (tell kids to quiet down)
Willingness to trust or help each other
Lack of collective efficacy increases crime rates

14. Sampson Friends (1997-Present) Version
Data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods
Concentrated
Disadvantage
(Ecological)
Population turnover
Poverty / inequality
Race composition
Family disruption
Physical decay
Collective
Efficacy
Willingness to
supervise/confront
in neighborhood
Mutual trust and
willingness to help
neighbors
CRIME
Homicide
Violence as
“problem”
Victimization

15. Review of Social Disorganization
Macro (Neighborhood) level theory
Explains why certain neighborhoods have high crime rates
Theory of “Places,” and not “People”
Not all people who live there are “crime prone,” in fact most are law-abiding
Not simply a result of “bad people” moving into certain neighborhoods

16. RETURN OF THE “CULTURAL TRANSMISSION”
William J. Wilson (Concentrated Poverty)
The “Underclass” or “Truly Disadvantaged”
Cultural Isolation no contact with “mainstream” individuals/institutions
Little respect for “life”
Hyper materialism, violence as “normative”
Some believe recent “crime drop” reflect move away from these values
Elijah Anderson
Code of the Streets
Disrespect and fear of disrespect at heart of code

17. Beyond “Informal” controls
Robert Bursik
Residents of the zone in transition lack “political capital”
Inadequate access to public services

18. S.D. as an explanation for high rates of African American offending
William Julius Wilson and Robert Sampson
High proportion of the current members of the “Zone in Transition.”
Public Policy made matters worse (high rise “projects” of the 1950s-60s)
Why do African Americans not “move out” like prior ZIT residents (immigrants)?
Housing Segregation
Loss of Manufacturing Jobs
The irony of “Black Flight”

19. Sampson and Wilson II Clarify the “cultural component”
Issue of “disrespect” rooted in legacy of racism and despair (e.g., based on reality).
Idea of “cognitive landscape”
When violence is a regular part of reality, it seems more “normal” as a response.

20. Policy Implications? Build neighborhood “collective efficacy”
How do you do this?
Address ecological characteristics that ruin collective efficacy
Family disruption, concentrated poverty, residential mobility
Moving to Opportunity Program in Baltimore
Randomly moved 200 families from high poverty to low poverty—then track the children
Community Policing Movement

21. Feature Presentation + Group WOrk
What in the video clip can you connect to social disorganization theory?
Ecological factors?
Social control?
Cognitive landscape?