1. Social Disorganization and Ecological Criminology
Dan Ellingworth
Wednesday, 26 April 2017

2. Lecture Outline Durkheim and Anomie The Chicago School
Robert Park
Shaw and Mackay’s ‘Concentric Zones’
Social Disorganization
Environmental Criminology
Routine activities theory
Crime Mapping
Community crime careers
Community Crime Prevention

3. Durkheim and Anomie
Central concern: how does society maintain itself, whilst undergoing major social upheaval
Mechanical Solidarity → Organic Solidarity
Underdeveloped conscience collective resulting in normlessness or Anomie
Crime and deviance results from a temporary lack of norms and values

4. Social Disorganization Theory / Ecological / Environmental Criminology
Area crime / offending rates
Influences of community characteristics on crime
Land use and routine activities
Importance of Informal Social Control

5. Chicago School Established 1892
Aim: to establish sociology as an organized, empirical discipline
Robert Park: anthropological and ecological study of crime
Chicago: an evolving city, characterised by waves of immigration from Europe: aim was to understand this process

6. E.W. Burgess “Concentric Circles”
I - The Loop
II- Zone of Transition
III - Zone of workingmen’s homes
IV- Residential Zone
V - Commuters’ Zone I II
III IV V

7. Chicago School: 1940s Shaw and Mackay: social disorganisation
juvenile delinquency residence rates, and other social problems, concentrated in the zone of transition
Patterns stable over time despite change
Cultural heterogeneity & constant turnover of population inhibit maintenance of social order

8. Criticisms of Chicago School
Crime the product of social organisation, not disorganisation
Delinquency seen as the product and result of disorganisation
Social disorganisation ignores differential power levels, and the role of economic factors

9. Legacy of Chicago School
Crime can be effected by the broader policies shaping the urban city
Measures against crime should seek to socialise and integrate (especially youth)
The geography of crime
Most effective resource for crime prevention is to be found in the ordinary members of the population: “natural surveillance” in communities

10. Crime Mapping Technologically driven GIS mapping
Identification of offenders and offending
“Hotspot” analysis : a recognition that crime incidents are clustered in small areas

11. Wilson and Kelling “Broken Windows” Thesis Disorder Fear of Crime
Informal control undermined
Potential increase in serious crime

12. Disorder and Fear of Crime
Innovative focus on disorder and fear within areas
Disorder: Signals of a breakdown in the realisation of conventional norms about public behaviour, and a diminished capacity for problem solving
Fear of Crime: withdrawal from community, as well as “secondary victimisation”

13. Spiral of decline
Evidence that the pattern of decline is most marked in working class communities where residents are more sensitive to such “barometers of decline”
“Tipping points”: communities gain reputations for tolerance of social disorder
Psychological / behavioural consequences: fatalism and mutual distrust

14. Defensible Space: Oscar Newman
Territoriality: ‘zones of influence’
Surveillance: design buildings to allow easy observation of areas
Image: design buildings to avoid stigma in low-cost / public housing
Environment: the juxtaposition of public housing with ‘safe zones’
a neglect of social factors?

15. Routine Activities Approach
Marcus Felson
A crime event occurs when 3 things coincide in time and space
a motivated offender
a suitable victim / target
the absence of capable guardianship
Social Disorder can inhibit capable guardianship

16. Primary Crime Prevention
reduction of crime without reference to criminals and potential criminals
leading role played by the police
A.K.A. “Situational” crime prevention
Increasing the effort required for crime
Increasing the risks of detection
Reducing the reward of crime

17. Secure by Design “See and Be Seen” Bus Shelters
Big Issue Offices, Manchester
Royds Community Association, Bradford

18. Social Capital
Individuals have resources associated with inter-connections – Social Capital
Communities benefit when social capital is high
“Collective efficacy” – the ability of groups to respond and resist
Putnam – social capital is in decline
Communitarians (eg. Amitai Etzioni) – a need to reinvigorate the social / community in the face of unfettered individualism

19. norms / values / culture / ecology
Summary
Ecological approach of Chicago School looked at social disorganization (akin to Durkheim’s anomie)
Functionalist: both theories saw
norms / values / culture / ecology
as the key to social order
Contemporary approaches have borrowed this, and applied it to a community based approach to offending and crime prevention