Social-Structural Theories

Environmental and Social Theories of Crime: Social Causes: Social-Structural Theories

Introduction to Social-Structural Theories

The social-structural approach emphasizes the effects of an individual’s position in society and the constraints that the person’s status puts on his or her perceptions and behavior. According to this model, all members of society subscribe to the same moral code but some people-because of their position in society-are more able than others to follow that code. Social-structural theorists assert that crime is an adaptation to the limitations that social position places on individual behavior.

Social-structural theorists focus their attention on socioeconomic status or social class and the strain that lower class status brings. The principal goal of these theories is to explain why poorer people engage in crime more frequently than wealthy individuals. According to the structural strain theory developed by American sociologist Robert Merton in the late 1930s, crime is not simply a function of deprivation but the result of a disjuncture (lack of connection) between ends (goals) and the means to attain those ends.

People who aspire to the cultural norm of economic achievement but are denied the education, capital, or other means to realize those ends will experience strain. According to Merton, there are three possible responses to this strain. First, the person may try what Merton calls innovation. Although the individual continues to accept the cultural value of success, he or she will employ illegitimate means, such as theft or robbery, to obtain money because legitimate means to achieve this end are not available. Another possible response is what Merton termed retreatism. The person gives up the pursuit of economic success and engages in self-destructive behavior, such as drug abuse. Finally, Merton identified the response of rebellion, wherein the person abandons the culturally dictated goal of economic achievement and engages in revolutionary activities or in attempts to reform the system.

One of the major criticisms of strain theories is that, although crime rates for poorer people exceed those for higher-income groups, only a small proportion of people in the lower economic class engages in criminal acts. American sociologists Edwin Sutherland, Richard Cloward, and Lloyd Ohlin have attempted to explain this phenomenon by emphasizing the role of learning. To become a criminal, a person must not only be inclined toward illegal activity, he or she must also learn how to commit criminal acts. Sutherland’s differential association theory contends that people whose environment provides the opportunity to associate with criminals will learn these skills and will become criminals in response to strain. If the necessary learning structures are absent, they will not.

Another type of structural theory of crime is the ecological theory, which focuses on the criminal’s relationship to the social environment. These theories emphasize migration and urbanization as sources of criminal adaptation and attempt to explain the geographic distribution of crime and criminals. Ecological theories often give special emphasis to urban areas.

In the 1940s American researchers Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay found that delinquent offenders clustered in certain neighborhoods in Chicago, Illinois. This clustering persisted over time-even when the ethnic composition of the neighborhood changed dramatically. Shaw and McKay theorized that as people migrated from rural locations or from other nations into urban centers, their poverty forced them into districts that were on the fringe of industrial zones. These fringe areas, or areas of first settlement, were characterized by high levels of social disorganization-that is, the residents of these areas rarely interacted or communicated with each other.

Shaw and McKay also found the lack of communication in such areas was in part the result of the diversity of language and culture among immigrant groups, as well as the fact that people moved on after a short time. Thus it was difficult to form enduring relationships and to negotiate an agreed-upon code of behavior. Furthermore, because informal social control was weak and people did not share common norms, crime rates and arrests were high. When people left these areas, their risk of engaging in or being the victim of criminal activity dropped. Others moving into these disorganized areas experienced increased involvement in criminal activity.

Ecological theories were quite influential immediately after World War II (1939-1945). They served as a basis for crime prevention efforts such as the Chicago Area Project (CAP), which attempted to inject some form of social controls into disorganized areas. CAP personnel attempted to ease the adjustment of newcomers and to get residents to organize themselves into groups that could negotiate a consensual social order in the community and advocate for outside resources. In the 1960s the importance of community as a source of criminal motivation in sociological theory declined. New theories emphasized race and social class. Research conducted in the early 1980s, however, demonstrated that crime and criminals were still clustered in regions that were very much like the disorganized areas described in the earlier studies. ” (1)

Resources

Notes and References

• Information about Social-Structural Theories in the Encarta Online Encyclopedia

Guide to Social-Structural Theories

In this Section

Criminology, Criminology Development (including Classical Criminology, Modern Criminology, Criminology Italian School and Independent Criminology), Criminology Goals, Biological Theories of Crime (including Crime Genetic Factors and Neurological Abnormalities), Psychological Theories of Crime (including Moral Development Theories, Social Learning Theories and Personality Theories), Environmental and Social Theories of Crime (including Social Causes, Social-Structural Theories, Subcultural Theories and Economic Causes of Crime) and

Criminal Opportunity.