Social Disorganization and Ecological Criminology

Dan Ellingworth

Monday, 29 October 2007

The following students need to see me TODAY (after 2pm)

? Colin TOFT

? Sarineh HAROUTOUNIAN

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

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

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

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

E.W. Burgess
“Concentric Circles”

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

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

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”

Crime Mapping

? Technologically driven GIS mapping

? Identification of offenders and offending

? “Hotspot” analysis : a recognition that crime incidents are clustered in small areas

Wilson and Kelling

? “Broken Windows” Thesis

Disorder and Fear of Crime

? Innovative focus on disorder and fear

? 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”

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

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?

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

Primary Crime Prevention

? 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

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