The chapter starts with the description of early criminological theories that located the source of crime within an individual, not the society. At the beginning of the 21st century, there appeared a new idea that suggested crime’s being a social product. By the end of the 1930s, two major criminological traditions emerged, which proclaimed the shift from individualist expansions of crime in favor of social ones. They were the Chicago school and Robert K. Merton’s stain theory that argued as for the social roots of crime and still remained influential in the prospect of the shaping of correctional policies. In the chapter, the researchers explore how a group of Chicago scholars has tried to understand the concentration of crime in certain neighborhoods. They conclude that their investigations has resulted in a major school of criminology and has created a foundation for important contemporary theories of crime.
In the prospect of theoretical context of the Chicago school of criminology, the authors mention the history of the city’s growth and development as an economic and population center. Also, they mention the Progressive movement and its ideas that suggested a scrutiny of the conditions as for understanding the etiology of crime; they offered saving poor people, especially their children, from poverty and possible involvement into crime by providing social services. The authors claim that the Progressives campaign in the sphere of criminal justice has resulted in the creation of the juvenile court, indeterminate sentences, and community supervision through probation and parole.
Robert. E. Park is mentioned in the context of discovering the influence of urban life on the formation and the nature of criminal activity. Later, a general model of urban growth and its influence of the etiology of crime are reviewed as well as Shaw and McKay’s approach to studying delinquency in Chicago. Additionally, five zones of Burgess’s model of neighborhood organization as an instrument of preventing and permitting delinquent careers are disclosed further in the chapter. The major conclusion of Burgess research is that social disorganization emerges in the result of weak family and communal ties and is the main source of a range of social pathologies, such as crime.
Further, the research of Shaw and McKay is disclosed as for effectiveness of Burgess’s model in terms of studying crime as well as its standing up to empirical testing. The major conclusion suggested that it is not the nature of the individuals within the neighborhood but the nature of the neighborhood itself that regulates involvement in crime. Later, the sociologists emphasize the importance of the neighborhood organization in the sense of permitting or preventing juvenile waywardness. The authors continue discussing the theory of Shaw and McKay focusing on weakening controls and its results, and the creation of a control or social bond theory. In the section devoted to the transformation of criminal values, the following publications of Shaw and McKay are mentioned: The Jack-Roller: A Delinquent Boy’s Own History, The Natural History of a Delinquent Career, and Brothers in Crime.
In the focus of the empirical status of social disorganization theory, the authors discuss Pratt & Cullen’s research devoted to structural causes of social disorganization and the study of Sampson & Groves, both of which supported social disorganization theory of Shaw & McKay. Later, the authors summarize the next stages in following the neighborhood’s criminal tradition: 1) a breakdown of control, and 2) exposure to a criminal culture. Additionally, it is emphasized that delinquency prevention programs must be directed at not only reforming individuals, but at reforming the overall community.
Sutherland's theory of differential association is discussed later in the chapter with its concept of differential social organization. The Differential Association section discusses criminal and conventional cultures and their influence on an individual. Further, nine influential statements in criminal history of the causes of crime are specified. Next, the Chicago schools criminological legacy is debated. Robert Sampson’s theory, collective efficacy theory, cultural deviance theory, and Aker’s social learning theory are discussed later in the chapter. The chapter finishes with the ideas of the community’s reorganization and change in terms of crime reduction.
The article was prepared by Linda Ween. See another post prepared by her on https://bestwritingservice.com/essays/Analysis/young-goodman-brown.html