Dr. Andrew Gladfelter
Criminology
December 14, 2016
Social Disorganization
There are many different causes of crime and theorists have come up with good reasonable ones. I personally think that crime is caused by overcrowded neighborhoods and instability. Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay’s Theory of Social disorganization shows why certain neighborhoods have more social problems, such as delinquency, than others. Shaw and McKay began with assumptions that certain neighborhoods in all cities have more crimes than other parts of the city. These areas are in transition from residential to industrials because of invasions of factories. They found out that neighborhoods with high crimes rates have at least three common problems which …show more content…
Community action plans need to be used in disadvantage areas. People need to be educated about how to keep the community safe and how to keep an eye out for anything strange in the neighborhood. “Social disorganization theory argues that neighborhood structural factors, such as concentrated Disadvantage and residential mobility, create a deficit of social capital that inhibits the creation of informal social control” (Bursik & Grasmick,1993). Also, how the social disorganization theory has a major impact on the understanding of crime and how to prevent it. There are programs for educating members of the community on sharing responsibility in creating safe neighborhoods and how to establish community …show more content…
Researchers try to figure out if stability matters and if the racial or ethnic makeup of the neighborhood affects stability. Also, how a neighborhood can affect an individual’s behavior and the outcomes of it such as crimes and violence. Their findings say that residential stability in neighborhoods did not decrease violent crimes in African American neighborhoods. “poor” renters stay in violent crimes areas because they are unable to find alternative affordable housing in safe areas. As stated in the article, “… current formulations of social disorganization theory do not specify that the relationship between residential instability and crime rates will be moderated by the overall trajectory of crime in the larger city.” The researchers in this article could not fully understand how the three initial elements are related together to cause crime. They were unable to implement any policies or programs to decrease crime and increase