Ecological Theory Of Crime

Crime has been a daily social issue in our society for many centuries. The lack of control over crime has caught the attention of many researchers and academics who, from decades, have tried to study crime to seek solutions for this social issue. Crime has become an issue of interest to study by many sociologist and criminologist because it affects not only the victims of crime, the perpetrators, their families, but society as a whole. Theories after theories had been previously created to control crime rate and explain its existence, instability, and its links to dependable factors that were increasing the rate of crime among certain ethnic groups and disadvantaged communities. While some theories reasonably explicated their main proposition, …show more content…
In relation to ecological theories, social disorganization originated in the 1930s from members of the Chicago school who were studying urban crime and delinquency. The theorists behind this development were Clifford R. Shaw and Henry D. McKay, sociologist also affiliated to the Chicago school and to Institute of Research in Chicago (Shaw and McKay, 1942; 1969). Even though many criminal justice works attribute social disorganization to Shawn & McKay, the backgrounds of this theory are said to be the works of the professors Park and Burgess. In other words, the studies done by Park and Burgess, such as their urban ecology theory and its findings, directed Shawn and McKay’s research of juvenile delinquency. Their interest on previous studies, ecological theories, lead to the formation of the social disorganization theory.
Social disorganization is a theory that, like many other criminological theories, is not intended to apply to all types of crimes. Instead, it’s intended to apply only on street crime at the neighborhood level. This theory has strongly be influenced by the macro-micro theoretical integration. It held an outstanding position in criminology for more than three decades until the change of …show more content…
The authors extended their study of community social disorganization and crime to nonmetropolitan settings. They also explain that they did so with the purpose of assessing the generalizability to this setting of the social disorganization theory of crime that has been developed and tested in urban communities (p. 81). The sample of this research included residents of 264 counties from Georgia, South Carolina, Nebraska, and Florida with substantial nonmetropolitan populations similar to those on urban communities’ research. The authors stated that many other states could have been appropriate for the study, but they choose these