Originally developed by scholars at the University of Chicago in the early 1900’s, the social disorganization theory links crime rates to neighborhood ecological characteristics. The core principal of this theory is that where a person lives has strong relevance on the development of the moral and ethical development of a person and whether or not that person will later commit crimes. In other words, youth that grow up in disadvantaged neighborhoods will likely become part of a subculture where delinquency is accepted and will later develop into real crime. Many theorists have contributed to the development of this theory’s modern explanation. In 1931, Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay proposed that delinquency is learned and passed on through
