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Chapter 6
Social Structure Theory
Socioeconomic Structure and Crime
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The U.S. is a stratified society: social strata are created by the
unequal distribution of wealth, power, and prestige.
 Social classes are segments of the population who share
attitudes, values, norms, and an identifiable lifestyle
 The poverty rate is 2003 was 12.5 percent
 Nearly 36 million people live in poverty
Figure 6.1 Number in Poverty and Poverty Rates, 1959-2003
Socioeconomic Structure and Crime
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Child Poverty
 Poverty during early childhood has a more severe impact than
during adolescence
 Low income children are less likely to achieve in school and more
likely to suffer health problems
 Social problems in lower-class slum areas are epidemic
 Nearly 25 percent of children under age 6 live in poverty
Figure 6.2 Poverty Rates by Age, 1959-2003
Socioeconomic Structure and Crime
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Socioeconomic Structure and Crime
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The Underclass
 Culture of poverty is passed from one generation to the next
 Gunnar Myrdal suggested that an “underclass” was cut off from
society
 Unemployment and underemployment disrupts family life and
creates despair
Socioeconomic Structure and Crime
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Minority Group Poverty
 20 percent of African Americans and Hispanics live in poverty
 10 percent of Whites live in poverty
 William Julius Wilson suggests disadvantaged minorities direct
their aggression toward those close to them
Social Structure Theories
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Social and economic forces in deteriorated lower-class areas
push residents into criminal behavior patterns
Social structure theories include, social disorganization, strain
theory, and cultural deviance theory
Each theory suggests that socially isolated people living in
disorganized areas are the ones most likely to experience crimeproducing social forces
Figure 6.3 The Three Branches of Social Structure Theory
Social Disorganization Theories
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Links crime rates to neighborhood ecological characteristics
Social disorganization includes low income groups with large
single-parent households and institutions of broken down social
control
Residents in crime-ridden areas are trying to leave at the earliest
opportunity
Figure 6.4 Social Disorganizational Theory
Social Disorganization Theories
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The Work of Shaw and McKay
 Linked transitional slum areas to the inclination to commit crime
 Transitional neighborhoods are incapable of inducing residents to
defend against criminal groups
 Concentric zone mapping identified the inner-city transitional
zones as having the heaviest concentration of crime.
 Slum children choose to join gangs when values are in conflict
with existing middle-class norms
 Crime rates correspond to neighborhood structure according to
Shaw and McKay
Figure 6.5 Shaw and McKay’s Concentric Zones Map of Chicago
Social Disorganization Theories
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The Social Ecology School
 Community deterioration: Associated with crime
 Disorder, poverty, alienation, dissociation, and fear of crime are
characteristic of community deterioration
 Poverty concentration: Economically disadvantaged
neighborhoods have higher rates of serious crimes (concentration
effect)
 Chronic unemployment: Limited employment destabilizes
households
Social Disorganization Theories
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Community fear: Social and physical incivilities increase the fear
of crime (i.e. graffiti, prostitutes, dirt, and noise)
• Race and fear: Fear by Whites is based on racial stereotypes.
Fear by minorities is greater
• Gangs and fear: Open activities of brazen gang activity
creates community fear
• Mistrust and fear: A “siege mentality” develops based on
mistrust of the outside world
Community change: Communities undergoing rapid structural
changes experience great changes in crime rates (gentrification)
Change and decline: Neighborhoods most at risk contain large
numbers of single-parent families and social strain
CNN Clip - New Approaches To Gang Problems
Social Disorganization Theories
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Collective Efficacy
 Cohesive communities develop interpersonal ties and mutual
trust
 Informal Social Control: Involves peers, families, and relatives
 Institutional Social Control: Involves schools, churches,
businesses, social agencies
 Public Social Control: Policing
 Social support/Altruism: crime rates are lower in areas with a
positive social climate
Strain Theories
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Theories that view crime as a direct result of lower-class frustration
and anger.
 Anomie (from the Greek word a nomos, without norms) – in an
anomic society rules of behavior have broken down because of
rapid social change, war, or famine.
• Mechanical solidarity: pre-industrial styled societies held
together by traditions and shared values
• Organic solidarity: Complex post-industrial societies which are
interdependent for services and needs
Figure 6.6 The Basic Components of Strain Theory
Strain Theories
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Theory of Anomie (Robert K. Merton)
 Merton argued that socially mandated goals are uniform
throughout society and access to legitimate means to achieve
those goals is bound by class and status
 Some people have inadequate means to attain societal goals.
 Modes of Social Adaptation
• Conformity
• Innovation
• Ritualism
• Retreatism
• Rebellion
Table 6.2 Typology of Individual Mode of Adaptation
Strain Theories
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Evaluation of Anomie Theory
 Social inequality leads to perceptions of anomie
 People innovate to resolve goals-means conflict
 Merton’s theory does not explain why people choose certain
types of crime
Strain Theories
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Institutional Anomie Theory (Steven Messner & Richard Rosenfeld)
 Update of Merton’s theory describes the “American Dream” as
both a goal and a process
 Goals refer to material goods and wealth
 Process involves being socialized to pursue material success
 Certain institutions have been rendered powerless and obsolete
in controlling anomie such as religious and charitable institutions
 Economic terms are part of the common American vernacular
Strain Theories
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Relative Deprivation Theory
 Perceptions of economic and social inequality lead to feelings of
envy, mistrust, and aggression
 Lower-class people feel both deprived and embittered
 Minorities feel relative deprivation more acutely than
nonminorities
Strain Theories
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General Strain Theory
 Robert Agnew GST explains why individuals who feel stress and
strain commit crime
 Negative Affective States: anger, frustration, and adverse
emotions emerge in destructive relationships
Figure 6.7 Elements of General Strain Theory
Strain Theories
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Multiple Sources of Stress
 Criminality is the direct result of negative affective states
 Failure to achieve positively valued goals
 Disjunction of expectations and achievements
 Removal of positively valued stimuli
 Presentation of negative stimuli
 Agnew suggests the greater the intensity and frequency of strain
experiences, the more likely criminality will occur
Strain Theories
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Sources of Strain
 Social sources: Peer and social groups
 Community sources: Relative deprivation producing negative
affective states in large population segments
Strain Theories
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Coping with Strain
 Juveniles high in negative emotionality and low constraint are
likely to react with antisocial behaviors
 Crime provides relief from strain and stress for some people
 Expectations increase with maturity, which may reduce the
sources of strain
Strain Theories
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Evaluating GST
 Sources of strain vary over the life course
 Empirical evidence supports that indicators of social strain are
linked with criminality
 Gender issues: GST does not adequately account for gender
differences in crime rate.
 Females may be socialized to turn stress inward, whereas males
turn their frustration outwards through aggression
 Evidence suggests that people who fail to meet success goals
are more likely to engage in criminal behavior
Cultural Deviance Theory
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Combines the effects of social disorganization and strain to explain
criminality
 Lower classes create an independent subculture with its own set
of rules and values
 Subcultural norms clash with conventional values
Figure 6.8 Elements of Cultural Deviance Theory
Cultural Deviance Theory
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Conduct Norms
 Thorsten Sellin suggested criminal law is an expression of the
rules of the dominant culture
 Culture conflict occurs when the rules expressed in the criminal
law clash with the demands of conduct norms
Cultural Deviance Theory
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Focal Concerns
 Walter B. Miller identified the focal concerns of the lower-class
environments
• Trouble
• Toughness
• Smartness
• Excitement
• Fate
• Autonomy
 clinging to lower class focal concerns promotes illegal or violent
behavior.
Cultural Deviance Theory
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Theory of Delinquent Subcultures
 Albert Cohen suggests lower-class youths protest again the
norms and values of the middle class (status frustration)
 Teachers, employers, and authority figures set the standards
referred to as middle-class measuring rods
 Cohen contends lower-class boys will form deviant subcultures
when frustrated
Cultural Deviance Theory
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Formation of the Deviant Subculture
 Corner boy: Most common response to middle-class rejection,
engages in petty or status offenses
 College boy: embraces cultural and social values of the middle
class, is ill-equipped academically, socially, and linguistically to
achieve
 Delinquent boy: adopts values and norms in opposition to middleclass values, engages in short-run hedonism (reaction formation)
Cultural Deviance Theory
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Theory of Differential Opportunity
 Richard Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin suggested people share the
same goals but have limited means to achieve them
 Because of differential opportunity, young people are likely to join
gangs
• Criminal gangs exist in stable neighborhoods
• Conflict gangs develop in areas unable to provide legitimate or
illegitimate opportunities
• Retreatist gangs are double failures constantly searching for a
way to get high
Cultural Deviance Theory
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Evaluating Social Structure theories
 The core concepts appear valid
 Factors that cause strain produce social disorganization
 Critics charge lower-class crimes rates are attributable to biases
in the criminal justice system
 Not all members of a disorganized community respond by
committing crime
Public Policy Implications of Social Structure Theory
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Social structure theory has significantly impacted public policy
 Public welfare programs
 Chicago Area Projects
 War on poverty
 Head Start, Neighborhood Legal Services, and Community Action
programs