Social Disorganization and Crime: A Neighborhood Analysis

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“Live by the streets, die by the streets.” This is a gangster’s code of conduct. Gang members are murdered or savagely beaten for not following this code of conduct. So, what choice does a gang member have: end up in jail or end up dead? Of course, not everyone who goes to jail is a gang member. But, the majority of those in jail grew up suffering the same hardships. So, what type of hardships normally breed criminals? According to the Bureau of Census, the majority of jail inmates are one or more of the following: male, Caucasian or African American, under 35 years old, and/or lower class (Clear, 2015, p. 165-166). This mix of socioeconomic status, environment, and race are usually found within certain neighborhoods across the United States. These neighborhoods suffer from social disorganization. Social disorganization is when members of a neighborhood, or community, find it impossible to solve the community problems at hand (Chambers, 2000). Factors within these communities become a cycle that becomes increasingly more difficult to break. Factors, such as low socioeconomic status, residential mobility, and heterogeneity, in addition to the social disorganization, produce criminals. Low socioeconomic status means …show more content…

A decrease in public control has to happen in order to increase social organization within the community. According to Groves (1989), poorer communities have higher petty crime rates due to higher police concentration (p. 776). Groves (1989) also states that the community type changes the actions taken by police (p. 776). In poorer communities, police are more likely to make an arrest, no matter the type of crime committed (Groves, 1989, p. 776). It is easy to conclude that this change in policing causes distrust of the police across the community. The distrust then leads to more social

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