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Social disorganization theory
Social disorganization theory paper
Socioeconomic factors affecting delinquency
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Social Disorganization theory talks about how one’s surroundings impacts the risk of crime around them. The Social Disorganization Theory was developed to show how much a neighbors and its surroundings affect people and crime. There are many factors that go with crime according to the Social Disorganization Theory. One major factor is Ethnic Diversity. According to the Social Disorganization Theory, the more diverse urban areas are, the more likely their is to be crime committed. (Social Disorganization, 2003). The ethnicity of the community affects crime because of the lack of communication. If you have language barriers, and people who do not understand each other, they may be some tension resulting in more crime. Social Disorganization …show more content…
I talked about this case in my sociology class and it was one of the most powerful cases I have ever heard of. This relates to the Labeling Theory because George Zimmerman labeled him as deviant. George Zimmerman was the captain of the neighborhood watch and believed that Martin was up to suspicious behavior. As Martin and Zimmerman engaged, Zimmerman shot Martin in the chest. This sparked a racial war and many debates on what was right and what was wrong. Everyone in their life has been labeled without knowing it. I know another real life example would be me. I have personally been called a terrorist. Regardless of the situation, it bothered me, but it has only happened once. However, it were to continually happen, I could only imagine what a person would go through. I feel like the Labeling Theory has a major impact on my life personally because I know what it would be like to be bullied into believing something you 're not. Words are extremely powerful, and if one person keeps slamming words into a person’s head, they will eventually believe …show more content…
Bandura discusses the importance of observational learning. Bandura focuses mostly on how kids develop their habits based of their role models. Bandura shows this in the Bobo Doll Experiment. The Bobo Doll experiment consisted of 36 boys and 36 girls. They were then separated again into watching a video of a plastic doll called Bobo. Some children were separated by some adults aggressively beating up Bobo and the other half were calm adults. After they were showed the video, the kids were then shown to Bobo and the results matched the Social Learning Theory to the max. The kids that were show the aggressive videos were aggressive towards Bobo. Another Social Learning Theory can be told in my shoes because I have done something similar. I remember in fifth grade my older cousin would always ride his bike down the biggest hill without a helmet. I figured if he did and was okay, why can’t I? I learned the hard way and sliced my arm on a rock. Luckily I did not need stitches however, I did go to the doctors and got ointment for it. I still have the scar today. I feel like the Social Learning Theory has made an impact on my life because I have had the opportunity of having a role model. This role model has made a positive change to my life. Similar to Bobo, I have seen what negative role models have done for a person and how much it affects
The theory directly links the type community with the crime rates it has. Social Disorganization Theory was developed by Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay in the Chicago School in 1942. They discovered that crime rates were not even across all communities. Despite changes in population Shaw and Mckay noticed that the crime was concentrated and stable among certain areas. Communities who were economically deprived, had high crime rates and increased population turnover were the cities that they considered to be socially disorganized. According to Regoeczi and Jarvis (2013), Extensions and revisions of this theory have included more explicit discussions of the intervening processes between such structural factors as economic deprivation and residential instability and crime rates. A persons physical and social environments are partly responsible for the decisions that they make. Shaw and Mckay did not directly correlate low income neighborhoods with crime, bust instead low income neighborhoods had higher turnover rates and the people who would move into the neighborhood were usually immigrants which then resulted in racial heterogeneity. Aspects of a person’s neighborhood can be looked at and used to predict whether there will be higher crime rates in the neighborhood. This theory is used to help law enforcement predict where the higher crime will be and therefore allow them to prevent
In conclusion, both strain/anomie and social disorganization theories are both very important theories in explaining the causation of crime and deviance. Many theorists today often rely heavily on these theories. As crime and society continue to change, these theories will continue to provide a solid foundation for future theories created.
This theory suggests that individuals who commit crime is based on their surrounding community. Shaw and McKay, who are two leading contributors to social disorganization feel that community disorganization is the main source of delinquency and believe that the solution to crime is to organize communities (Cullen, Agnew, & Wilcox, pg. 107). According to the reading, the strengths of social disorganization can be categorized into three. One, it explains the high crime rate in certain areas. Two, it accounts for the transmission of deviant values from one generation to the next and three, it predicts crime rates from neighborhood characteristics. Given the circumstances, these strengths can often lead to its weaknesses. The social disorganization theory uses too much of a macro-sociological approach by focusing on broad areas instead looking at the situation through an individual approach. Also, the classification of an area of being “disorganized” may actually be organized based on different
According to Cullen and Agnew (2011) the Social Disorganization theory was developed in the mid 1940’s by Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay while they were researchers studying at the Institute for Social Research in Chicago. Shaw and McKay (1942) based their research of the study of crime in Chicago off of the work that Ernest Burgess theorized in how urban areas grow through a process of continual expansion from their inner core toward outlying areas. According to Cullen and Agnew (20011) one of the primary arguments in the social disorganization theory is the idea that there are settlement patterns in the development of cities, and how these patterns impact neighborhood characteristics and corresponding crime levels. Shaw and McKay developed a theory based off the settlement pattern research that Ernest Burgess conducted. According to Cullen and Agnew (2011) Ernest Burgess stated ...
Shaw and McKay’s social disorganization theory had a profound impact on the study of the effects of urbanization, industrialization and immigration in Chicago neighborhood on crime and delinquency rates. However, Shaw and McKay faced much criticism when they first released their findings. One criticism of the social disorganization theory had to do with researcher’s ability to accurately test the social disorganization theory. Although Shaw and McKay collected data on characteristics of areas and delinquency rates for Chicago communities and were able to visually demonstrate a relationship between by using maps and other visuals, their research did not have an actually test that went along with it (Kurbin, 2010). Kurbin (2010) states that “the
When social disorganization manifests, communities deteriorate, and residents become frightened to leave their homes in fear of potential victimization (2014).
Two major sociological theories explain youth crime at the macro level. The first is Social Disorganization theory, created in 1969 by Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay. The theory resulted from a study of juvenile delinquency in Chicago using information from 1900 to 1940, which attempts to answer the question of how aspects of the structure of a community contribute to social control. The study found that a community that is unable to achieve common values has a high rate of delinquency. Shaw and McKay looked at the physical appearance of the neighborhoods, the average income of the population, the ethnicity of the neighborhood, the percent of renters versus owners, and how fast the population of the area changed. These factors all contribute to neighborhood delinquency.
This theory however as some have argued has emerged from social disorganisation theory, which sees the causes of crime as a matter of macro level disadvantage. Macro level disadvantage are the following: low socioeconomic status, ethnic or racial heterogeneity, these things they believe are the reasons for crime due to the knock on effect these factors have on the community network and schools. Consequently, if th...
To explain this concept, social cognitive and social learning theories are needed. According to these theories, people learn not only from their own actions, but also from the environment. For example, the child tends to follow and show analogous behavior with their parents. Likewise, media can provide information when we organize our perceptions of reality. Albert Bandura, who is a pioneer of the theory, he published Bobo dolls study in 1963 to determine if watching aggressive action on film caused the children to imitate the behavior displayed by the film characters in real-life situations (Albert, Dorothea, and Shella A. 1963). He made the child watch how the adult treat the Bobo doll. The adult showed aggressive behavior and used verbally aggressive phrases. They punched, kicked, sit on it, and threw down on the floor. After showing these behaviors, they left the laboratory. The result was that the children, who left in the laboratory alone, showed exactly same aggressive behaviors with the adult. The experiment means that the child observe what other do, save it in memory and imitate the behavior that what they watched. In other words, media can be one of a model that the children follow as if they act like the adult after watching their aggressive
Albert Bandura’s theory of social learning suggests that children learn by observing people around. Parents are child’s first teachers and role models. Child’s cultural views and belief system is generally identical with his/her parents/carers.
In 1977, Psychologist Albert Bandura adopted the Social Learning Theory making it an influential and important theory. Bandura believed that direct reinforcement could not account for all types of learning capabilities. Bandura argued that individuals could learn new information and behavior by watching other individuals and the type of leanings can be explained by a wide variety of behaviors. This theory acknowledges that just because something has been learned, it does not mean that it will result in a change in behavior. However, the influence from others can cause a change in
Bandura based his conducted theory on modeling behavior and observational learning. His theory also emphasizes conscious cognitive processes and learning and including the importance of beliefs about the self, self-regulation and goal setting. Bandura 's theory of personality is a child 's personality is highly dependent on their social environment as well as their level of self-regulation and self-efficacy. This theory applies too all of the factors in the social cognitive theory as well as the concept of reciprocal determination. Reciprocal determination refers to the collective and continuous interactions that occur between the human behavior, human mind, and environmental factors. Just like when Bandura performed an experiment on a group of toddlers with the Bobo doll and after the conclusions he analyzed humans do learn through observing behaviors, others actions and even the outcome of what behavior they act upon. Essentially what he believes is that humans behavior is effected by and affects the world and environment around
Bandura’s theory uses the social- learning approach. This approach would explain that Antwone was a product of what he saw. This showed in the behaviors that he displayed. This approach derives from the behaviorist approach (Schultz & Schultz, 2013). Bandura would believe that one learns by observing what is taking place in his or her environment and the people that are around the individual (Schultz & Schultz, 2013). Modeling was very important to Bandura (Schultz & Schultz, 2013).
Therefore, the community has informal social control, or the connection between social organization and crime. Some of the helpful factors to a community can be informal surveillance, movement-governing rules, and direct intervention. They also contain unity, structure, and integration. All of these qualities are proven to improve crime rate. Socially disorganized communities lack those qualities. According to our lecture, “characteristics such as poverty, residential mobility, and racial/ethnic heterogeneity contribute to social disorganization.” A major example would be when a community has weak social ties. This can be caused from a lack of resources needed to help others, such as single-parent families or poor families. These weak social ties cause social disorganization, which then leads higher levels of crime. According to Seigel, Social disorganization theory concentrates on the circumstances in the inner city that affect crimes. These circumstances include the deterioration of the neighborhoods, the lack of social control, gangs and other groups who violate the law, and the opposing social values within these neighborhoods (Siegel,
Learning Theories Knowledgebase . (n.d.). Retrieved June 19, 2010, from Learning Theories Knowledgebase : http://www.learning-theories.com/social-learning-theory-bandura.html