Among the problems that plague the world is crime.

It is as old as
the world itself. And every age has a means by which it handles it.
In the non-literate societies, crime was a kind of deviation from,
repudiation or an infringement of the code(s) or norms by which a
people lived. In the Biblical world, especially in the Old Testament,
it was called sin- usually against God or fellow humans. And the
remedy then was some punishment or atonement. The question
now is why has the world not been able to free itself from crime?
Or why has crime not been on the wane in the light of
advancement in civilization, literacy, science and technology that
should help in ensuring crime- free world? In other words, can
there not be an end to crime in any society including Nigeria?
Nigeria in particular is faced with the problem of oil theft. The
need to come to terms with these problems makes necessary the
consideration of three sociological theories about delinquency or
crime in general. These are:
Anomie theory
Subcultural theory

 Ecological theory

ANOMIE
Anomie is postulated by the French sociologist Emile Durkheim
(1958-1917) to describe absence of social or moral principles in
any society or person. According to him, every society has certain
informal norms which members are morally obliged to observe.
These norms or codes that regulate the behavior of individuals in
the society may and often experience changes. The changes may
be positive (as when a society experiences a boom in its fortune,
a kind of prosperity) or negative (as when scarcity, dearth, war or
famine is experienced, a kind of austerity or adversity). At
instance of such interruption, individuals are disorientated.
Individuals are at a loss about what is expected of them; how are
they to behave?.
The lack of cohesive social alternatives in the face of an upheaval
puts members of the society in a flux. Alienation, deviance as well
as laisezaller will have to be embraced as substitute. A situation
like this has long been documented: In those days there was no

king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own
eyes. (Judges 17:6) Durkheim observed that traditional religion
used to provide grounds for socially shared values that socially
disoriented person does not have. This was manifest in the past
when resources were pooled to produce the necessities of the
group survival. Much of the peoples physical and mental
activities were identical and geared towards the realization of
group goals. All those have changed with Industrial Revolution
that formalized division of labour and people now pursue their
egoistic goals not the goals of the larger society. Thus when
individualism is stressed in the pursuit of success, communalism
has to suffer.
The concept of anomie as postulated by Durkheim was adapted
by Robert Merton (1910-2003) a Jewish American sociologist in
what is known as Strain Theory. It is about the place of culture in
creating deviance. There is discordance in common social goals
and genuine avenues for the attainment of such goals. Every
society has what it terms success which its members strive to
attain. Paradoxically, the means to attain these goals are limited

and not available to some segment of the same society. The

underdog in this setting will have recourse to deviant means.
Merton was not concerned with why an individual person will
deviate. He concerned himself with what accounts for difference
in the rates of deviance from society to society and smaller
groups within a particular culture. He saw in the U.S he studied a
kind of contradiction, the type that will breed social unrest and
the deviant behaviour. The American dream is tied to the idea of
excellence or success in whatever is American. This is a tall
dream that discrimination, prejudice, denial and racism in the
very heart of America hamper. Also, the same society that
emphasizes success goals for all also presents structure of
skewed means to achieving these: success is focused and defined
in monetary terms, and the end justifies the means. It is thus
obvious that deviance is culturally provided for in the American
society.
Merton has a schema for the societal reaction to this lack of
congruence of goals and means. Peoples reaction is segmented
as:

 Conformity
Innovation
Ritualism
Retreatism
Rebellion
By conformity it means individuals accept both the goals and
means of realizing the goals as prescribed by the society.
Innovation entails accepting the goals but rejecting the means
giving by the society and creating novel means that may be
illegitimate. Ritualism is accepting the socially given means but
rejection of the goals. Retreatism is rejection of goals and means.
Rebellion, people reject the prescribed societal goals and means
and rather create their own goals and means.
The criticism of Mertons theory for its inability to account for all
the causes of delinquency notwithstanding, it is one theory whose
observations about the whys of delinquency are still relevant
today.

3.1.2 SUBCULTURAL THEORY

Subcultural theory is a sociological theory that focuses on
explanation of delinquency or crime in general. The theory is
conceived

by

Albert

K.

Cohen

(1955)

who

theorized

the

delinquent culture. He sees subculture as a culture shared and

actively participated in by a minority of people within a broader
culture. The members of such a group have set shared values that
are learnt, adopted, exhibited which are different from those of
the larger group. Why explaining criminal behaviour as regards
subculture, he said criminal acts may result when youths conform
to norms of the deviant subculture. He was more interested in
delinquency

which

was

primarily

expressive

and

appears

purposeless as exemplary in random act of burglary, violence and

joy riding.
Cohens subcultural theory was influenced by the sociological
theory laid down by Emile Durkheim. He sees subculture as a
functional creation that enables delinquent subculture find
solution to its status problem that is, how to handle the problem
created by them. His theory is called STRAIN THEORY because

the crimogenic mechanism lays in the incompatible demand of

structure and culture which conglomerate in the creation of
subculture to solve the problems caused.
Cohen (1955) posited that formation of gangs was as a response
to status frustration by lower class adolescents. Put in other
words, delinquents youths were motivated by gaining status
among their peers. Much of the competition for status takes
places within school setting which he regarded as middle-class
institution.
ECOLOGICAL THEORY
Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay (1929) were the first social
scientists that sought the explanation for delinquency in ecology.
The word is from German Oklogie from demotic Greek Oikos
that is house. The connotation is a place or habitat in which an
entity dwels or lives. Hence ecology is seen as the study of
relationships

that

exist

between

living

entities

and

their

environment. Thus Shaw and McKay tried to see how the

behavioural pattern of some individuals is conditioned by their

environment. What is the influence of the geographical and

physical factors on the social life of a society?
Human ecology, as this study is sometimes called, It was seen
that in some sections of Chicago crime was persistently on the
increase. The areas were those neighbouring on commercial
centres of Chicago. Those areas were enclaves for emigrants and
new arrivals, and are culturally and geographically not cohesive.
The authors also showed that once crime or delinquency is
established as a culture in any neighbourhood, the pattern will
continue. This is so even when generations succeed generations
or new people move into the neighbourhood. The reason is that
delinquency is learnt and transmitted like any other process of
learning.
The study also revealled that crime rates at urban centres as well
as slums where the haves not live are high in contrast to the
suburbs where the wealthy and rich live. The regions where the
rich live always have low rate of delinquency and crime in
general.