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Social Disorganization Theory

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Social Disorganization
Theory
JEREMY R. PORTER, JOEL CAPPELLAN,
and SRIRAM CHINTAKRINDI
At the root of social disorganization theory is the
explanation of variations in criminal offending
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and delinquency, across both time and space,
as a product of institutional disintegration (see
Akers, 2008 and Jensen, 2003 for an expanded
overview). These institutions (family, school,
church, friendship, etc.) are historically respon-
sible to the establishment of organized and
cooperative relationships among groups within
the local community. This organization is then
linked to the bond or “sense of belonging” one
might feel in regards to their community, which
decreases the likelihood of their involvement
in criminal or delinquent behaviors that might
negatively affect that community. Thus, varying
levels of cooperational organization associated
with these institutions result in variation of
reciprocal attachment that the individual might
feel in relation to that community. The result is
less social deterrence for crime/delinquency and
higher observed rates of such activity.
Social disorganization as an explanation of
crime variations is associated with the rise of
individualism, rapid societal change, and the
“disorganizing” or “disintegrative” forces that
followed (Thomas & Znaniecki, 1918). In fact,
Sutherland (1939) highlights the effect of indus-
trialization and urbanization as characterized
by inconsistency and conflict as they refer to
the individual experience. Shaw and McKay
(1929) built on this in their analysis of crime
variations in Chicago during the early twentieth
century. Shaw and McKay’s work his become one
of the most important in terms of cementing
social disorganization as an ecological theory of
crime associated with the superseding effects of
structural conditions in relation to individual
agency. Robert Faris (1948) furthered this struc-
tural argument through the explanation of crime
patterns (“social pathologies” in his words) as
being related to the weakening of relationships
and referring to it as the bond communities. In a
reciprocal nature, Bursik (1988) points out that
crime then contributes to the further destruction
of social organization.
It is important to note that the reciprocal nature
of crime and disorganization has been critiqued
for its oversimplification in explaining variations
in crime (see Cohen, 1955 and Merton, 1957, for
example). The major critique centering on the
idea the structural conditions cannot be solely
responsible for the existence of crime but should
be included in combination with the potential
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indicators of agency and action of individu-
als likely to be involved in such behaviors. In
response to such critiques, others have made the
point that the strength of social disorganization
theory itself lies in its parsimonious ability to
explain patterns using a confirmatory scientific
approach (see Hirschi, 1969, for example).
It is the parsimonious orientation of this
approach that lends itself to replication and an
ease of interpretation, which became the founda-
tion of Shaw and McKay’s (1942) contribution to
the modern foundation of social disorganization
theory. Since its development in the field of crim-
inology, Shaw and McKay’s social disorganization
theory with its focus on the interaction of neigh-
borhood structures, social control, and crime has
become one of the most frequently tested and
contested theories due to its operationalization
and underlying assumptions (Kubrin & Weitzer,
2003). This entry seeks to provide readers with
a general overview regarding the origins and
foundations of social disorganization theory,
recent developments and advances in the theory,
and, finally, popular critiques of the theory. The
foundations and assumptions of social disorgani-
zation theory that are observed in contemporary
criminological theory is primarily the byproduct
of intellectual developments in the field of soci-
ology that occurred in the late nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries. However, prior to delv-
ing into the sociological foundations of social
disorganization theory, it is first important to
briefly review the historical, environmental,
economic, political, and cultural conditions that
allow humans to organize and coexist on a large
scale.
Foundations of Social Disorganization
Theory
The end of the hunter/gatherer period of human
history and the dawn of the Neolithic Revolution
around 10,000 BCE provided humans with access
to surplus nutrition, material wealth, and surplus
time to study science, technology, engineering,
and mathematics. These social conditions set the
foundations for massive urban planning projects,
advances in irrigation and sanitation, and archi-
tectural development to occur around the globe.
This allowed humans to begin settling into large
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villages, towns, and eventually cities without the
constant fear of suffering from famines, droughts,
and other disasters which history has repeat-
edly demonstrated can result in mass death and
the dissolution of human settlements (Zeder,
1994). Surplus time also allowed humans to
begin organizing socially and producing what we
now conceptualize as communities for providing
social controls and cultural capital. Furthermore,
the advent of the industrial revolution in the
early twentieth century resulted in the division of
labor, stratification of humans based on socioeco-
nomic status, and densely populated urban areas
to emerge for housing the growing demand for
human labor. Different races and ethnic groups
migrated and heterogeneously assimilated into
large cities around the world in search of eco-
nomic opportunity. However, language barriers,
religious differences, differing values, and ethnic
tensions have been documented as sources of
conflict with in neighborhoods housing the labor
and thereby impacting the effectiveness of infor-
mal social controls such as schools and religious
institutions for preventing crime and deviance.
Although the development of cities has been
considered a monumental achievement in human
ingenuity and engineering, it has long been
observed that densely populated urban areas pro-
duce unintended and adverse social conditions
that can result in alienation, psychological dis-
tress, criminality, and deviance. Social scientists
in particular have observed and theorized that
increases in population density, the ecological
context, and the social organizational patterns
within a community can cause humans to dis-
regard popularly held social norms and laws,
and to express deviance or criminality that can
be observed on a macro-scale. For example, in
1897 in his groundbreaking work Suicide, French
sociologist Emile Durkheim collected data from
public records and observed through quantitative
data analysis that communities and nations that
had highly integrated forms of socioreligious
development and strong social controls through
religious leadership also had lower rates of sui-
cide. More specifically, Durkheim demonstrated
the example of how nations with high rates of
Catholicism being homogeneously practiced also
had the lowest rates of suicide. He attributed
this to the fact that the Catholic religion had
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strong social controls for preventing deviance
and suicidal behavior (Durkheim, 1897).
Similarly, in 1899 in his treatise The Philadel-
phia Negro, W. E. B. Du Bois used survey data
and quantitative analysis to observe that the
crime rates among the recently emancipated
African American residents in the seventh ward
of Philadelphia were not the result of racial or
biological characteristics of the inhabitants but
were directly related to the social and environ-
mental conditions that African Americans were
forced to endure while living in densely popu-
lated neighborhoods in order to access economic
opportunities that were concentrated near the
industrial centers of major cities across the United
States. The conditions that African Americans
were forced to accept as a condition of gaining
their livelihood in the densely populated seventh
ward included high rates of poverty, illiteracy,
low rates of homeownership and businesses,
dilapidated residences, high rates of illegitimate
births, and poor public health outcomes related
to disease and death among residents. Both
Durkheim and Du Bois recognized that the
social environment was a byproduct of the inter-
action between environmental conditions and
social controls. However, neither social scientist
exclusively championed a general theoretical
framework to explain the relationship between
social disorganization and crime (Du Bois, 1899).
In the early 1920s, at the University of Chicago,
Robert E. Park and Ernest W. Burgess sought
to understand the foundations of deviant and
criminal behaviors that humans engaged in when
living in or near densely populated urban areas
through an ecological framework called the con-
centric zone theory. The social ecological theory
of Park and Burgess stated that residents living in
a city environment had varying propensities to
engage in criminal behavior based on how close
in social and spatial proximity the residents were
to the zone of transition. The zone of transition
is characterized as the parts of the city that are
designated for industrial manufacturing and
house low-income residents, particularly those
who were racially African American and recent
immigrants seeking direct access to economic
opportunities. These researchers observed that
the zones of transition had high rates of poverty,
dysfunctional families, low rates of literacy, and
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1181
had racially and ethnically heterogeneous popu-
lation characteristics. The researchers also noted
that the zone of transition had high crime rates
related to alcoholism, prostitution, and violence
(Park, Burgess, & McKenzie, 1925).
More specifically, these theorists argued that
deviant and criminal behavior among resi-
dents in the zones of transition are not related
to individual-level biological or psychological
characteristics but instead are directly related
to the ecological and environmental context in
which the residents lived in. Therefore, Park
and Burgess observed that individuals who
lived in close proximity towards the epicenter
of the zone of transition also had the highest
likelihood of engaging in crime or becoming a
victim of crime. The causal mechanism by which
increases in crime unfolded as individuals live
closer to the epicenter of the zone in transition,
is described as being the result of weakened
social controls and limited cultural capital due
to the anonymity made possible by densely
concentrated urban-industrial environments.
Although, Park and Burgess developed the eco-
logical framework for modeling how criminality
develops across space and time in urban environ-
ments, their theory did not sufficiently outline
the causal mechanisms, research methodology,
and analytical techniques for measuring the rela-
tionship between high rates of poverty, stability
of residential patterns, and level of racial hetero-
geneity and how these conditions impact the rates
of deviance and criminality on a macro-scale.
Particularly, Park and Burgess’s (1925) failure to
identify and focus on the conceptual importance
of operationalizing and measuring macro-level
social controls and its relationship to crime
prompted Shaw and McKay (1942) to produce
one of the most frequently tested general theo-
ries of social disorganization (Park, Burgess, &
McKenzie, 1925; Shaw & McKay, 1942).
Heavily influenced by Park and Burgess (1925),
the social disorganization theory developed by
Shaw and McKay (1942) at the Chicago School
in the 1940s, is a recent reformulation of the
idea that crime and deviance are a byproduct
of both the physical environment and social
structure and the way in which they interact
and are organized can be studied through an
ecological framework. What set Shaw and McKay
apart from Park and Burgess about the ecological
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1182 S O C I A L D I S O R G A N I Z AT I O N T H E O R Y
foundations of criminality and social disorder
was their conceptualization of social disorgani-
zation being the result of a lack of macro-level
social controls in the community. The theorists
posited that disorganized urban areas are pri-
marily lacking in social controls and attribute
the high levels of poverty and crime in urban
areas to the dissolution of vital social institutions
that generally provide social control such as the
family, schools, and businesses.
Shaw and McKay state that neighborhoods
with high rates of residential mobility and limited
social capital produce the conditions for crime
to emerge and persist. The researchers further
posit that high crime-rates emerge when there is
a confluence of high rates of residential mobility,
low rates of homeownership, lack of job stability,
high rates of poverty, and increasing heterogene-
ity in ethno-racial composition of communities.
Three of the primary theoretical propositions of
social disorganization for explaining all crime
include observing and measuring macro level
(a) low socioeconomic development, (b) high
rates of residential mobility, and © high rates of
ethnic heterogeneity. Shaw and McKay (1942)
developed the use of empirical data, research
designs, and analytical methodology for testing
the magnitude of the relationship between the
social environment, social controls, and crime
rates. The next section will delve deeper into the
recent developments and applications of social
disorganization theory and how it continues to
shape the fields of criminology and criminal
justice policy.
Developments and Applications of Social
Disorganization Theory
Since its classic elaboration by Shaw and McKay
(1942), social disorganization theory has become
one of the premier theories on crime and delin-
quency. However, this was not always the case.
Despite being welcomed by Shaw and McKay’s
contemporaries, in the 1960s the ecological
perspective fell out favor with criminologists
because of methodological, operational, and
data problems (for a full overview of these, see
Bursik, 1988). However, methodological, oper-
ational, and data problems are inherent of all
theories, thus the primary reason for the decline
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is likely to have been a shift in the theoretical
paradigm. Bursik argues that the emphasis in
the macro-level paradigm that gave birth to
Merton’s strain theory, the Chicago school of
criminology and Cohen’s (1955) work delinquent
subcultures, subsided over the new impetus for
individual-level theories. While social bonding
and deterrence theory dominated the research
agenda for the next 20 years, new work on the
contextual analysis of crime (neighborhood effect
on individual motivation) and spatial distribution
of crime created a renewed interest on the role
that communities play in the criminal activities
of its members (Bruinsma et al., 2013).
With the renewed interest on community
research, social scientists began to address
the methodological, operational, and data
problems surrounding social disorganization
theory – thereby extending the social disorga-
nization perspective to exciting new directions.
Sampson and Groves (1989) paved the way
with the most groundbreaking test and exten-
sion of the theory. Previous to their 1989 study,
researchers had only tested social disorganiza-
tion theory indirectly. That is, they had only
tested the direct effects of social structural fac-
tors – socioeconomic status, ethnic heterogeneity,
and residential mobility – on crime. However,
in their classic elaboration, Shaw and McKay
(1942) hypothesized that the effect of these social
structural factors on crime would be mediated
via their production of community social disor-
ganization and weakened informal social control.
Most importantly, Sampson and Groves (1989)
extended social disorganization by explicitly stat-
ing the causing mechanism through which each
social structural factor impacts the level of social
disorganization and thereby crime – something
that Shaw and McKay (1942) never clearly did.
They hypothesized that communities with low
socioeconomic status would have, on average,
lower levels of formal and informal controls and
decreased youth supervision. Low socioeconomic
status is also associated with higher crime rates
through low organizational participation, which
is symptom of weaker relational ties within the
community. Residential mobility is expected
to disrupt the community’s network of social
relations. As people move in and out of the
neighborhood it is difficult to establish prosocial
bonds. High levels of ethnic heterogeneity affects
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crime rates by inhibiting the ability of residents to
achieve consensus due to cultural and language
differences.
Sampson and Groves (1989) extended the clas-
sic conceptualization of social disorganization by
adding family disruption and urbanization to the
model. Sampson and Groves (1989) hypothesized
that family disruption decreased informal social
controls at the community level. Urbanization is
expected to weaken local kinship and friendship
networks and decrease participation in local
affairs. Using path analysis, Sampson and Groves
(1989) found that much of the effect of socioe-
conomic status, ethnic heterogeneity, residential
mobility, family disruption and urbanization on
crime and delinquency is mediated through the
mechanisms mentioned earlier.
Subsequent model extensions have been built
on two distinct but similar theories: social capital
theory and collective efficacy. Like the systemic
model discussed above, these constructs state the
mechanisms through which structural factors
influence crime rates. Social capital is defined
by Putnam (1995) as the ability of community
members to create connections that facilitate
coordination and cooperation for mutual ben-
efit – that is the transmission of resources via
social ties. A key limitation with social capital
is that these networks are a necessary, but not
sufficient condition for social control (Kubrin
& Weitzer, 2003). Having the ability to pull
resources together for the common good does
not mean it will occur – community members
need to be willing to act. Sampson (2010) created
the concept of collective efficacy to capture such
willingness. Collective efficacy, built on social
capita theory, is defined as the process of acti-
vating social ties among community members
to achieve collective goals, such as public order
(Sampson, 2010). Thus, social capital has to do
with trust and solidarity, while collective efficacy
has to do with the belief that community mem-
bers can effectively control antisocial behavior.
While both have received support in the liter-
ature, collective efficacy appears be the most
powerful predictor of crime and delinquency of
the two constructs.
So far, the research discussed has assumed that
crime rates are a function of a community’s ability
to exert social control. However, the “broken win-
dows” theory, as well as the “disorder and decline”
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1183
model posits that crime, delinquency and disor-
der may in turn affect community organization
itself (Wilson and Kelling, 1982; Skogan, 1990).
Researchers that have adopted a nonrescursive
approach, argue that any test of social disorga-
nization theory is incomplete without taking
into account the feedback mechanisms. Skogan
(1990) argues that the effect of crime on com-
munity organization is mediated through fear of
crime. High levels of fear are expected to decrease
levels of community cohesion, organizational and
increase residential mobility. These conditions,
in turn, weaken the social control processes that
inhibit crime and disorder (Skogan, 1990). There
is strong support in the literature for the cumula-
tive effects of crime, delinquency and disorder on
the community social characteristics and cohe-
sion via crime (Bellair, 1997; Markowitz, Bellair,
Liska, & Liu, 2001; Sampson, Raudenbush, &
Earls 1997; Skogan, 1990; Yin, 1985).
Aside from all the work toward refining the
theory and testing the models, the social dis-
organization perspective has also been applied
to the cutting edge fields of criminology. This
is particularly the case in the efforts to link
individual- and macro-level theories of crime, as
well as modeling of spatial dependencies in the
nonrandom distribution of crime.
Modeling contextual effects on individual
behavior
Macro-level theories of crime, like social dis-
organization, attempt to explain variations in
group-level offending. However, after the classic
elaboration by Shaw and McKay (1942), the
social disorganization perspective was dismissed
by some researchers because it could be used
to make predictions on individual-level behav-
ior (Bursik, 1988). While unfair, the critique
sparked the interest in the development of a
model that would link individual dynamics with
community-level forces. The development of
hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) has made
possible such analyses. HLM allows the esti-
mation of individual level characteristics on
offending, while controlling for the net effects of
community-level factors. HLM partitions total
variance in dependent variable in two: variance
within and variance between neighborhoods.
This partitioning allows researcher to ascertain
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how much of the variation in the dependent
variable are due to community differences and
also to target the variation using covariates at
each level. By letting individual predictors to vary
randomly, HLM detects significant interactions
individual- and macro-level predictors. Findings
from the literature show that the contextual anal-
yses of social disorganizations are a worthwhile
endeavor (Silver, 2000). However, as Kubrin and
Weitzer (2003) note, the contextual effect on
individual-level offending is moderate at best.
Modeling the spatial dependency of crime
As of late, social disorganization theorists and
spatial analysts have been enjoying a mutually
beneficial relation. On the one hand, the spatial
analysis of crime literature has middle range the-
ory that can account for the spatial dependency
of crime that scientists have been observing since
the groundbreaking works of Quettele in the
1800s. As noted earlier, the social disorganization
theory accounts not only for the structural factors
that may lead to crime, but also the mediating
processes and feedback mechanisms that may
account for the nonrandom distribution of crime
in space. On the other hand, spatial analysis
may help in the testing of social disorganization.
Because crime is nonrandomly distributed in
space, the assumption independence of resid-
uals is often violated. Spatially autocorrelated
residuals indicate that errors are not independent
and regression parameters and standard errors
are biased and inconsistent (for a full review of
spatial autocorrelation, see Voss, Long, Hammer,
& Friedman, 2006).
Spatial dependence could be modeled using
either a spatial lag or spatial error regression,
depending on the theorized underlying spatial
processes. Spatial error model treats spatially
correlated errors as disturbance and accounts for
them by being included in the error term of the
equation. Spatial lag model treats the spatially
correlated errors as an independent covariate in
the regression equation. Spatial lag models imply
diffusion effects (i.e., the occurrence of one event
makes it more likely for others to occur). Like
most social phenomena crime clusters in space,
however, despite this fact researchers almost
always neglect to account for spatial autocorrela-
tion in their models. Kubrin and Weitzer (2003)
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note that every study in the social disorganization
literature that has adjusted for spatial autocorre-
lation finds significant spatial dependence. While
we do not know the extent to which the works
discussed earlier have misleading estimates, there
is a growing recognition of the importance of
accounting for spatial dependency in the social
disorganization literature.
Critiques of Social Disorganization Theory
Our focus in this entry is to highlight the tenants,
foundations, and applications of social disorga-
nization theory. However, it is important to note
that, as with all theoretical approaches, critiques
have long been waged against social disorgani-
zation as an explanation for variations in crime.
Early on, Cohen (1955) made the point that the
theory accounts for the existence of crime as a
product of the absence of constraints. He further
states that while high crime rates might be a
byproduct of weak community bonds, it does
not wholly address the issue of impulsivity or
agency as it relates to individual offending vari-
ations. Robert Merton’s argument is similar in
that he believed that social control mechanisms
simply exerted pressure on certain individuals
that were more apt to be involved in delinquent
or criminal activity (1957). Furthermore, other
critiques (Cohen, 1955) have been waged against
the centric meaning of “organization” with a
call for researchers to understand that less than
maximally efficient organization does not consti-
tute “no organization.” In fact, Cohen makes the
point that in any of these high-crime areas there
will undoubtedly be a large group of the local
community that are opposed to the behaviors
that are theoretically linked to disorganization at
the social level.
Regardless of these critiques, it is clear that
social disorganization theory has given us an
ecological explanation for variations in crime
that has stood the test of time. That being said,
it is also clear that there is work to be done in
regards to improving the conceptual and method-
ological approaches used in the application of
social disorganization theory. It is our hope that
this nonexhaustive review of the theory will
contribute to that process.
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S O C I A L D I S O R G A N I Z AT I O N T H E O R Y
SEE ALSO: Crime Prevention; Race and Crime;
Research Methods; Sociology of Crime and
Deviance.
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Further Readings
Cantillon, D., Davidson, W. S., & Schweitzer, J. H.
(2003). Measuring community social organization:
Sense of community as a mediator in social disor-
ganization theory. Journal of Criminal Justice, 31(4),
321−339.
Kirk, D. S., & Sampson, R. J. (2013). Juvenile arrest
and collateral educational damage in the transition
to adulthood. Sociology of Education, 86, 36–62.
Odgers, C. L., Caspi, A., Bates, C., Sampson, R. J., &
Moffitt, T. (2012). Systematic social observation of
children’s neighborhoods using Google Street View:
A reliable and cost effective method. Journal of Child
Psychology and Psychiatry, 53, 1009–1017.
Sampson, R. J. (2011). The incarceration ledger: Toward
a new era in assessing societal consequences. Crimi-
nology and Public Policy, 10, 819–828.
Sampson, R. J. (2011). Neighborhood effects, causal
mechanisms, and the social structure of the city. In P.
Demeulenaere (Ed.), Analytical sociology and social
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mechanisms (pp. 227–250). Cambridge/New York:
Cambridge University Press.
Sampson, R. J. (2012). Moving and the neighborhood
glass ceiling. Science, 337, 1464–1465.
Sampson, R. J. (2012). When things aren’t what they
seem: Context and cognition in appearance-based
regulation. Harvard Law Review Forum, 125,
977–107.
Sampson, R. J. (2013). When disaster strikes, it’s survival
of the sociable. New Scientist.
Sampson, R. J. (2013). The place of context: A theory
and strategy for criminology’s hard problems. Crim-
inology, 51, 1–31.
Steenbeek, W., & Hipp, J. R. (2011). A longitudinal test
of disorganization theory: Feedback effects among
cohesion, social control, and disorder. Criminology,
49(3), 833–871.
Social Justice
BAKHITAH ABDUL-RA’UF and
CLARENCE NATHAN
The human conditions of intellectuality and
self-consciousness offer evidence of natural and
environmental influences on individual behav-
ior; subjectivity is that evidence. Humans see,
hear, feel, taste and smell. However, the sensory
impressions are influenced by previous expe-
riences and there is both a hierarchy of and
interrelationships between the senses further
complicating their interpretation. The point is
that humans are constantly making decisions,
using judgmental and conclusive thinking that
is greatly influenced by previous experience. In
essence, the past is a central determinant in any
active process of evaluation.
Equality, reflecting the socially acceptable
norms of the pre-Colonial through current
periods in American history, has had numer-
ous interpretations. All interpretations have
had European American males as the standard.
Equality has been, and in many cases still is, the
definition of acceptability and the qualification
for all benefits and privileges that accrue from
presence in America. This excluded European
American women, children, Native Americans,
people of the African diaspora, and foreigners
(an interesting category) at one time or another
for most of the history of the colonies and United
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States. Exclusion means and meant differential
treatment, usually a negative difference; a less
than equal treatment.
Social practices in a nation of laws require
codification. Each of the above-mentioned popu-
lations in American society have, in some period
or another, been legally circumscribed and
restricted from full participation in, and benefits
of, social, political and economic interaction as
equal participants. Many of the legal barriers to
equal recognition have been statutorily resolved.
However, the practices and their descendant
behaviors are often found to have continued
unabated and undiminished, and occasionally
magnified, frequently in modern and sophisti-
cated forms. It would appear that cultural patterns
of behavior are extremely resistant to legislative
correction.
Is it the moral and religious code(s) of fair-
ness, charity, concern for others, and equitable
reciprocity in life’s transactions that should be
considered an appropriate guide for behavior?
Judeo-Christian and Islamic morality certainly
approach the standard of fairness that all humans
would appreciate as tolerable, if not desirable.
Somehow, the social and cultural needs for differ-
entiation, whether rooted in greed or envy, seem
to prevent the sacred mandates of these faith
systems to be adhered to with any overwhelming
consistency.
So, we find that members of society inhabit a
land of ascribed values promulgated from the
highest altars, pulpits, lecterns, and stages in our
society. Simultaneously, we sometimes are privy
to the most intemperate language directed at the
most vulnerable and defenseless of our society in
frank and candid violation of the values socially
promoted by our faith(s). If this be considered
hypocrisy, it is a hypocrisy traditionally exercised
and displayed, and currently as much a factor in
everyday life as ever. Despite proclamations that
we live in a “race neutral” society, the omnipres-
ence of race and differentiation is constantly
presented. It is precisely because “race neutrality”
is proclaimed and used to mislead that we require
a more deliberate and conscious attack on this
fundamental hypocrisy than previously.
Thus far, a general discussion has been given of
the goals of social justice and the central tension
within American culture and society regarding
the significance of differentiation in the historical,