CHAPTER 8

ECOLOGY OR ENVIRONMENTAL THEORIES OF CRIME CAUSATION

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Introduction
Environmental criminology examines the location of specific crime and the context in which it occurred
in order to explain and understand crime patterns through mapping of crimes. Then, relate these crime patterns
to the number of targets; to the offender population; to the location of routine activities, such as work, school,
shopping, and recreation; to security, and to traffic flow. This can be attributed to the work of:

 French Lawyer Andre-Michel Guerry who used the first modern criminal statistics in 1827 in France
to demonstrate that crime rates varied with social factors. Guerry found that the wealthiest region in
France had the highest rate of property crime but only half the national rate of violent crime and
concluded that the main factors in property crime was opportunity; that there was more to steal in rich
provinces.
 Belgian mathematician Adolphe Quetelet, made an elaborate analysis of crime in France, Belgium
and Holland; after analyzing criminal statistics, which he called “moral statistics” and concluded that
overall patterns of behaviors of groups across a whole society there’s a regularity of rates of various
behaviors. That by learning external forces that lead the person to commit crime the more that it is
easier to predict behavior.

In Chicago, it’s Robert Ezra Park, Ernest W. Burgess, and Louis Wirth pioneered research on the social
ecology. In 1915, Robert Ezra Park called for anthropological methods of description and observation to be
applied to urban life. He was concerned with how neighborhood structure developed, how isolated pockets of
poverty formed, and what social policies could be used to alleviate urban problems. In response, they carried
out an ambitious program of research and scholarship on urban topics, including criminal behavior patterns.
Harvey Zorbaugh’s “The Gold Coast and the Slum”, Frederick Thrasher’s “The Gang”, and Louis Wirth’s “The
Ghetto”, are classic examples of objective, highly descriptive accounts of urban life. Park, with Ernest Burgess,
studied the socal ecology of the city and found that some neighborhood form so-called natural areas of wealth
and affluence, while others suffered poverty and disintegration. Regardless of their race, religion, or ethnicity,
the everyday behavior of people living in these areas was controlled by the social and ecological climate.

Lesson 1: Ecological Systems Theory

American psychologist, Urie Bronfenbrenner, formulated the Ecological Systems Theory to explain how
the inherent qualities of a child and his environment interact to influence how he will grow and develop. Through
the Bronfenbrenner Ecology Theory, he stressed the importance of studying a child in the context of multiple
environments, also known ecological systems in the attempt to understand his development. A child typically
finds himself simultaneously enmeshed in different ecosystems, from the most intimate home ecological system
moving outward to the larger school system and the most expansive system which is society and culture. Each
of these systems inevitably interacts with and influences each other in every aspect of the child’s life.

Chronosystem
Changes Over time

Macrosystem
Social and Cultural values

Exosystem
Indirect Environment

Mesosystem
Connections

Microsystem
Immediate
Environment

CHILD
The Urie Bronfenbrenner model organizes contexts of development into five (5) levels of external influence:

1. The microsystem is the smallest and most immediate environment in which the child lives. As
such, the microsystem comprises the daily home, school or daycare, peer group or community
environment of the child. The child’s interaction with these systems will definitely shape his
behavior.
2. The mesosystem encompasses the interaction of the different microsystems which the
developing child find himself in. it is, in essence, a system of microsystems and as such,
involves linkages between home and school, between peer group and family, or between family
and church. If a child’s parents are actively involved in the friendships of their child, invite
friends over to their house and spend time with them, then the child’s development is affected
positively through harmony and like-mindedness. However, if the child’s parents dislike their
child’s peers and openly criticize then, then the child experiences disequilibrium and
conflicting emotions, probably affecting his development negatively.
3. The exosystem pertains to the linages that may exist between two or more settings, one of
which may not contain the developing child but affects him indirectly nonetheless. Other
people and places which the child may not directly interact with but may still have an effect on
the child, comprise the exosystem. Such places and people may include parents’ workplaces,
the larger neighborhood, and extended family members. For example, a father who is
continually passed up for promotion by an indifferent boss at the workplace may take it out on
his children and mistreat them at home.
4. The macrosystem is the largest and most distant collection of people and places to the child
that still exercises significant influence on the child. It is composed of the child’s cultural
patterns and values, specifically the child’s dominant beliefs and ideas, as well as political and
economic systems. Children in war-torn areas, for example, will experience a different kind of
development than children in communities where peace reigns.
5. The chronosystem adds the useful dimension of time, which demonstrates the influence of
both change and constancy in the child’s environment. The chronosystem may this include a
change in family structure, address, parent’s employment status, in addition to immense
society changes such as economic cycles and wars. For example, a child who frequently bullies
smaller children at school may portray the role of a terrified victim at home.

Lesson 2: Broken Windows Theory

In 1969, Philip G. Zimbardo, a psychologist from Stanford University, ran an interesting field study. He
abandoned two cars in two very different places; one in a mostly poor, crime-ridden section of New York City,,
and the other in a fairly affluent neighborhood of Palo Alto, California. Both cards were left without license
plates and parked with their hoods up. After just 10 minutes, passersby in New York City began vandalizing
the car. First they stripped it for parts. Then the random destruction began. Windows were smashed. The card
was destroyed. But in Palo Alto, the other care remained untouched for more than a week. Finally, Zimbardo
did something unusual: He took a sledgehammer and gave the California car a smash. After that, passersby
quickly ripped it apart, just as they’d done in New York.

This field study of Zimbardo was a simple demonstration of how something that is clearly neglected can
quickly become a target for vandals. But it eventually morphed into someone far more than that. It became the
basis for one of the most influential theories of crime and policing in America: “broken windows”

Fascinated in the work of Zimbardo, in a famous 1982 article for the Atlantic Monthly, criminologists
James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling proposed that policing minor offenses, such as loitering, panhandling,
prostitution, and graffiti, might reduce more serious crimes. The idea turned on the relationship between the
appearance of disorder and the actual amount of disorderly behavior in society: “if a window in a building is
broken and left unrepaired, all of the windows will soon be broken”. Heinous crimes would likely happen if
minor offenses like snatching left unresolved by law enforcement authorities. This theory suggests for an
immediate solution to a problem even how minute it is to avoid the occurrence of a bigger or more complex
problems.