Rejecting Individualism

Theory in context

The Progressive movement: the por were pushed by their environment into crime.
Assistance to the poor to reach middle class

SHAW and McKay´s theory of juvenile delinquency

There were zones of the city, the poor at the center and the richer at the skirts of the city.
The disorganization was the source of the range of social pathologies, because of weaking
control. There is a “criminal tradition”.
Pg 299

Transmission of criminal values

Disorganized neighborhoods helped to produce and sustain “ criminal traditions” that
competed with conventional values and could be pass through generations.

Variables of crime: structural variables ( mobility,urbanism, family disruption …etc) and

disorganization.

SUTHERLAND´S THEORY OF DIFFERENTIAL ASSOCIATION

Social groups are arranged differently, some are organized in support of criminal activity,
whereas other are organized against such behavior.
Two different cultures: one criminal, one conventional.
The ratio of this paths determines whether the person embraces crime as an acceptable
way of life.
Process of differential association :
1. criminal behavior is learned
2.Criminal behavior is learned in interaction
3. Principal learning within intimate personal groups
4.techniques of committing the crime
5.Especific motives of the learning of legal code as favorable and unfavorable
6.person becomes delinquent
7.different associations
8.process of learning criminal behavior( criminal / anticriminal)
9.criminal behavior is an expression of general needs and values.

THE CHICAGO SCHOOL´S CRIMINOLOGICAL LEGACY

Criminal culture
Two prespectives:
1. weakening social control
2.cultural transmission or differential association

Why some communitites have higher rates of crime than others

Why individuales are more likely to be involved in crime than others

COLLECTIVE EFFICACY THEORY

Collective: residents in an area had a shared expectation for control
Efficacy: residents could count on their neighbors to exert human agency and solve
problems.( being ready for social action)

Community level: the neighborhoods are characterized by a system of social network and
ties.
Dense social networks and strong social ties create the capacity of residents to come
together.

Three level of community control ( Albert Hunter)

-the private
-the parochial
- the public

CULTURAL ATTENUATION THEORY

Zona in transition
Control theorists , cause of crime is not exposure to a criminal culture but rather variation
in the extent to which people believe in and thus are tied to the conventional culture.

The believes in or ties to conventional culture are attenuated.

When following conventional mandates seems irrelevant to the achievement of goals.

Legal cynicism theory

When the police don’t arrive to the scene, the citizens enter on behalf,
The faith in the law weakend or attenuates.
Those exposed to reality of segregation and economic subjugation become cynical about
human nature and legal system.

CULTURAL DEVIANCE THEORY 308

3 paths
1.lower class culture as a whole
2.subcultures arise in particular sectors of society
3.subcultures of violence

Anderson´s code of the street

Minority youths in the inner city are culturally isolated, cut off.

Violent “ code” prevails in the inner city and governs that choice that adolescents make in
their daily lives

Culture as values or culture as a tool kit

Empirical status

AKER´S SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY

Differential associations: interaction dimension or normative dimension
A person´s own attitudes or meaning that are attached to a given behavior. The more a
person´s definitions approve of an act, the greater the chances are that the cat will be
committed.

Different definitions:
- General vs specific
- Negative , positive , and neutralizing
- Imitation
- Differential reinforcement

The consequences of theory: policy implications

Change the individual: change the values, and ways of thinking that the offender has
acquired in prior social interaction.

Change community
The Chicago area project ( CAP)
Allow local residents th autonomy to organize against crime.
Creation of recreational programs that would attract youths into a prosocial emviroment.