UNIVERSITY OF CAGAYAN VALLEY

Tuguegarao City, Cagayan

Course Title: Foundation of Criminology

Topic title: Social Disorganization theory
Reporter: Bacacao, Jackson B.
Facilitator: JOMEL B. PINERA, RCrim., Ph.D.
Date: November 2, 2022

I. Objectives:
a. Examine the main ideas in social disorganization theory.
b. Discuss what is the main reason why there is delinquency.

II. Introduction:
Social disorganization is a theoretical perspective that explains ecological differences
in levels of crime based on structural and cultural factors shaping the nature of the
social order across communities. This approach narrowed the focus of earlier
sociological studies on the covariates of urban growth to examine the spatial
concentration and stability of rates of criminal behavior. According to the social
disorganization framework, such phenomena are triggered by the weakened social
integration of neighborhoods because of the absence of self-regulatory mechanisms,
which in turn are due to the impact of structural factors on social interactions or the
presence of delinquent subcultures. The former process defines disorganization as the
reflection of low levels of social control generated by socioeconomic disadvantage,
residential turnover, and population heterogeneity; the latter highlights the
convergence of conflicting cultural standards in poor neighborhoods and the
emergence of group behavior linked to criminality. Research on communities and
crime has generally been inspired by these two approaches, although the most
prevalent formulation emphasizes the association between aggregate rates of crime
and delinquency and the structural nature of community-based social controls.
Overall, the social disorganization perspective has benefited from increasing
scholarly attention in the form of further specification of the ecological mechanisms
linking attributes of communities to aggregate levels of crime, the modeling of
relationships across levels of analysis (“neighborhood effects”), and heightened
attention to the operationalization and measurement of key variables.
 III. What is Social Disorganization Theory?
This was developed by Shaw and McKay that is based on their studies of Chicago, it
has pointed to social causes of delinquency that seem to be located in specific
geographical areas. Although the theory contributed to the understanding of
delinquency, critics note that it does not explain why delinquency is concentrated in
certain areas of a city.

SOCIAL DISORGANIZATION THEORY – EXAMPLES, PROS & CONS

Social disorganization theory states that crime in a neighbourhood is a result of the

weakening of traditional social bonds. This weakening of bonds results in ‘social
disorgnization’.
Social bonds that might be weakened include: family connections, community connections,
and religious connections.
Traditional social binds (family, community, and religious) are usually weakened thanks
to large-scale migration, industrialization, and social disadvantage. Social disorganization
theory points the finger at these sorts of forces as the cause of delinquency.
The theory further states that disorganization can be pinpointed to certain specific areas and
demographics. The theory’s founders highlighted certain high-risk demographics such as: areas
with a high proportion of migrant workers, and areas with a high proportion of blue-collar
workers.

Explanation
A simple aid to understanding this theory is to break it down into its what, where, and why.

1. What – Crime
The social disorganization theory is a theory that applies the principles and methods of sociology
to understand the prevalence of high crime rates especially among juveniles of working-class
communities.

2. Where – Urban Blue-Collar Neighborhoods

The social disorganization theory has mostly been applied to understanding crime rates in urban
neighborhoods with blue-collar working class populations and high rates of migration. 
Social disorganization is a type of spatial theory, in that it posits that certain neighborhoods or
areas within a city tend to have higher rates of crimes.
Its early proponents such as Shaw & McKay (1969) even developed detailed crime maps of
cities. They called their map-making exercists ‘spatial mapping’, that attempted to show how
crime varies as you move from a city center to its suburbs. Such spatial models however, were
discarded later.
3. Why – Disorganization
The social disorganization theory holds that traditional societies were organized according to
certain rules and norms that have been nurtured and strengthened over time.

Some rules and norms in communities gained the status of unsaid, unenforced, yet widely
accepted laws. ‘Respect your mother’, ‘go to church’, and ‘do not steal’ might be examples of
these established norms. Social disorganization theorists believe that all traditional societies had
mechanisms for internal policing or regulation that acted as checks and balances against deviant
behavior by its members. 

However, in cases where traditional societies are subjected to stress factors such as large-scale
immigration and/or industrialization, a disorganization occurs, leading to a breakdown of the
society’s internal norms. In these situations, the community fails to ensure order and regulation.

Social disorganization manifests in the form of a spike in deviant behavior by its members,
particularly juveniles and youth, leaving external, state-backed policing the only mechanism for
regulating crime.

Origins
The social disorganization theory grew from the work of a group of University of Chicago
researchers in the 1920s and 30s who are credited with founding the Chicago School of
Sociology.

These researchers were interested in examining the increasing rates of crime in the first few
decades of the 20th century as the city of Chicago witnessed a boom in both industrialization and
immigration.

The theory provided many insights into crime, that today, we think of as obvious givens, but
were path-breaking for their time. Some of these included:

1. Theory of Social Ecology – The social disorganization theory is an ecological theory which
attempts to attribute human behavior to influences absorbed consciously or unconsciously from
their surroundings.
2. The City as an Environment – At the end of the 19th century, metropolises such as Chicago
were a relatively new phenomenon. So the idea that a city is an environment much like the
natural environment, and that Darwinian rules of evolution apply to this urban environment,
much like they do  in nature, was a novel one. The social disorganization theory began by basing
itself on Darwinian postulates. For instance,  the theory held that just as certain kinds of plants
thrive in certain environments, specific human behavioral traits such as delinquency also thrive
in certain kinds of environments.
3. Acculturation – A central postulate of the social disorganization theory was that attitudes are
not innate but stem through a process of acculturation or an imbibing of cultural norms and
mores.. It follows then that in a socially disorganized neighborhood, children and juveniles are
likely to get acculturated to a lack of control and conflicted morality, leading to crime.
 Take note!!!
Good to Know Information
The development of the social disorganization theory is closely tied to the
phenomenal Polish migration to the US at the beginning of the 20th century.

One of the foundational texts of the social disorganization theory is a book by

University of Chicago sociologists, W.I. Thomas and Florain Znaniecki titled The
Polish Peasant in Europe and America, published between 1918 to 1920.
The beginning of the 20th century saw a huge influx of migrants to America, many
of whom eventually found work in the booming manufacturing industries of
Chicago. It is estimated that almost 25% of all new immigrants to America at this
time came from Poland. In fact, such was the magnitude of this wave of Polish
immigration that Chicago soon became home to the third largest population of
ethnic Poles after major cities in Poland such as Warsaw and Lodz.

The Polish Peasant in Europe and America is today considered a classic text in
sociology. The insights contained in this book laid the foundation of what was later
to be called the social disorganization theory. The authors emphasized the
importance of the “group”, as defined in the social sciences, to understanding social
change.
According to them, members who become isolated from the “group”, in this case
the immigrant Polish community, tend to become vulnerable to deviant behavior
and delinquency.
 EXAMPLES OF SOCIAL DISORGANIZATION THEORY
1. Public Housing Projects and Delinquency – Several social disorganization theorists such as
Bursik & Grasmick (1993) and Wikstrom & Loeber (2000) concluded that juveniles living in
public housing projects in western countries may be more susceptible to crime as the ties of
community in such projects are weak. Neighbors may not often know each other, and family
networks are likely to be small, with the nuclear or single-parent family being the most common.
In the absence of community level organization, juveniles in such projects were being rendered
vulnerable to the effects of social disorganization

2. Linguistic Diversity, and Challenges in Community-level Regulation – Elliot et al (1996)

concluded that in neighborhoods with a high percentage and high diversity of first generation
immigrants, crime rates tend to be higher. This is because in such neighborhoods, a large number
of different languages are spoken, making communication, and by extension, community self-
regulation difficult.

3. Self-regulation in Rural/Tribal/Primitive Communities – In contrast to the previous two

examples cited, colonial anthropologists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries travelling to
remote tribal and “primitive” societies, were often struck by the remarkable order and absence of
crime from such societies. While they may not always have approved of the means of dispensing
justice in such societies – comparing “primitive” law mostly unfavorably with systems of justice
in the western world – they did however note the sense of community and organization in
primitive communities, and their efficient functioning for the purpose of maintaining order.
Some examples include Weber’s writings on primitive law, and Malinowski’s Crime and
Custom in Savage Society.

4. Hate Crimes and “Lone Wolf” Shooters – The social disorganization theory does not apply
to immigrants alone. It can equally well be used to explain crimes against immigrants by
members of dominant groups. Such individuals, isolated from their social groups on account of
breakdown of traditional groupings such as family, church, etc., and being unable to cope up
with a rapidly changing environment around them, begin to display deviant behavior. Think of
“lone wolf” shooters who often attack immigrants. 
A famous pop-cultural example would be the character of Travis Bickle played by Robert De
Niro in Taxi Driver, who, living an isolated life cut-off from his family and community, and
struggling to make sense of the rapidly changing post-Vietnam war American society,  begins to
harbor delusions of “cleaning up” his neighborhood.
 STRENGTHS OF SOCIAL DISORGANIZATION THEORY

1. Grounded in Empiricism – The social disorganization theory was one of the earliest projects
that marked the empirical turn in sociology from a theoretical perspective. The Polish Peasant in
America, for instance, was based on thousands of personal documents, interviews, and case
histories, resulting in a 5-volume magnum opus. Other University of Chicago projects such as
those  by Shaw & McKay (1969), and Park & Burgess (1925) too relied on large bodies of
empirical data collected over several years, detailed city maps, and voluminous statistics to
produce elaborate theoretical models. 

2. Durability – In the second decade of the 21st century, the theory has now been around for a
little over a century. Unlike many other premises of the social and natural sciences, the theory
however continues to stay relevant, even though it has been modified and adapted several times
from the time of its first formulation. 

3. Accuracy – Within its limited scope, the mathematical models derived from social
disorganization theory worked remarkably well in predicting delinquency. For instance, the unit-
weighted regression model devised by Ernest Burgess, a founding theorist of the social
disorganization theory to predict the parole success rates of convicts is noted as a remarkably
accurate model, and one that further found application in fields such as insurance. Burgess based
his model on assigning scores to convicts on various parameters of their integration with their
social environment such as having a job, a family network, etc. 

4. Provides Actionable Policy Insights – The theory is useful in drawing our attention to what
works and what does not when it comes to tackling crime. For instance, by pointing to the roots
of delinquency, the theory helps explain why incarceration and the penal justice system are futile
in reducing crime. Several studies, for instance, Pratt & Cullen (2005) have in fact demonstrated
that incarceration is inversely related to crime. The theory gives several actionable policy
insights such as where to direct public funding to prevent crime ( certain neighborhoods, as
depicted by mapping models), how to govern urban cities ( delegating more authority to
neighborhood and community-level organizations), and which social values to uphold ( families,
as units that can prevent social disorganization). 

CRITICISMS OF SOCIAL DISORGANIZATION THEORY

1. Ecological Determinism and Spatial Discrimination – A key concept of the social

disorganization theory was the concentric zones model which divided a city into concentric
zones, with certain areas, closer especially to the city center being identified as the breeding
grounds of crime, whereas a movement radially outwards from the centre seemed to be
correlated with a decrease in crime. However such an approach made a claim that was later
found to be untenable – that certain spaces and cites within a city by themselves induce socially
pathological behavior Such hypotheses in turn led to further stigmatization and marginalization
of already marginalized spaces.
2. Ignores Positive Role of Migration – The theory, especially in its earlier formulations,
emphasized anomie-inducing effects of migration that are no longer held to be tenable. Studies
of migration by sociologists are now increasingly pointing to an overall positive effect of
migration with immigrant presence being linked to greater innovation, increased wealth creation
and more liberal societal values in general. In fact for many rich countries such as Canada,
immigration is critical for continued economic growth. 

3. An Overreliance on Sociological Factors of Crime – We now understand that crime has
both social as well as psychological causes. An overemphasis by the social disorganization
theory on the structural and social causes of crime eventually led to its taking a backseat to
psychological theories of crime, until a balance was found between the two towards the end of
the 20th century.

4. Inability to Explain White Collar Crime – Like other similar “location” theories based on
urban ecology, that attribute crime to certain locations within an urban center (such as those with
higher immigrant populations, or lower economic status), the social disorganization theory fails
to explain white collar crime or organized, multinational crime rackets that do not seem to be
rooted in any neighborhood or limited to immigrants or economically deprived sections of the
society.

SOCIAL DISORGANIZATION THEORY AND ITS RELEVANCE TO CRIME

PREVENTION

Studies in criminology consistently demonstrate that crime and other social problems tend to
cluster in particular types of neighborhoods. Social disorganization theory and its more
contemporary reformulations contend these neighborhoods provide fertile ground for the
development of serious crime. Specifically, scholars argue that residents living in disadvantaged,
residentially mobile and ethnically diverse neighborhoods lack the ability to regulate unwanted
or criminal behavior. This chapter reviews social disorganization theory and considers the utility
of this theory in crime prevention initiatives, with a focus on the Chicago Area Project and other
programs that focus on enhancing the capacity of local residents to prevent crime. It concludes
with the limits of social disorganization theory and notes the difficulties associated with
engaging communities and maintaining the involvement of the community in crime prevention
efforts in areas that need them the most.
IV. Conclusion:
The concepts of socio integration and collective efficacy have remained to be distinct
features of social disorganization. This theory has continued to survive because of its
assumptions that social factors are the fundamental causes of crime and that the
components of social structures are unstable. Furthermore, the theory holds that the
effects of instability are worse for the lower classes and finally that human nature is
naturally good but subject to vulnerable situations and cannot resist temptation.
V. References:
https://ivypanda.com/essays/social-disorganization-theory-review/#:~:text=The
%20concepts%20of%20socio%20integration,of%20social%20structures%20are
%20unstable.
https://helpfulprofessor.com/social-disorganization-theory/
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-44124-5_6
https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195396607/obo-
9780195396607-0008.xml
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/47j411pr