Social Disorganization Theories Of Crime

SOCIAL DISORGANIZATION THEORIES OF CRIME
"How did East New York become a Ghetto" (Walter Thabit) Social disorganization is a rather difficult term to define. It basically refers to the failure of social institutions or social organizations (e.g., schools, business, policing, real estate, group networking) in certain communities and/or neighborhoods (although nothing prohibits such theories from being couched at the "macro" level to talk about all of society). It has its origins in the study of ecology, which is the examination of relations between an organism and its environment. In criminology, social disorganization is usually treated as both perspective and theory, while ecology is an approach or "school." The ecological school
Newman was an architect who wrote that flaws in the physical environment served as attractors or facilitators for crime. He wrote mainly about housing projects and how they seemed to be designed to provide easy access with common entrances and exits for criminals, and also with hiding places and poorly placed windows which allowed easy surveillance by would-be criminals. Cohen and Felson (1979) wrote routine activities theory, a theory of victimization, which is to say that it predicts a high rate of potential victims becoming actual victims whenever three things occur in space and time together -- absence of capable guardians -- abundance of motivated offenders -- and suitable targets. Wilson and Kelling 's (1982) broken windows theory, which in some circles has become a classic foundational document for community policing, referred to physical signs that an area was uncared for. Abandoned buildings and automobiles, the accumulation of trash and litter, broken windows and lights, and graffiti or profanity (signs of crime or incivilities) all invite criminal behavior. It is perhaps not too much of an exaggeration to say that the ideas of social disorganization in criminology have never been, and probably never will be, fully exhausted or exploited,
The important thing to note is that even though most people will only think of the "rise" stage as a crime wave, to criminologists the decline may be just as important to study. In fact, the study of falling crime rates has been something of a growth industry in criminology. LaFree (1999) states that a normal crime wave will have four main properties: (1) wave length -- some crime, like riots, are of short duration, being "mini-waves" lasting only a few hours, days, or weeks while other crime waves, like murder, tend to have a longer sweep, about 60 years on average it turns out; (2) wave shape -- the symmetry of the wave, or whether the rise is as rapid as the fall, with economic conditions being critical here, the ebb and flow of the economy helping smooth or symmetricize the wave; (3) degree of linearity -- whether or not the rise and decline are proportionate or consistently up and down, and most criminologists who have studied waves find they are non-linear, usually with a tail peak or something at the end; and (4) synchronicity -- whether or not the wave catches hold across the whole nation, or is isolated in a specific geographic