Week 10- Chapter 14

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Early social disorganization theories

challenged the view that the sources of crime lay within the individual

proposed that the structure and culture of the American city was responsible for deviant behaviour

contended that disorganized communities did not provide meaningful employment to residents and did not have strong families, schools, and churches, in other words they lacked effective social controls.

A lack of effective social controls leads to high rates of crime and other types of deviance

Examined the relationship between community characteristics and crimes

Social Control Theory

Proposes that people refrain from committing criminal acts because they do not want to jeopardize their bonds to conventional society

Assumes that human beings are born with the capacity to do wrong, but are neither good nor evil.

Requires no special motivation for people to deviate

Attempts to explain conformity rather than deviance.

Concerned with the processes that bind people to the social order

Other theorists ask "Why do they do it?", but control theorists ask "Why don't we all do it?". A control theorists answer to this question would be "We all would, if only we dared, but most of us dare not because we have loved ones we fear to hurt and physical possessions and social reputations we fear to lose"

Durkheim and Social Integration