Question

trace the development of social disorganization theory over time. For example, who are the scholars associated with social disorganization theory and what are the main articulated and unarticulated propositions of social disorganization theory? What concepts and variables (how the concept measured) should you include in a complete contemporary test of social disorganization theory? Finally, summarize the state of the evidence for community-based theories of crime.

Answer 1

SOCIAL DISORGANIZATION THEORY

The development of social disorganization theory dates back to year 1942 when two criminal researchers from “Chicago School” of Criminology developed social disorganization theory. The two researchers were Clifford Shaw and Henry D. McKay. They opined that a person’s physical and social environments are primarily responsible for the behavioural choices that a person makes. Moreover, they also argued that the Residential location of a person matters most when it comes to predict illegal or criminal activity of an individual. They also stated that Person’s residential Location is the core to social disorganization theory. Shaw and McKay observed that neighbourhoods of an individual with the highest crime rates have at least three common problems such as physical dilapidation, poverty, and higher level of ethnic and culture mixing. Shaw and McKay also stated that delinquency was not caused at the individual level; rather it is a normal response by normal individuals to abnormal conditions.

Social disorganization theory gained a lot of attention within criminology discipline since its introduction in 1942. Many studies in U.S. large cities have duplicated the findings of Shaw and McKay original study.