SOCIOLOGICAL THEORIES OF CRIME

Sociological theories of crime focuses on the contribution of society and social

interaction in the development of anti-social behavior. It describes the how the agents of
socialization such as family, environment, schools, mass media and peer groups contribute
to or affect the behavior of a specific individual; and it also somehow manifest as to how a
person responds or reacts with regard to conduct displayed by other persons whom he or
she is socializing with.
Sociological theory has subfields which are as follows:
a. Social processes theory
b. Social Structure theory

SOCIAL PROCESSES THEORIES

Social process are focused on how behavior is learned through social interaction and
transmitted among individuals. These theories assume that individuals learn why and how to
commit and avoid committing crime through the process of socialization. Social processes
theory of crime causation assume that everyone has the potential to violate the law and that
criminality is not an innate human characteristics.
Among the most important groups contributing to the process of socialization, are family,
work groups, peers, and reference groups with which one identifies. Social process approach
has several independent branches or types.
The first is social learning theory, which suggest that people learn the technique and
attitudes of crime from close and intimate relationships with criminal peers and that crime is a
learned behavior. Second is social control theory, which maintains that everyone has the
potential to become a criminal, but that most people are controlled by their bonds to society.
The third is the social reaction theory or the so called labeling theory. This theory assumes that
people become criminals when significant members of society label them as such, and they
accept those labels as a personal identity.

A. social learning theories

Types of Social Learning

1. Differential Association Theory

Edwin H. Sutherland introduced differential Association theory. He was one of the first to
state that criminal behavior was the result of normal social process, resulting when individuals
associated with wrong type of people, often by no fault on their part. According to him, by
associating with crime-oriented people, whether they are parents or peers, an individual will
inevitably choose to engage in criminal behavior because that he has learned.
Donald Cressey explained and expanded Sutherland’s work.

Basic principles of Differential Association Theory

a. criminal behavior is learned.
b. learning is a by product of interaction.
c. Criminal technique are learned.
d. perceptions of legal code influence motives and drives.
e. differential association may vary in frequency, duration, priority and intensity.
f. a person become delinquent because of an excess of definitions favorable to the violations of
law over definitions unfavorable to the violation of law.
g. the process of learning criminal behavior by association with criminal involves all of the
mechanisms involve in any other learning process.

2. Differential Association Reinforcement Theory

The theory Differential Association Reinforcement Theory is founded by Ronald Aker’s.
This theory is defined as the balance of anticipated or actual rewards and punishments that
follow or are consequences of behavior. This perspective assumes people are born with a
blank state and thus, must be socialized and taught how to behave through modeling and
various forms of conditioning like operant and classical conditioning. Accordingly, behavior is
strengthened or encouraged through reward as positive reinforcement and avoidance of
punishment as negative reinforcement.

B. Social Control Theories

Social Control theories maintain that all people have the potential to violate the law and that
modern societies presents many opportunities for illegal activities. These theories view crime
as taking place when social control or bonds to society break down. Social control theorists
argue that people obey the law because behavior and passions are being controlled by internal
and external sources.

1. Containment theory
American criminologist Walter Reckless (1961) believed that crime was the
consequence of social pressures to involve oneself in violations of the law, as well as a
failure to resist such pressures. When Reckless looked at criminality, he compared it to
a biological immune response saying that not everyone who is exposed to a disease
contracts it. Sickness, like crime, results from a failure of control mechanisms which can
be either internal or external. He called his approach containment theory.
External containment consists of “the holding of the power of the group” (Reckless,
1967). In our society, groups are able to hold the individual within the bounds of an
individual within the bounds of accepted norms and expectations. These groups can
range from family to athletic teams to church groups. Inner containment is the ability of
an individual to follow the expected norms to guide their behavior. This is enhanced if
the individual has a positive self-image, focuses on socially approved goals, has a good
tolerance for frustration, and their personal aspirations are in line with reality. For
example, if an individual has a positive self-image, they can avoid the temptations of
crime by knowing that activity does not align with who they see themselves to be, and
by focusing on socially approved goals, the individual can stay on the straight and
narrow path and not drift toward criminality.
Everyone is pushed and pulled toward crime. An individual’s background may aid in
pushing them toward crime, or the perceived rewards of crime can help in pulling the
individual toward crime. For example, external containment can be the police while
inner containment could be religious teachings or the possibility of being removed from
a particular sports team if arrested. According to Reckless, containment is a stabilizing
force. When it is effective, it blocks the pushes and pulls that tempt an individual toward
crime.
Internal pushes- this includes personal factors as restlessness, discontent, hostility,
rebellion, mental conflict, anxieties and need for immediate gratification.

External pressures- this includes adverse living conditions that influence deviant
behavior, relative deprivation, poverty, unemployment, insecurity, minority status, limited
opportunity and inequalities.

External pulls- these are represented by deviant companions, membership in criminal

subcultures or other deviant groups.

Outer containment- is the ability of the society, community, family, and other groups to
hold persons within the bounds of accepted norms.
 Inner containment- is the ability of individuals to follow expected norms and to control
themselves. Such ability is said to be enhanced by :

a. Strong and favorable self-image

b. Goal orientation
c. Frustration tolerance
d. Norm retention

B. SOCIAL BOND THEORY and self control theory (Travis Hirschi)

Travis Hirschi emphasized that social control is about the role of social
relationships that bind people to the social order and prevent antisocial behavior. He
links the onset of criminality to the weakening of the ties that bind people to society. He
further assumes that all people are potential law violators, but they are kept under
control because they fear that illegal behavior will damage their relationship with friends,
parents, neighbors, teachers and employers.

Hirschi argues further that the social bond a person maintains with society is
divided into four main elements:

a. Attachment- refers to a bond to others such as family and peers, and important
institution like churches and schools.
b. Commitment- involves the degree to which an individual maintains a vested interest
in the social and economic job, community standing, he or she is likely to violate the law
.

c. Involvement- entails engagement in legitimate social and recreational activities that

either leaves too little time to get into trouble or binds one’s status yet another important
groups whose esteem one wishes to maintain.

d. Belief in the conventional norms and value system and the law acts as a bond to
society.

C. LABELING THEORY

Labeling theory takes the power of bad labels to stigmatize and individual and by
doing so, to evoke the very behavior the label signifies. This theory explains criminal
career formation in terms of destructive social interactions and encounters. Its roots are
in the symbolic interaction theory of Charles Herbert Horton Cooley and George Herbert
Mead. Symbolic Interaction theory holds that people communicate via symbols,
gestures, signs, words, or images that stand for or represents something else. People
interpret symbolic gestures from others and incorporate them into their self-image. The
degree to which a person is perceived as a social deviant may affect his or her
treatment at home, at work, at school or at other social institution.

As such labeled person may find themselves turning to others similarly stigmatize
for support and companion.

SOCIAL STRUCTURE THEORIES

Social structure theories explain crime by examining the structure of society,
which are one of the three major sociological approaches to crime causation. As
emphasized by Siegel, social structure theories suggest that the forces operating in
deteriorated lower class areas push many of their residents into criminal behavior
patterns. This theories consider the existence of unsupervised teenage gangs, high
crime rates, and social disorder in slum areas as major social problem.
Most social structure theories focus on the law violating behavior of youth. They
suggest that the social forces that caused crime begin to affect the people while they
are relatively young and continue to influence them throughout their life. There are
three independent branches within the social structure theory namely:
1. Social disorganization theory
2. strain theory
3. culture conflict theory

STRAIN THEORY

Anomie theory
The roots of the strain theories can be traced to Emile Durkheim’s notion of anomie
Anomie- French word meaning normlessness
- Greek word “nomos” which means without norms.
Emile Durkheim explained that economic society is one in which rules of behavior (values,
customs and norms) have broken down or become inoperative during periods of rapid social
change or social crisis such as war, famine. Anomie is mostly to occur in societies that are
moving from pre-industrial siciey, which is held together by traditions, shared values and
unquestionable beliefs to a post-industrial societal system which is highly developed and
dependent upon the division of labor.
Merton's theory
Robert Merton expanded anomie theory to develop an explanation of crime that has come to
be known as Strain theory.
Merton argued that it was the acceptance of middle-class values that generated crime by
placing too much emphasis on financial success. The central feature of merton’s theory is
that American culture defines monetary success as the predominant cultural goal to which
all its citizens should aspire.
Merton claimed that American culture and social structure actually exert pressure on some
people to engage in non-conforming behavior rather than conforming behavior. Thus,
society is the cause of anomie, not the victim of it.

Merton identifies five(5) modes of adaptation that people adapt in response to this societal
pressure, all of which with the exception of conformity is deviance.

1. Conformity: pursuing cultural goals through socially approved means. Conformity is the most
common mode of adaptation because most people have at their disposal the means to
leagally attain cultural goals.
2. Innovation: the adaptation of the criminal who accepts cultural goals of monetary success but
rejects legitimate means of attaining them. Accepting society's goals but designing their own
means for achieving them. Often using socially unapproved or unconventional means to
obtain culturally approved goals. Example: dealing drugs or stealing to achieve financial
security.
3. Ritualism: using the same socially approved means to achieve less elusive goals (more
modest and humble).
4. Retreatism: to reject both the cultural goals and the means to obtain it, then find a way to
escape it.
5. Rebellion: reject both the goals and the means but wish to substitute alternative legitimate
goals and alternative legitimate means.
SOCIAL DISORGANIZATION THEORY

According to Siegel, this theory focuses on the condition within the urban environment that
affects the crime rates. A disorganized area is one in which institutions of social control such as
family, commercial establishment, schools have broken down and can no longer carry out their
expected or stated functions. Indicators or social disorganization include high unemployment
and school dropout rates, deteriorated housing, low income levels, and large numbers of single
parent households. Residents in these areas experience conflict and despair and antisocial
behavior flourishes.

In essence, Siegel emphasized social disorganization theory links crime rates to

neighborhood ecological characteristics. Crime rates are highest in transient, mixed-use and
changing neighborhood in which the fabric of social life has become frayed. Because social
institution are frayed or absent, law –violating youth groups and gangs form and are free to
recruit neighborhood youth. Both boys and girls who feel detached and alienated from their
world are at risk to become gang members.

Emile Durkheim, a sociologists, believe that crime was a normal part of all societies and
that the law was a symbol of social solidarity.
Social disorganization is portrayed a disease or pathology.
Social pathology- referred to behavior not in keeping with the prevalent norms and
values of the social group.
Overtime, however the concept of pathology changed, and it came to represent the idea
that aspects of the society may somehow pathological, or sick, and may produce
deviant behavior among individuals and groups who live under or are exposed to social
conditions.
Social disorganization, and therefore, social pathology may arise when a group is faced with:
a. Social change
b. Uneven development of culture
c. Maladaptation
d. Disharmony
e. Conflict
f. Lack of consensus

Clifford Shaw and Henry Mckay

According to Siegel, the foundation of social disorganization theory was popularized by
the works of two sociologists Clifford Shaw and Henry D. McKay who linked life in the
transitional slum areas to the inclination to commit crime. They explained crime and delinquency
in the context of the changing urban environment and ecological development of the city. They
saw that Chicago had developed into district neighborhood, some affluent and others wracked
of extreme poverty.

Shaw and McKay claimed that delinquency was not caused at the individual level, but is a
normal response by normal individuals to abnormal conditions. Social disorganization theory is
widely used as an important predictor of youth violence and crime.

Shaw and McKay noted that neighborhoods with the highest crime rates have at least
three common problems:
a. physical dilapidation
b. poverty
c. higher level of ethnic and culture mixing

Chicago School (( Robert Park and Ernest Burgess)

Concentric Zone Model
At the University of Chicago, Park and Burgess developed social
ecology or the ecological school of criminology. Social ecology is the study
of the interrelationship between human organisms and the physical
environment. According to Park, looking at humans and environment and,
more specifically at the urban ecology, viewing the city as growing
organism, heavily employing analogies from plant ecology, Park further
stated that the heterogeneous contact of racial groups in the city often
leads to competition for status and space, as as conflict, accommodation,
accumulation, assimilation, or amalgamation.

central business district

In the center of a city’s concentric circle is the central business district, otherwise known as the
Loop.

This is the oldest part of the city and is often socio-economically prosperous. This zone is
commuted to by the inhabitants of the other four zones.

transitional zone

Just outside of the central business district lies the transitional zone, consisting of recent
immigrant groups, deteriorated housing, factories, and abandoned buildings. Lersch (2013)
describes this “Zone in Transition” as “the least desirable area to live in the city.”
This area combines those who are poor with immigrants and criminals (Burgess, 1928) and
have dilapidated housing and infrastructure due to neglect by residents, municipalities, and
landlords.

According to the concentric zone model, most criminal activity happens in the second
innermost, transitional zone. This happens because people in the zone of transition experience
the most anomie and discrimination, causing them to struggle to adapt to the stresses and
demands of their new society.

As a result, this area experiences high rates of social disorganization and

and dysfunction, causing deviance to flourish. However, as each generation of immigrants

assimilates, they move upward in the social structure and outer zones, leaving behind
disorganization, dysfunction, and deviance.

In this perspective, deviance is a structural phenomenon, not a function of the characteristics of

any ethnic or racial group.

working-class zone

Further out is the working-class zone with single-family tenements. This zone is occupied by
those who can move out of the second zone and second generations of immigrant families
(Lersch, 2013). Burgess describes this working-class zone as close enough to the city center
that workers can reach their workplaces on foot.

residential zone

Outside of the working class zone is the residential zone, which consists of single-family homes
with yards and garages. The inhabitants of these zones are generally well-educated, middle-
class families.

commuter zone

Finally, the commuter zone consists of suburbs and those who can afford larger and more
expensive housing as well as transportation to and from entertainment and work.

Criminology of Place
Criminology of place or also called as environmental criminology is a perspective that
emphasizes the importance of geographic location and architectural features as they are
associated by with the prevalence of victimization.
Lawrence W. Sherman identified HOT SPOTS of crime, including:
a. Neighborhoods
b. Specific streets
c. Individual houses and businesses
Rodney Stark developed a theory of deviant neighborhoods reflecting the questions first
addressed by Shaw and Mckay on how is it that neighborhoods can remain the site of high
crime and deviance rates despite a complete turnover on their populations.
Central to the criminology of place is the broken windows thesis, which holds that physical
deterioration and an increased concerns for personal safety among area residents.
Propositions of deviant neighborhoods:
a. To the extent that neighborhoods are dense and poor, homes will be crowded.
b. Where homes are more crowded, there will be greater tendency to congregate outside
the home in places and circumstances that raise levels of temptation and offer
opportunity to deviate.
c. Where homes are more crowded, there will be lower levels of supervision of children.
 d. Reduced levels of supervision will result in poor school achievement, with a consequent
reduction in stakes in conformity and in increase in deviant behavior.
e. Poor, dense neighborhoods tend to be mixed-use neighborhoods.
f. Mixed use increases familiarity with and easy access to places offering the opportunity
for deviance.

Relative Deprivation Concept

People who perceive themselves as economically deprived relative to people they know, as well
as to society in general may begin to form negative self-feelings and hostility, which motivate
them to engage in deviant and criminal behaviors.

General Strain Theory ( Robert Agnew)

Strain theory was reformulated by Robert Agnew called the general strain theory. General
strain theory sees lawbreaking behavior as a coping mechanism that enables those who engage
in it to deal with the socioemotional problems generated by negative social relations.

STRAIN:
COPING mechanisms:
 Failure to achieve positively NEGATIVE EMOTIONS:
valued goals  COGNITIVE
 ANGER
 Disjunction of expectations  BEHAVIORAL
 Disappointment
and achievements  EMOTIONAL
 Depression
 Removal of positive stimuli  SOMETIMES CRIME AND
 fear
 Presentation of negative DELINQUENCY
stimuli.

Cultural Deviance theory or Culture Conflict theory

This theory combines elements of social disorganization and strain to explain how
people living in deteriorated neighborhoods react to social isolation and economic
deprivation.
According to this view, because of strain and social isolation, unique lower class
cultures develop in disorganized neighborhoods. This independent subcultures maintain
a unique set of values and beliefs that are in conflict with conventional social norms.
Schmalleger stated culture conflict theory suggests that the root cause of
criminality can be found in a clash of values between dintly socialized groups over what
is acceptable or proper behavior.
Furthermore, Thorsten Sellin in his book “Culture conflict and Crime,” states that
culture conflict occurs when the rules expressed in the criminal law clash with the
demands of group norms, in other words the root cause of crime and criminality can be
found in a clash of values between various socialized groups and the lower class over
what is acceptable or proper conduct.
Siegel’s argument is valid stating that people living in deteriorated neighborhoods
react to social isolation and economic deprivation. Because their lifestyle is draining,
frustrating, and dispiriting, members of the lower class create an independent
subculture with its own set of rules and value. Middle class culture stresses hard work,
delayed gratification, formal education and being cautious; the lower class subcultures
stresses excitement, toughness, risk taking, fearlessness, immediate gratification and
street smarts.
Schmalleger stated that criminal behavior is an expression of conformity to lower
class sub-cultural values and traditions and not a rebellion against conventional society.
Subcultural values are handed doen from one generation to the next in a process called
cultural transmission.