The

Structural/Sociological
Theories of Crime
CU8 | MIDTERM
The Sociological or Structural
Perspectives/Theories

• Sociological theories explore relationships

among groups and institutions and envision
crime as the result of social processes, as
the natural consequence of aspects of
social structure, or as the result of
economic and class struggle.
• It emphasize poverty, lack of education,
absence of marketable skills, and
subcultural values as fundamental causes
of crime.
Concentric Zone Theory

• Robert E. Park (1864-1944) and Ernest W. Burgess (1886-1966) examined the

characteristics of each area as a foundation for social problems including
poverty and unemployment.
• The city was viewed as a compilation of concentric zones extending from a
central business district out to a commuter zone located on the very fringe
(Park, Burgess, & McKenzie, 1925).
• This model was based on the city of Chicago and used a concentric ring to
show how urban land was used. The theory was named the concentric zone
model, or CZM.
• Much like a bulls-eye, the model has what Burgess called the central business
district, or CBD, located in the middle and showed the rings surrounding the
center as expansion.
The Concentric Zones
• Commuters Zone (Zone V) - being inhabited by those that could afford the more
expensive “bungalows” common to this zone as well as transportation to the inner city
for entertainment and work.
• Residential Zone (Zone IV) - was described to be inhabited by well-educated, middle
class families.
• Working Class Zone (Zone III) - generally inhabited by those that can afford to move
beyond the inner-most city limits, second generations of immigrant families (Lersch,
2011).
• Close enough to the inner zones as workers can reach workplaces by foot
• Zone in Transition (Zone II) - “the least desirable area to live in the city”
• This area can be described as the melting pot of poor, immigrant, destitute, and
criminal.
• The Loop (Zone I) - is a business and commerce heavy area that is commuted to by
inhabitants of the other four zones.
 Social Structure Theory

• Sociological theories explore

relationships among groups and
institutions and envision crime as
the result of social processes, as the
natural consequence of aspects of
social structure, or as the result of
economic and class struggle.
• Social structure theories emphasize
poverty, lack of education, absence
of marketable skills, and subcultural
values as fundamental causes of
crime.
• Three subtypes of social structure theories can be
identified:
• Social Disorganization theory
• Strain theory, and
• Culture Conflict theory
• Because theories of social structure look to the
organization of society for their explanatory power,
intervention strategies based on them typically seek to
alleviate the social conditions that are thought to produce
crime.
• Social programs based on social structure assumptions
frequently seek to enhance socially acceptable
opportunities for success and to increase the availability of
meaningful employment.
 Social Disorganization Theory

• The foundations of Social Disorganization Theory stem

out of the work of two Chicago sociologists, Clifford R.
Shaw and Henry D. McKay.
• Shaw and McKay sought to link life in disorganized,
transitional urban areas to neighborhood crime rates.
Their pioneering efforts began during the early 1920s
while working as researchers for a state-supported
social service agency.
• They were heavily influenced by Chicago School
sociologists Ernest Burgess and Robert Park, who had
conducted an ecological analysis of life in Chicago.
• This theory “argues that crime occurs when the mechanisms of
social control are weakened”.
• It is argued that gangs will arise spontaneously in social contexts
that are weakly controlled.
• Some criminologists think that the concept of social disorganization
just reflects middle-class failure to comprehend organization
different from their own.
• Social disorganization theory pioneered by Clifford R. Shaw and
Henry D. McKay suggested that disorganized communities
characterized by poverty, population heterogeneity, and residential
mobility weakened the effectiveness of social controls
• Shaw and McKay (1942) also noted that, aside from the
lack of behavioural regulation, socially disorganized
neighbourhoods tended to produce “criminal traditions”
that could be passed to successive generations of youths.
• This system of pro-delinquency attitudes could be easily
learned by youths through their daily contact with older
juveniles.
• Thus, a neighbourhood characterized by social
disorganization provides fertile soil for crime and
delinquency in two ways:
• Through a lack of behavioural control mechanisms and
• Through the cultural transmission of delinquent values.
Strain Theory
• Strain theory is a sociology and criminology theory
developed in 1957 by Robert K. Merton.
• The theory states that society puts pressure on
individuals to achieve socially accepted goals though
they lack the means, this leads to strain which may
lead the individuals to commit crimes. Examples
include selling drugs or becoming involved in
prostitution to gain financial security.
• It maintains that the failure of man to achieve a
higher status of life caused them to commit crimes in
order for that status/goal to be attained. He argued
that crime is a means to achieve goals and the social
structure is the root of the crime problem.
• Merton’s explanation to criminal behavior assumes
that people are law abiding but when under great
pressure will result to crime.
• Strain may either be Structural and Individual Strain.
• Structural Strain refers to the processes at the
societal level which filters down and affects how
the individual perceives his or her needs.
• I.e. if particular social structures are inherently
inadequate or there is inadequate regulation, this may
change the individual's perceptions as to means and
opportunities.
• Individual Strain refers to the frictions and pains
experienced by an individual as he or she looks for
ways to satisfy his or her needs.
• I.e. if the goals of a society become significant to an
individual, actually achieving them may become more
important than the means adopted.
 • Four theories that are commonly
Four Theories classified as “strain theories”:
Classified as • Anomie theory (Merton, 1938)
• Institutional Anomie theory
Strain (Messner and Rosenfeld, 1994)
Theories • General Strain theory (Agnew, 1985
and 1992), and
• Relative Deprivation theory (Crosby,
1976; Davis, 1959; Gurr, 1970;
Runciman, 1966).
The Anomie Theory
• Anomie, in contemporary English, means a
condition or malaise in individuals,
characterized by an absence or diminution
of standards or values. When applied to a
government or society, anomie implies a
social unrest, similar to the use of the word
anarchy.
• A state of normlessness or norm confusion
within a society (David Emile Durkheim).
• The word comes from Greek, namely the
prefix a- “without”, and nomos “law”-
literally, “without law”.
• Also known as Means – Ends Theory in the
1940’s (Merton)
• This theory focused on the sociological point of the positivist
school which explains that the absence of norms in a society
provides a setting conducive to crimes and other anti-social
acts.
• According to (Durkheim), the explanation of human conduct
lies not in the individual but in the group and the social
organization.
• He also maintained that crime is an “important ingredient of all
healthy societies because crime make people more aware of their
common interest and help to define appropriate, moral, or lawful
behavior.”
• Durkheim proposed the following principles:
• Crime is a natural thing in the society,
• The concept of wrong is necessary to give meaning to right,
• Crime help society for changes – it means that a society to be
flexible to permit positive deviation must permit negative
deviations as well.
Institutional Anomie Theory

• This theory was created by Steven Messner and Richard Rosenfeld.

• The premise of the theory is that American society is set up in such a
way so as to give prestige and priority to economic institutions. This
means that the accumulation of wealth and individual success are
people’s highest priorities.
• Prioritizing economic institutions weakens the ability of other social
institutions (family, education, government) to control crime that
occurs in response to the lack of access to or failure in the economic
sphere.
• Therefore, a high level of criminal activity is a natural result of the setup
of American society.
The General Strain Theory
• A micro-level social psychological revision of Robert
Agnew’s strain theory. According to this theory, criminal
and deviant acts are one possible adaptation to stress.
• Agnew’s (1985 and 1992) general strain theory posits
that strain leads to negative emotions, which may lead
to a number of outcomes, including delinquency.
• The three major types of deviance-producing strain are:
• Failure to achieve positively valued goals (e.g.,
money or status)
• Removal of positively valued stimuli (e.g., loss of a
valued possession)
• Presentation of negatively valued stimuli(e.g.,
physical abuse)
• Deviance is most likely to occur when the response of the
individual to any of these stressors is:
• Anger - when they see adversity as imposed by others
• Resentment - when they perceive unjust treatment by others,
and
• Depression or Anxiety - when they blame themselves for the
stressful consequence.
• Anger has been identified as playing the key role in mediating the
effect of strain on delinquency and violence. This is the case
because anger “increases the individual’s level of felt injury,
creates a desire for retaliation/revenge, energizes the individual
for action, and lowers inhibitions” (Agnew, 1992: 60)
• Factors such as peer associations, beliefs, attributions of causes,
self control, and self-efficacy will affect each individual’s reaction
to stress.
Relative Deprivation
Theory
• Relative deprivation theories focus on the
recognition of one’s inequality and subsequent
feelings of resentment and frustration.
• While individuals may feel relatively deprived of
a number of things (e.g., status, political power,
etc.), feelings of relative deprivation due to
economic comparisons can be an important
motivator of crime.
• Relative deprivation is the belief that a person
will feel deprived or entitled to something
based on the comparison to someone else.
• SITUATION:
It’s Christmas and your parents just bought you a brand new iPhone. You've
wanted this phone for a long time, and you were so excited to receive it as a gift.
A few days after you get the phone you decide to go to your friend's house to
show it off a little bit. When you get there, you find out that your friend's parents
bought him a brand new car. How do you feel about your phone now? Are you
still as happy as you were before?
• Relative deprivation occurs when individuals compare themselves on some
valued dimension (such as income) with relevant-comparison to others and
find a negatively discrepant comparison; that is, that they are worse off than
the comparison other.
• Such recognition (the cognitive component of relative deprivation) and the
accompanying feelings such as anger (the affective component of relative
deprivation) can be powerful motivators for action to reduce one’s deprivation.
Cultural Deviance Theory
• This theory combines elements of both Strain
and Social Disorganization Theory to explain how
people living in slum neighborhoods react to
isolation from the rest of society and economic
deprivation.
• Researchers Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay
(1942) studied crime patterns in Chicago in the
early 1900s at suggests that conformity to the
prevailing cultural norms of lower-class society
causes crime.
• They found that violence and crime were at their
worst in the middle of the city and gradually
decreased the farther someone traveled from
the urban center toward the suburbs.
• New immigrants, many of them poor and lacking
knowledge of the English language, lived in
neighborhoods inside the city. As the urban
population expanded, wealthier people moved to
the suburbs and left behind the less privileged.
• Shaw and McKay concluded that socioeconomic
status correlated to race and ethnicity resulted in a
higher crime rate.
• The mix of cultures and values created a smaller
society with different ideas of deviance, and those
values and ideas were transferred from generation
to generation.
Sources
• http://www.children.gov.on.ca/htdocs/English/professionals/oyap/ro
ots/volume5/chapter04_social_disorganization.aspx
• http://www.children.gov.on.ca/htdocs/English/professionals/oyap/ro
ots/volume5/chapter06_strain.aspx
• https://study.com/academy/lesson/relative-deprivation-in-psychology
-theory-definition.html
• http://www.children.gov.on.ca/htdocs/English/professionals/oyap/ro
ots/volume5/chapter05_deprivation.aspx
• https://courses.lumenlearning.com/alamo-sociology/chapter/reading
-theoretical-perspectives-on-deviance/