Matthew Belzner

S T S 101H

October 29, 2010

Social Disorganization and a Possible Solution

There have been several theories developed over time that offer an answer to the

question: why is there crime? Although these theories are very in depth and can allude

to possible solutions to crime they rarely offer any real ways to prevent or eliminate it.

Social disorganization is one of these crime theories and will be the primary focus of this

paper. The theory will be thoroughly described and then will be the basis of whether or

not a possible solution to crime can or will actually work.

The formation of social disorganization theory originated at the University of

Chicago in the 1920s, during which the city was undergoing tremendous social change.

Up until this point the belief was that criminals were created mainly from biological

inferiority, impaired intellect, and psychological damage. Robert Park, Ernest Burgess,

and Roderick McKenzie, criminologists studying the consequences of urbanization and

industrialization concluded, “With the growth of great cities, with the vast division of

labor which has come in with machine industry, and with movement and change that

have come about with the multiplication of the means of transportation and

communication, the old forms of social control represented by the family, the

neighborhood, and the local community have been undermined and their influence

greatly diminished. The process by which the authority and influence of an earlier

culture and system of social control is undermined and eventually destroyed is…social

disorganization.” (Burgess, Park, McKenzie, 1967, pp. 106-107). The theory’s main

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point is that it isn’t the types of people that cause crimes, but the type of situations and

places that people live in that do, most of these places being urban neighborhoods. These

certain urban neighborhoods have continued to be a source of crime throughout the years

regardless of the races and types of people who have lived there.

Five specific aspects of urban neighborhoods that are necessary in causing crime

have been identified in Rodney Stark’s Deviant Places: A Theory of the Ecology of

Crime. “These essential factors are (1) density; (2) poverty; (3) mixed use; (4)

transience; and (5) dilapidation.” (Stark, 1987, pp. 895). Density, in this case, means

population density or the amount of people within a certain area. Higher amounts of

people in an area means more interaction between the deviant and non-deviant. Contact

between individuals is limited in a neighborhood of low density, making encounters with

criminals or those inclined to deviant behavior much more unlikely than in an area of

high population density. Where there is poverty, there is more likelihood that homes will

be crowded; because of this crowding, the supervision of children will significantly drop,

allowing children to engage in unpunished deviant or criminal behavior, thus providing

opportunities and pathways to a life of crime. High levels of poverty can reduce the

reputation of a community and also reduce a person’s view of their standing in that

community. This lowering of one’s self-conception can encourage them to engage in

criminal acts because they believe that it doesn’t matter in a neighborhood like that or

that it doesn’t matter because they are already looked down upon.

“Mixed use refers to urban areas where residential and commercial land use

coexist, where homes, apartments, retail shops, and even light industry are mixed

together.” (Stark, 1987, pp. 898). A neighborhood of mixed use provides far more

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opportunities to commit a criminal act than one that is purely residential. The close

proximity of housing areas and stores makes it easier for criminals to gain familiarity and

access to opportunities to steal or commit other crimes. Another aspect of poor, densely

populated neighborhoods is transience, meaning how often many different people move

in and out of the area. This high rate of mobility makes it harder for people to establish

meaningful ties and relationships, which in turn makes it harder for the community to

create and sustain collective efficacy. Current residents of the neighborhood will be far

less willing to take matters into their own hands and come together in order to help stop

or prevent crime. These types of neighborhoods also tend to be dilapidated, or run down,

dirty, and littered. All five of these factors contribute to stigmatization of these

communities, and because of that stigma, residents have much less stake in conformity to

social norms and are thus, more likely to deviate from the law. Another factor

contributing to the prevalence of crime in these areas is the fact that individuals and

families who would serve as the best role models will move out of the stigmatized

neighborhood as soon as possible.

Social disorganization theory tells us that it is the type of neighborhood that causes

crime, so what is a possible solution to crime according to this theory? The City of

Virginia Beach Municipal Center has developed a set of general guidelines for designing

safe communities called Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED).

“The proper design and effective use of the built environment can lead to a reduction in

the fear and incidence of crime, and improvement of the quality of life.” (CPTED

described by the National Crime Prevention Institute). CPTED is based on four

elements: natural surveillance, natural access control, territorial reinforcement, and

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maintenance. Natural Surveillance uses design features directed at keeping possible

criminals under observation by increasing the visibility of a building. This increased

visibility of areas allows for the challenge and determent of crime because the deviant

behavior is more visible and easily detectable by police or other security. Natural access

control makes use of doors, shrubs, fences, gates, control-locks, bars, and alarms to deny

criminals’ access to victims and to highly increase a would-be offender’s sense of risk.

Territorial reinforcement use sidewalks, landscaping, and porches to help distinguish

between public and private areas in the hopes that criminals will recognize territorial,

hands-off messages sent by this landscape. Maintenance simply refers to the up keep of

various areas of the community. If buildings maintain their original purpose and are

prevented from becoming run down, the attraction of crime to these areas reduces.

CPTED’s guidelines of community design seem to deter individuals from

committing crimes, but do these communities lack the five aspects of social

disorganization that can cause crime in the future? The primary focus of CPTED is that

of suburban communities and the number of residential units that are built can regulate

the population density of the area. Poverty and transience will also be unlikely problems

in an area largely comprised of newer homes and apartments. Expensive homes and

apartments cannot be afforded by the impoverished and are, for most people, long-term

commitments or investments, causing them to stay in one place for a long period of time.

Through CPTED’s use of property maintenance, buildings in the area will not likely

become dilapidated and therefore not attract poor people or criminals. Mixed-use,

however, seems to be an aspect of these neighborhoods, with homes and apartment

buildings being built fairly close to stores and malls. This makes the opportunity to

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commit crimes more available. However, due to the large amount of security measures,

it is unlikely that deviants could continue to get away with crimes, if at all. Although

these specifically designed communities are keeping crime to a minimum, they are also

contributing to it in an indirect way. The way these communities are constructed is

designed to keep not only criminals out, but lower class people as well. Much like the

way that Robert Moses built about two hundred low hanging overpasses on Long Island

designed to keep tall buses filled with black and poor people out of Jonas Beach, a public

park. This and other instances of socially biased construction are described in Langdon

Winner’s Do Artifacts Have Politics? CPTED’s building designs are blocking

opportunities for lower class people to live in safe, respectable communities, forcing

them to continue to live in dilapidated, stigmatized neighborhoods and therefore

providing them with the opportunities and associations that can lead them down a path of

criminal behavior.

Social disorganization explains that crime is created out of types of places and

situations that we live in. Creating new communities that deter criminal activity may

help prevent crime, but it is not enough. It is the communities that already contain the

five crime producing aspects that need to be focused on. As long as people are forced to

live in these dense, urban neighborhoods through lack of options, crime will prevail, and

will always be around. Only by putting forth an effort to “clean up” these neighborhoods

can we hope to even start to eliminate crime.

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Bibliography

http://www.humanics-es.com/cpted.pdf

Park, Robert., and Ernest Burgess and Roderick McKenzie. The City. 1967. pp. 106-107.

Stark, Rodney. “Deviant Places: A Theory of the Ecology of Crime.” Criminology 25. 1987. pp. 893-909.

Winner, Langdon. “Do Artifacts Have Politics.” Whale and the Reactor. 1986. pp. 19-39.

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