The central thesis of spatial theories—often referred to as theories of social disorganization—is that crime is rooted in specific social and structural characteristics of certain environments. In short: some environments foster crime more than others.
Context
This theoretical approach originated in the United States, with the city of Chicago playing a particularly important role through a number of influential spatial studies. The influx of immigrants and African Americans from the southern states, combined with the rise of organized crime during Prohibition (1920–1933), prompted detailed research into the development and transformation of urban neighborhoods. These studies are now considered foundational to the so-called Chicago School of Sociology. One of its central questions: Why do some neighborhoods exhibit consistently higher crime rates than others?
According to the theory, social disorganization weakens informal social control, which in turn facilitates higher levels of criminal behavior.
Robert Park and Ernest Burgess contributed significantly to this line of thought with their concept of “urban ecology,” which heavily influenced Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay’s Theory of Social Disorganization. Also notable in this context is Frederick Thrasher, who studied the living and activity spaces of 1,313 gangs in Chicago. He observed that gang activity tended to concentrate in certain transitional zones on the city’s outskirts—areas he termed “gang lands.”
Finally, James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling drew on Shaw and McKay’s work to develop the influential Broken Windows theory, further extending the implications of social disorganization for modern urban criminology.
