Social disorganization (Shaw & McKay)

[also known as: Social Ecology, Area Approach, cultural transmission]

Theories of social disorganization assume that in areas with certain ecological conditions such as high unemployment rates, population mobility or material decay, crime rates are constant. Such conditions prevent social organisation and cohesion in the neighbourhood and thus informal social control of delinquency. Once crime is widespread, criminal norms and values that compete with normative values are transmitted through cultural means. People are thus influenced in their actions by a certain environment.

Main proponents

Clifford Shaw und Henry McKay

Theory

Juvenile Delinquency and Urban Areas (1929 developed by Clifford Shaw, 1942 published in collaboration with his assistant Henry McKay.)

In his 1929 study “Juvenile Delinquency and Urban Areas” in Chicago Shaw examined the residences of 60,000 male youths who had been registered as school truants or offenders by the city, police or courts. He called the areas where a large number of the young men to be investigated lived “delinquency areas”.

Shaw introduced another term, that of “natural areas” which are areas that are distinguished from their surroundings by special geographical, social and cultural features, areas that have formed in the course of natural urban growth.

Shaw’s basic thesis is that the delinquency areas largely correspond with the natural areas, since any city could be divided into areas created in a natural way, creating certain structures suitable for describing and measuring different factors.

In the 1930s, Shaw, in collaboration with McKay, extended his research to other North American cities in an attempt to explain why socially deviant behaviour is concentrated in certain neighbourhoods (also called the ecological approach). Thus, the ecological situation of a residential area (infrastructure, quality of housing, supply of shops, etc.) influences the spatial distribution of criminal behaviour by influencing both the perpetrator’s personality and different opportunities to commit crimes.

Shaw and McKay focused their studies on juvenile suspects and delinquents aged 16-18. The findings, conducted in four American cities, were as follows: In each of these cities there were areas with particularly high crime rates. They characterized these delinquency areas as follows:

1. higher delinquency and truancy rates,
2. high infant mortality,
3. high number of tuberculosis patients,
4. Overpopulation,
5. high number of families living on state support,
6. unfavourable social structure, due to a lack of leisure activities, but also to high population mobility.

They also came to the conclusion that the high crime rates were to be regarded independently of the ethnic structure of the inhabitants and expressed the assumption that the area itself was the source of crime. This could lead to the conclusion that certain factors exist in these areas for decades which, irrespective of the culture and values of the respective inhabitants, repeatedly ‘infect’ young people with criminality.

Ein zweiter Erklärungsansatz wäre die Annahme, dass der Raum Kriminelle anzuziehen vermag. – Die Delinquenzgebiete lagen dort, wo die Stadtteile am verfallensten waren und aufgrund billiger Mieten vor allem von Armut betroffene Menschen anzogen. In diesen Wohngebieten kam es unter dem Druck sozial zersetzender Kräfte zu einer Auflösung gesellschaftlicher Bindungen und daher zu höherer Kriminalität (geringe soziale Kontrolle).
Bezüglich der unterschiedlichen sozialen Strukturen entstanden mehrere Ringe, die sich um die Innenstadt gruppierten. Entsprechend dieser Verteilung von innen nach außen nahmen auch die Kriminalitätszahlen ab.

Kriminalpolitische Implikation

Die Beobachtungen zur soziale Desorganisation durch Shaw & McKay dienen als Ausgangspunkt für kommunale Regionalanalysen und führten u.a. zur Broken Windows Theorie und zur Null-Toleranz-Strategie (Zero Tolerance Policing).
Die makrosoziologischen Beobachtungen der Theorie der sozialen Desorganisation mit ihrer Fokussierung auf Formen der informellen Kontrolle stehen zudem im Zusammenhang mit Kontrolltheorien. Schließlich lässt sich eine Verbindungslinie zwischen der postulierten Weitergabe kultureller Werten und der Theorie des differentiellen Lernens ziehen.

Kritische Würdigung & Aktualitätsbezug

Hauptkritikpunkt an der Theorie der sozialen Desorganisation als Erklärung für abweichendes Verhalten und Kriminalität lautet, dass die Verantwortung für individuelles Handeln von dem Einzelnen weg, hin zur Gesellschaft verlagert werden würde.

Literatur

Primärliteratur

• Shaw, C.R., McKKay, H.D. (1969): Juvenile Delinquency and Urban Areas: A Study of Delinquency in Relation to Differential Characteristics of Local Communities in American Cities.

Sekundärliteratur

• Vito, G./Maahs, J./Holmes, R. (2007): Criminology. Theory, Research, and
  Policy, S. 146-154.
• Schwind, H.-D. (2008):Kriminologie. Eine praxisorientierte Einführung mit
  Beispielen. S. 140-143.
• Lamnek, S. (2007): Theorien abweichenden Verhaltens I „klassische Ansätze“.
  S. 98, 311.
• McLaughlin, E., Muncie, J. ( 2006): The Sage Dictionary of Criminology. Sage Publications, London: S.39

Weiterführende Informationen

• siehe: Kriminalpolitik im Städtebau