Social Disorganization and Control Theories

(these ideas drawn from Goode, 1994-2008 chapter 3; and Pfohl, Images of Deviance and Social Control, 1985. See the disclaimer)

Shift in focus: Social Causation

• Normative definition of deviance, deterministic approach
• Social Pathology==>the City
• Society==> System of rules and values that bind us together.
• Change is the problem
• Deviance==>Is the product of the disorder that is produced in the transition from one state of order to another

Deviance becomes seen as a "natural" problem for all societies, across time: a spatial/socio-ecological reality (localized anomie).

Social Ecology (Cecil greek's notes) (Park and Burgess):

• Society as Superorganism.
• Change as natural.
• Organized area is invaded ==> competition ==>succession or accommodation==>reorganization.
• During stage of competition==> Disorganization: breakdown in the normative structure of the community==>Deviance.
• Can't stop change, nor the problems associated with it, BUT sociologists can assist in reorganization process.

• Science and Technology
• Urbanization
• Population growth, especially immigration and migration.
• Economic restructuring--unemployment.
• Industrialization

• To existing "Social Order"
• Challenge to dominance of traditional WASP Middle Class: Nativism
• Need to control deviance and the populations (ethnic/racial groups) that were seen as producing it.
• Goal: Reorganization based on traditional assumptions about the "natural order of society"

Control:

• Intervention to reorganize.
• Sociologists as technicians
• Create stable environment for industrial expansion.
• Secure a problematic population as a reliable source of workers
• Community Development

Social Disorganization (local copy)

"A decrease in the influence of existing social rules of behavior upon the individual members of the group. An area where social institutions, norms and values, are no longer functioning."

Without normative constraint==>Anything goes==Deviance flourishes.

Focus on the "natural" areas of competition.

(I've "borrowed" this image from Bruce Hoffman (blhoffma@indiana.edu) who manages www.crimetheory.com )

Social Disorganization at the micro level: Control Theories (Prof. Tom O'Connor's notes, local copy)

Why most don't deviate?

Reckless and Containment Theory: (Diane DeMelo files)

1990 - Gottfredson & Hirschi's General Theory of Crime (part of a student prtesentation at another university)

• Force or fraud in pursuit of self-interest
• Applies to any and all crimes and includes 'sin', or a variety of self indulgent actions i.e. smoking or being a couch potato
• Stresses the factors present in the immediate or "proximate" situation of the criminal action that determine or influence its enactment, crime, and those background or "distant" factors that determine or influence the tendency to commit crime, criminality.
• The origin of crime is low self-control, which results from inadequate, ineffective, and inconsistent socialization by parents early in childhood.
• Criminal acts provided immediate and easy or simple gratification of desires and are exciting, risky, or thrilling
• Since crime entails "the pursuit of immediate pleasure, people lacking in self control will also tend to pursue immediate pleasures that are not criminal."
• It is self control that determines social control

Critique of Anomie ( strain) Theory:

• Crime is an impulsive act which provides immediate, short-term, and rather skimpy rewards
• Criminals lack the skills, diligence and persistence necessary for the deviant "adaptations"
• Does not explain the incidence, or rate of criminal behavior as a whole, since most of it is petty, compulsive and immediate

• One does not learn to engage in crime, since no learning is required
• Criminal  acts are simple commonsensical, concrete, and result in immediate gratification
• Criminals  are simply doing what comes naturally
• What causes such behavior is not the presence of something - learning- but the absence of something - self control

• Not all persons who exhibit low self-control commit crime; low self-control merely predisposes someone to commit crime.
• Crime can take place to the extent that a motivated offender has access to a "suitable target" i.e. money , which lacks a  "capable guardian."
• The inability of a community to monitor the behavior of its residents complements parental incompetence.

• Strain theorist - the aggressiveness and anger that many criminals exhibit when committing their crimes is far more than lack of self-restraint; only strain theory explains it.
• Learning theorist -  lack of self-control is a basic component or element of the deviant learning process, hence, learning theory subsumes, or swallows up, self-control theory
• Issue of where self-control comes from, and what it means in particular social contexts? Can we learn it (and un-learn it)? Is it specific to particular social groups--dominant ideology?
• What are the complex factors that explain why someone with "self-control" deviates, and why someone without "self-control" may not deviate?
• Ignores the issues surrounding the definition of deviance--perhaps our understanding of self-control stems from not defining the behavior of some as deviant, or from attributing low self-control to those whose behaviors are defined as deviant (circularity).