Positivism, Social Ecology, and the Chicago School

CJS 380 Crime Science:Principles, Strategies and Practice of

Crime Prevention and ReductionJ.A. Gilmer

THE POSITIVISTS

Lombroso and the Innate Criminal

• Italian criminologist• Founder or Positivist

School of criminology• “Born criminal” as

atavist (evolutionary throwback) identified through physical stigmata

• 1835-1919

Goddard – IQ and Heredity

• Psychologist, eugenicist• Feeblemindedness caused

criminality, an inherited trait• IQ test used to “scientifically”

validate• Author of The Kallikak Family: A

Study in the Heredity of Feeble-Mindedness

• Influenced immigration control policy of early 1920s 1866-1957

THE CHICAGO SCHOOL

The Chicago School (of Sociology)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_school_%28sociology%29

Founded urban sociology 1914-1934

• Period of rapid expansion and social change

Chicago Population Trends, 1870-1940

Durkheim – Social Change and Anomie

• French sociologist• Studied evolution of societies– Mechanical-organic continuum

• Norms – shared expectations of behavior

• Collective conscience – shapes common identity

• Anomie – ‘normlessness’ due to rapid societal change 1858-1917

Robert E. Park and Natural Areas

• Journalist, sociologist• Positivism & functionalsim• The City as natural area – Social ecological/environmental

1864-1944

The city is a state of mind, a body of customs and traditions, and of organized attitudes and sentiments that inhere in this tradition. The city is not, in other words, merely a physical mechanism and an artificial construction. It is involved in the vital processes of the people who compose it, it is a product of nature and particularly of human nature.http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/projects/centcat/centcats/fac/facch17_01.html

Burgess and Concentric Zones

• Urban sociologist• Collaborated with Park• Developed concepts of

urban Zones

1886-1966

Shaw & McKay – Delinquency• Sociologists and founders

of Chicago Area Project• Mapped addresses of male

delinquents• Examined delinquency rate

in different areas• Studied relationship of

nativity and other social and demographic characteristics to delinquency

http://www.chicagoareaproject.org/historical-look-chicago-area-project

"Perhaps the results of the Project should not be measured by the rate of juvenile delinquency alone. The project has uncovered latent talent within the communities. Committees have improved parent-teacher relationships and shouldered responsibility for school attendance and improvement. They have brought to bear effective public opinion on specific contributors to juvenile delinquency. They have succeeded in leading children away from crime and reincorporating parolees in the neighborhood."

Shaw, Clifford R. & McKay, Henry D. (1942/1969). Juvenile Delinquency in Urban Areas.

Main Findings of Zone Theory

• Delinquency rates decreased moving out from the center of the city

• Related to other ‘social pathologies’ – unemployment, poverty, poor health, mortality, broken families

• Neighborhood stability a key characteristic– Home ownership (stake in the community)

• Ethnic turnover did not affect high rates of delinquency in inner zone

Interpretation of Zone Dynamics

• Outer zones – Shared values, norms, collective conscience– Engagement in conventional activities– Community containment of deviance

• Innermost zones– Extreme diversity → mixed messages – Greater exposure to violence – Weak community controls → subcultural deviance

thrives → crime“inability of a community structure to realize the common vslues of its residents and maintain effective social controls.” Sampson and Groves (1989)

Critique of Social Disorganization

• Labeling– power to define conduct as delinquent or rationalize it

away• Ecological Fallacy– “the danger of making assertions about individuals as the unit

of analysis based on the examination of groups or other aggregations” (Maxfield and Babbie, 1995)

• Tautological (circular reasoning)– Socially disorganized b/c high crime but high crime

used to define socially disorganized area

Community-level Factors and Crime

• Low socioeconomic status / relative deprivation– Having little? or having less than other?

• Ethnic heterogeneity– Race consistently correlated with crime – why?

• Population Density– Increased interactions and relative anonymity

• Residential instability– Impact on family structure

LEGACY OF THE CHICAGO SCHOOL

Collective Efficacy Hypothesis

• “social cohesion among neighbors combined with their willingness to intervene on behalf of the common good” (Sampson, et al., 1997)– High mutual trust/shared

values– Strong social ties/social

network– Expectation of intervention

Robert J. Sampson

Elijah Anderson -- Sociologist

Elijah Anderson

This is because the street culture has evolved what may be called a code of the streets, which amounts to a set of informal rules governing interpersonal public behavior, including violence. The rules prescribe both a proper comportment and a proper way to respond if challenged. They regulate the use of violence and so allow those who are inclined to aggression to precipitate violent encounters in an approved way. The rules have been established and are enforced mainly by the street-oriented, but on the streets the distinction between street and decent is often irrelevant; everybody knows that if the rules are violated, there are penalties. Knowledge of the code is thus largely defensive; it is literally necessary for operating in public. Therefore, even though families with a decency orientation are usually opposed to the values of the code, they often reluctantly encourage their children's familiarity with it to enable them to negotiate the inner-city environment.