The Chicago School of Sociology Dr Boran A

The Chicago School of Sociology Dr. Boran A. Mercan

�from the First World War onwards, criminology was: - dominated by sociologists and sociological thought. - and the Department of Sociology at the University of Chicago came to the fore in researching the city �Ecological approach �the city, its structures and processes, and how these related to patterns of crime and delinquency (Chicago in the 1930 s).

Chicago in the 1930 s

In the 1930 s. . . Great Depression and Industrialization

�Chicago: America’s second-largest city and underwent rapid and massive transformation. �The industrialisation of the United States brought steel mills, railroads and manufacturing industry in Chicago �Demographic structure was influenced by the rapid industrialisation �African-American population from the South and immigrants Italy, Poland, and Russia. �Heaven of immigrants

Robert Ezra Park (1864 -1944)

Social Ecology �‘ecology’ – indicative of natural patterns within a universe produced by different forms of species � That is a biological metaphor in understanding the city �the universe was the city � the ecological approach was at work in accounting for the growth and development of the city, Chicago

�Durkheim and Simmel influenced much of the Chicago School work. �the link between crime levels and the degree of social organisation, �the city was the source of both liberation and alienation. �Social types like stranger and flaneur �Anything in the universe of city is worth studying and investigating

Ernest Burgess ( 1886 -1966)

https: //www. dustinstoltz. com/blog/2015/12/02/burgess-concentric-zone-model-of -urban-development (accessed 17 May 2018)

https: //www. dustinstoltz. com/blog/2015/12/02/burgess-concentric-zone-modelof-urban-development (accessed 17 May 2018)

https: //www. dustinstoltz. com/blog/2015/12/02/burgess-concentric-zonemodel-of-urban-development (accessed 17 May 2018)

�concentric circles �Each zone = social + cultural life �The natural process of growth, not planned �the characteristics of each area turn out to resemble the character and qualities of the inhabitants

�Zone I: the central business district, the heart of the concentric circles (high property values and affluence) �Zone II: the zone of transition; transient population, poor, living in inadequate and deteriorating housing. �Zone III: working class residential homes occupied by people who moved out of Zone II as growing their wealth and prosperity. �Zone IV: more affluent, middle class residential district towards the city limits �Zone V: the city limits. Beyond the city limits, suburban areas and a small residential population.

�In the zone of transition there were problems of crime and deviancy � poverty, poor health, prostitution and high infant mortality �These problems were not only taking place within the zone of transition but overwhelmingly concentrated in that zone �Deviancy comes into being as a response to create social disorganisation.

�The zone of transition was defined by the Chicago sociologists as socially disorganised. �Shaw and Mc. Kay argued that swift demographic changes resulted in a certain degree of social disorganisation �Norms and values are not established with a definite predictability of crime and deviancy.

Clifford Shaw (1895 -1957)

� Shaw and Mc. Kay (1942) tested Burgess’s hypothesis in the early 1940 s, � The researchers employed Chicago’s juvenile court records over several decades, � They found out the ecological patterns of some offences. � Their findings suggest that the higher delinquency rates were concentrated in the parts of the city including: 1) a high percentage of ‘foreign born’ and African- American dwellers, 2) a high percentage of welfare recipients, 3) a relatively low rate of home ownership and a large number of dilapidated and disgraceful buildings, 4) a high percentage of population turnover , 5) high rates of infant mortality and various diseases 6) A high percentage of criminality and offending behaviour.

� Shaw and Mc. Kay’s (1942) discovered: neighbourhoods tended to show stability in their statuses as high-, medium- or low-crime areas. This means that over a two or three decade period, neighbourhoods would remain as high-crime areas regardless of ethno-racial composition. 2) crime and delinquency rates tended be at lower percentages in higher socio-economic status areas, or vice versa. That is, socio-economic inequalities and differences were a significant factor in explaining the variation of crime and deviancy in terms of sociogeographical differentiation 1)

� Shaw and Mc. Kay also introduced the idea of cultural transmission. � Values, even including delinquent one, are transmitted from generation to generation, � In these processes, particular areas become the delinquent areas regardless of the turnover of dwellers and their ethno-racial characteristics. � There develops a kind of tradition in which various criminal activities are learned by young boys from the older ones � Property crime such as theft and burglary � How to explain the cultural transmition? → Differential Association

Edwin Sutherland (1883 -1950)

Sutherland Cressey, 1947/1970: 75– 76 � 1) Criminal behaviour is learned. � 2) Criminal behaviour is learned in interaction with other persons in a process of communication. � 3) The principal part of the learning of criminal behaviour occurs within intimate personal groups. � 4) When criminal behaviour is learned, the learning includes (a) techniques of committing the crime, which sometimes are very complicated, sometimes very simple; [and] (b) the specific direction of motives, drives, rationalisations, and attitudes.

Sutherland Cressey, 1947/1970: 75– 76 � 5) The specific direction of motives and drives is learned from definitions of legal codes as favourable and unfavourable. � 6) A person becomes delinquent because of an excess of definitions favourable to violation of law over definitions unfavourable to violationof law. This is the principle of differential association. � 7) Differential associations may vary in frequency, duration, priority, and intensity.

Sutherland Cressey, 1947/1970: 75– 76 � 8) The process of learning criminal behaviour by association with criminal and anti-criminal patterns involves all the mechanisms that are involved in any other learning. � 9) While criminal behaviour is an expression of general needs and values, it is not explained by those general needs and values since noncriminal behaviour is an expression of the same needs and values. Thieves generally steal in order to secure money, but likewise honest labourers work in order to secure money. The attempts by many scholars to explain criminal behaviour by general drives and values, such as the happiness principle, striving for social status, the money motive, or frustration, have been, and must continue to be, futile, since they explain lawful behaviour as completely as they explain criminal behaviour. They are similar to respiration, which is necessary for any behaviour, but which does not differentiate criminal from noncriminal behaviour.

Differential Association � Differential association (DA): if one is exposed to more messages that promote lawbreaking than messages that support law-abiding, s/he is more likely to involve crime an delinquency � DA went through a number of changes in Sutherland’s successive Principle of Criminology editions (from 1924 through 1939 to 1947), and took its final form in a set of nine propositions in 1947 � Even after Sutherland, a number of scholars revised and adopted DA under the general learning theory of crime (Akers, 2011) � And DA was linked to cognitive psychology and social psychological as it largely embraces processes of learning � DA places an emphasis on the intersection of social and psychological � It’s come in for lots of criticism as well as revision

Differential Reinforcement � Differential reinforcement was adjusted in a way as to cover to expected consequences of criminal activities - whether crime will result in reward or punishment - Whether I will go in jail or get away with etc. � The thing is that the human-being tends to stay away doing that will certainly result in punishment � Also while learning, practicing some activities and expecting the result of them, the human being also imitates – imitation is crucial part of learning. � Ronald Akers’ expansion of Sutherland’s DA argues that initial delinquency is an amalgamation of differential association and imitation.

�Initial delinquency turns out to hold a perpetual character �This depends on reinforcement �That is to say, criminal activities can be continued as long as the reinforcement is positive, �Or criminal activities can be ceased so long as the anticipated gain or result is negative like imprisonment and punishment.

Summary � “The levels of residential instability and population heterogeneity will be highest in economically deprived neighbourhoods. � Private and parochial networks will be smaller, be less dense and have less breadth in neighbourhoods with high levels of residential instability and population heterogeneity. � Public networks will be smaller, be less dense and have less breadth in economically deprived neighbourhoods. � Crime rates are a function of the ability of private, parochial and public networks to transfer the types of social capital that are necessary for the effective control of crime. � The total effects of economic deprivation, residential instability, and population heterogeneity on crime are mediated by these intervening systemic factors. ” (Newburn, 2007: 207 -208)