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Crime Learned or Controled

Crime Learned or Controled Many theories, at both the macro and micro level, have been proposed to explain juvenile crime. Some prominent theories include Social Disorganization theory, Differential Social Organization theory, Social Control theory, and Differential Association theory. When determining which theories are more valid, the question must be explored whether people deviate because of what they learn or from how they are controlled? Mercer L. Sullivan’s book, “Getting Paid” Youth Crime and Work in the Inner City clearly suggests that the learning theories both at the macro level, Differential social organization, and micro level, Differential association theory, are the more accurate of the two types of theory. Two major sociological theories explain youth crime at the macro level. The first is Social Disorganization theory, created in 1969 by Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay. The theory resulted from a study of juvenile delinquency in Chicago using information from 1900 to 1940, which attempts to answer the question of how aspects of the structure of a community contribute to social control. The study found that a community that is unable to achieve common values has a high rate of delinquency. Shaw and McKay looked at the physical appearance of the neighborhoods, the average income of the population, the ethnicity of the neighborhood, the percent of renters versus owners, and how fast the population of the area changed. These factors all contribute to neighborhood delinquency. The text provides some evidence to support this theory in Table 14, ”Index rankings of reported crimes in police incorporating the neighborhoods.” This chart shows Projectville ranked highest in every category except motor vehicle theft and burglary, La Barriada ranked second, and Hamilton Park lowest. The descriptions of the neighborhoods in Table 1 indicate that Projectville has the lowest income, sitting significantly below the poverty level, while Hamilton Park has the highest income and lowest poverty percent. La Barriada fell in the middle on both categories. This information supports the theory. Ethnicity of the neighborhoods, however, one of the primary reasons for delinquency according to this theory, is not consistent in this study. Projectville, the highest in crime, is the one with the least ethnic heterogeneity, according to Table 6, with 91% black, 3% white and 6% other. La Barriada, with the middle crime rate, was the one with the most heterogeneity: 34% white, 4% black and 62% other. The second theory, Differential Social Organization, was created by Edwin Sutherland. This theory proposes that a group or societal crime rate is determined by the extent to which it is organized in favor of crime versus organized against crime. According to the theory, an organized neighborhood is one that has a strong infrastructure in place to fight and deter crime. Groups that the theory takes into account as being detrimental to crime are the police, schools, families, and other neighborhood groups designed to keep kids out of trouble. Groups considered favorable to crime include the mafia, gangs and other groups that commit crime or encourage other people to commit crime for them. This theory is supported very clearly by the three neighborhoods in the study. Projectville, with the highest crime rates, had an organized infrastructure in place which supports criminal behavior. For example, when a juvenile steals something in Projectville, he knows that someone will be available to buy it from him. “Drugstores, like Key Foods, A&P, they have a drug section. We used to go in there and take them and sell them to the stores on the corner.” (Sullivan 153) Other kids would steal gold chains right from people’s necks then they would sell it to the pawnshops that are supposed to check to see if it is stolen. “Lucky Giles reported selling stolen gold right in Manhattan’s major jewelry district.” (Sullivan 161). The juveniles in the La Barriada neighborhood also had an infrastructure which supported crime. The children would steal goods directly from the factories and sell them right on the street to the rest of the neighborhood, take the goods to “fences” or even sell it to the police. “One police officer who was well known in the neighborhood came down to the block not to stop crime but to buy stolen parts for his own car.” (Sullivan 128). Hamilton Park, on the other hand, did not have these organizations as deeply entrenched in the neighborhood. Instead, this neighborhood had a stronger infrastructure to deter crime in place. As a result, Hamilton Park had the lowest crime rate of the three neighborhoods studied. The strongest deterrents to crime in the Hamilton Park neighborhood were the job market and the police. Unlike the other neighborhoods in the study, most of the youth in Hamilton Park were able to find decent paying jobs. In addition, Hamilton Park boasted stronger family units, which the study lists as another societal deterrent to crime. Finally, the police in Hamilton Park were more diligent in fighting crime. There was more legitimate concern from the Hamilton Park youths about being caught by the police. Two theories on this topic also exist at the micro level. The first is Social Control Theory, created by Travis Hirschi. Hirschi states that all humans have four main bonds to society: attachment to others; commitment to conventional lines of action, including education, moral reputation, and jobs; involvement in conventional activities; and belief in moral order. According to Hirchi, if these bonds are weak, an individual is more likely to commit crime. Most of the youths in both the Projectville and La Barriada neighborhoods believed that an education was not necessary. “…these youths [in La Barriada] began to leave school as early as sixth grade, and most never went past the tenth.”(Sullivan 33). “Like in La Barriada, [Projectville youth] began to attend school irregularly in junior high or the first years of high school.” (Sullivan 39). Hamilton Park had better school attendance, and those who didn’t attend school were generally employed instead. According to Hirchi’s theory, this is one factor explaining Hamilton Park’s significantly lower crime rate. According to Hirchi’s theory, a second factor in crime rate is the bond to the belief in moral order. In Hamilton Park, this belief included a strong criminal justice system. “…Hamilton Park residents [were] more willing and able to use the criminal justice system to control youth crime…The very fact that the offender was identified and had to resist sanctions, however, demonstrates the greater effectiveness of the Hamilton Park social control.” (Sullivan 181) In the other neighborhoods, it was very rare for the offender be known, much less have the police become involved. The second micro-level theory explaining juvenile criminal behavior is called Differential Association. Edwin Sutherland pioneered this theory when he introduced his nine points to explain crime. His main point is that crime is a learned behavior and that a person commits crime because he or she sees the benefits as outweighing the negatives. In all three of the neighborhoods studied, theft started at an early age: “[stealing] usually involved the appropriation of youth culture consumer items-radios, bicycles, sneakers, coats-which were then as likely to be used directly as to be sold” (Sullivan 117) Many of the youths then moved on to economic, or money-making crimes, such as stealing gold chains and selling them. “Crime proved a viable way to make money at the same time that they were beginning to perceive a need for more regular income…Once they learned what prices to expect for stolen goods, the risks and rewards associated with specific criminal opportunities were weighed against those associated with opportunities for other types of crime or for legitimate work.” (Sullivan 117-118). Hirchi’s theory that definitions favorable to crime outweigh definitions unfavorable to crime caused the youths to commit crimes is supported by the fact that most of these youths learned early that crime was much more profitable that legitimate employment. The reverse is also true, as evidenced in the story of Zap Andrews, in which definitions unfavorable to crime prevented him from committing a certain type of crime: “I ripped of a lady and she seen my face, and then, one day I tried to rap to her daughter, only I didn’t know it was her daughter. Next thing you know we really started getting friendly and she said, “I want you to meet my mother.” She knew it was me right off the top. She pulled me over to the side and said, “I know what you done…do you still do that? I said, “No, I stopped that now.” (Sullivan 153). According to Sullivan this was “an abrupt turning point for Zap Andrews.”(Sullivan 154). “Zap Andrews…began to steer clear of theft.”(Sullivan 154). In this particular case, definitions unfavorable to crime created a learned behavior in Zap Andrews. The study of the three neighborhoods shows that definitions favorable to crime are much higher in Projectville than in Hamilton Park. For example, youths in Projectville were paid to burn down a building, while in Hamilton Park the juveniles were arrested for the same crime. In Projectville, even the police will buy stolen goods. The study discussed in the text clearly shows that crime in Hamilton Park is much lower than in either Projectville or La Barriada. The reasons for this are clearly explained by Sutherland’s two learning theories, his differential social organization theory and his differential association theory. The other theories, Shaw and McKay’s social disorganization and Hirschi’s social control theory, do have some merits, but do not apply as clearly to the neighborhoods in the study. Clearly, Sutherland’s theories of learned behavior and favorable and unfavorable definitions offer clear explanations for the crime in Projectville, La Barriada and Hamilton Park. Bibliography:

Word Count: 1667