Social Disorganization & Social Bond Theory

Mariah SessomsApril 21, 2016

Criminology 309

“Brotherly Love”This movie is about a 4 person family, that lives in a city where the life expectancy of a black male is twenty-five years of age. A city that had

over four hundred murders last year alone, and where the unemployment rate is at an all time high. Their father had died leaving the mom to watch the 3 teenagers. The mom does not work leaving the older brother, June to gamble to make money for their family. The one brother, Sergio was a really good basketball player at Overbrook High

School. The sister Jackie was a great singer, who is continuing to follow her music career.

Clip of movie

Social Disorganization Theory History

One of the most important theories developed by the Chicago School, related to ecological theories.

Links crime rates to neighborhood ecological characteristics; a core principle of social disorganization theory is that place matters

Among determinants of a person's later illegal activity, residential location is as significant as or more significant than the person's individual characteristics.

Social Disorganization High poverty lack of neighborhood

support some racial and ethnic heterogeneity Social Disorganization

Social Bond Theory HistoryDeveloped by Travis Hirschi in 1969

Theory suggests that people engage in criminal activity when their bond to society has weakened.

Four elements of social bond:

Attachment - individual’s are attached to others. Hirschi says this is the sociological counterpart to the superego.

Commitment -People obey rules for fear the consequences of breaking them. This is the counterpart to the ego.

Involvement -a person’s personal involvement in conventional activity. Hirschi states that an individual involved heavily in conventional activity simply does not have time to engage in deviant behavior.Belief –disregards the beliefs he/she has been taught entirely, and rationalizes their deviant behavior so that they can engage in criminal activity and still believe that it is wrong.

Social Bond Theory “People will give into crime when bonds/ties are weak or broken”

This family was once a family where the father was the breadwinner and the mother had a part time job. The father unfortunately passed

away breaking the bond between the father and the rest of the family. Leaving the older brother, June to be the breadwinner for the family.

Poverty leading to high crime rates stats

Persons in poor households at or below the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) (39.8 per 1,000) had more than double the rate of violent victimization as persons in high-income households (16.9 per 1,000).

The overall pattern of poor persons having the highest rates of violent victimization was consistent for both whites and blacks. However, the rate of violent victimization for Hispanics did not vary across poverty levels.

Our research shows that neighborhoods with the most crime tend to be those with the highest rates of poverty and other types of disadvantage -- regardless of whether they are predominantly Black or white.

Both of these theories make perfect sense of why certain aspects lead to crime. I believe that these two theories will stay the same because it has been proven that if you're in a bad environment, lack of any type of support and racial heterogeneity your chances of resulting to crime is

higher than a person that lives in a good environment.

Further potential of the theory