rejecting individualism - sage publications · at a rapid pace and became, as palen (1981)...

A lthough exceptions exist, most early theories located the sources of crime withinthe individual. These theories differed markedly on where precisely the source of

waywardness lay. Was it in the soul? The mind? The body’s very biological makeup?Even so, these theories shared the assumption that little insight on crime’s originscould be gained by studying the social environment or context external to individuals.In one form or another, these early theories blamed individual offenders—notsociety—for the crime problem.

But as the United States entered the 20th century, a competing and powerful visionof crime emerged—a vision suggesting that crime, like other behavior, was a socialproduct. The earlier theories did not vanish immediately or completely; indeed, inimportant ways, they continue to inform current-day thinking. But they did suffer astiff intellectual challenge that greatly thinned the ranks of their supporters. Thismajor theoretical shift, one that rejected individualist explanations of crime in favorof social explanations, might have been expected. Society was undergoing significant

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3Rejecting

Individualism

The Chicago School

Edwin H. Sutherland

1883–1950

University of Chicago and Indiana University

Author of Differential Association Theory

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changes, and people’s experiences were changing as well. The time was ripe for a newunderstanding of why some citizens break the law.

By the end of the 1930s, two major criminological traditions had been articulatedthat sought, in David Matza’s words, to “relocate pathology; it was moved from the per-sonal to the social plane” (Matza, 1969, p. 47). The first of these traditions, the Chicagoschool of criminology, argued that one aspect of American society, the city, containedpotent criminogenic forces. The other tradition, Robert K. Merton’s strain theory, con-tended that the pathology lay not in one ecological location (e.g., the city) but rather inthe broader cultural and structural arrangements that constitute America’s social fab-ric (Merton, 1938). Although they differed in how they believed that society createdlawbreakers, these theories agreed that the key to unlocking the mystery of crime wasin understanding its social roots. Taken together, they offered a strong counterpoint toexplanations that blamed individuals for their criminality.

The effects of these two schools of thought have been long-lasting. Even today, sevendecades after their initial formulation, the Chicago school and strain theories continueto be of interest to criminologists and to shape correctional policies. They deservecareful consideration. Accordingly, in Chapter 4 to follow, we consider the origins andenduring influence on criminological theory of strain theory. First, however, we explorehow a group of scholars located in the Chicago area sought to understand the concen-tration of crime in certain neighborhoods. As we will see, their investigations wouldresult in a major school of criminology and lay the groundwork for important contem-porary theories of crime.

The Chicago School of Criminology: Theory in Context

What made it seem reasonable—why did it make sense—to blame the city for thenation’s crime problem? Why would such a vision become popular in the 1920s and1930s and, moreover, find special attention in Chicago?

The answers to these questions can be found in part in the enormous changes thattransformed the face of the United States and made the city—and not the “little houseon the prairie”—the nation’s focal point. During the latter half of the 1800s, cities grewat a rapid pace and became, as Palen (1981) observed,“a controlling factor in nationallife” (p. 63). Between 1790 and 1890, for example, the urban population grew 139-fold;by 1900, 50 cities existed with populations in excess of 100,000 (p. 63).

But Chicago’s growth was particularly remarkable. When the city incorporated in1833, it had 4,100 residents; by 1890, its population had risen to 1 million; and by 1910,the count surpassed 2 million (Palen, 1981, p. 63). But such rapid expansion had ableaker side. Many of those settling in Chicago (and in other urban areas) carried littlewith them; there were waves of immigrants, displaced farmworkers, and AfricanAmericans fleeing the rural South. For most newcomers, the city—originally a sourceof much hope—brought little economic relief. They faced a harsh reality—pitifulwages; working 12-hour days, 6 days a week, in factories that jeopardized their healthand safety; living in tenements that “slumlords built jaw-to-jaw . . . on every available

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space” (p. 64). Writing on the meatpacking industry in Chicago, Upton Sinclair (1905)gave this environment a disquieting label: “the jungle.”

Like other citizens, criminologists during the 1920s and 1930s witnessed—indeed,lived through and experienced—these changes that created bulging populations andteaming slum areas. It was only a short leap for them to believe that growing up in thecity, particularly in the slums, made a difference in people’s lives. In this context, crimecould not be seen simply as an individual pathology; it made more sense when viewedas a social problem.

This conclusion, moreover, was reinforced by a broad liberal reform movement thatarose early during the 1900s—the Progressive movement. Although they believed inthe essential goodness of America and so rejected calls for radical change, Progressiveswere critical of the human costs wrought by America’s unbridled industrial growth.They were troubled particularly by the plight of the urban poor, a mushrooming popula-tion of the system’s casualties who had few prospects of stable or rewarding lives. Theyworried, as Rothman (1980) wrote, that the “promise” of the American system “did notextend evenly to all segments of the society; it did not penetrate the ghetto or the slum.Thus, an understanding of the etiology of crime demanded a very close scrutiny of theconditions in these special enclaves” (p. 51).

Criminologists in the Chicago school would echo this conclusion. TheProgressives rejected the social Darwinists’ logic that the poor, and the criminalsamong them, were biologically inferior and had fallen to society’s bottom rungbecause they were of lesser stock. The Progressives preferred a more optimisticinterpretation: The poor were pushed by their environment—not born—into livesof crime. Accordingly, hope existed that changing the context that nurtures offend-ers would reverse the slums’ negative effects and transform these individuals intolaw-abiding citizens. In particular, the goal was to save the poor, particularly theirchildren, by providing social services—schools, clinics, recreational facilities, set-tlement houses, foster homes, and reformatories (if necessary)—that would lessenthe pains of poverty and teach the benefits of middle-class culture (Platt, 1969;Rothman, 1980).

But the moral imperative was to act on this belief, and the Progressives did, creatingwhat came to be known as the “age of reform” (Hofstadter, 1955a, 1963). The linchpin oftheir agenda was the assumption that the government could be trusted to create andadminister agencies that would effect needed social reform. The Progressives cam-paigned to have the state guide the nation toward the common good by controlling thegreed of industry and by providing the assistance that the poor needed to reach the mid-dle class. In the area of criminal justice, their efforts led to the creation of policies andpractices that were intended to allow the state to treat the individual needs and problemsof offenders—the juvenile court, community supervision through probation and parole,and indeterminate sentences (Rothman, 1980).

Thus, during the first decades of the 1900s, the city became a dominant feature ofAmerican life, and a pervasive movement arose warning that the social fabric of urbanslums bred crime. Still, the question remains as to why Chicago became a hotbed ofcriminological research.As suggested, part of the answer can be found in this city’s sta-tus as an emerging economic and population center. But the other piece of the puzzle

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lies in the existence, at the University of Chicago, of the nation’s oldest sociologyprogram, established in 1892 (Bulmer, 1984).

By the 1920s, “surrounded . . . with ever-present reminders of the massive changesthat were occurring within American society,” the department’s faculty and studentshad embarked on efforts to systematically study all aspects of the urban laboratory thatlay before them (Pfohl, 1985, p. 143). Robert E. Park, a newspaper reporter-turned-sociologist, was particularly influential in shaping the direction of this work. Hecommented, “I expect I have actually covered more ground tramping about in cities indifferent parts of the world than any other living man”(cited in Madge,1962,p.89).Thesejourneys led Park to two important insights.

First, Park concluded that the city’s development and organization, like any ecologicalsystem, were not random or idiosyncratic but rather patterned and, therefore, could beunderstood in terms of basic social processes such as invasion, conflict, accommodation,and assimilation. Second, he observed that the nature of these social processes and theirimpact on human behavior,such as crime,could be ascertained only through careful studyof city life. Accordingly, he urged students and colleagues to venture into Chicago and toobserve firsthand its neighborhoods and diverse conglomeration of peoples (Madge,1962). Several scholars, most notably Clifford R. Shaw and Henry D. McKay, embracedPark’s agenda and explored how urban life fundamentally shaped the nature of criminalactivity. In so doing, they laid the foundation for the Chicago school of criminology.

Shaw and McKay’s Theoryof Juvenile Delinquency

Shaw and McKay were not faculty members at the University of Chicago; rather, theywere employed as researchers for a state-supported child guidance clinic. Even so, theyenjoyed close relationships with the sociology department—they had been studentsthere but did not finish their doctorates—and were influenced profoundly by its theo-rizing (Snodgrass, 1976). In particular, they were persuaded that a model of the cityformulated by Ernest Burgess, Park’s colleague and collaborator, provided a frameworkfor understanding the social roots of crime. Indeed, it was Burgess’s model that ledthem to the conclusion that neighborhood organization was instrumental in prevent-ing or permitting delinquent careers (Gibbons, 1979; Pfohl, 1985). We will review thisgeneral model of urban growth and then consider how it guided Shaw and McKay’sapproach to studying delinquency in Chicago.

BURGESS’S CONCENTRIC ZONE THEORY

As cities expand in size, how do they grow? One answer is that the growth ishaphazard—not according to any set pattern. But Burgess, like Park, rejected this viewin favor of the hypothesis that urban development is patterned socially. He contendedthat cities “grow radially in a series of concentric zones or rings” (Palen, 1981, p. 107).


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As Figure 3.1 shows, Burgess (1967/1925) delineated five zones. Competition deter-mined how people were distributed spatially among these zones. Thus, commercialenterprises were situated in the “loop” or central business district, a location thatafforded access to valuable transportation resources (e.g., railroads, waterways).By contrast, most high-priced residential areas were in the outer zones, away fromthe bustle of the downtown, away from the pollution of factories, and away from theresidences of the poor.

But the zone in transition was a particular cause for concern and study. This zonecontained rows of deteriorating tenements, often built in the shadow of aging factories.The push outward of the business district, moreover, led to the constant displacementof residents. As the least desirable living area, the zone had to weather the influx ofwaves of immigrants and other migrants who were too poor to reside elsewhere.


Figure 3.1 Urban Areas

SOURCE: Burgess (1925/1967, p. 55). The growth of the city: An introduction to a research project.In R. E. Park, E. W. Burgess, and R. D. McKenzie (Eds.), The city (pp. 47–62). © 1925/1967 by theUniversity of Chicago. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

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Burgess observed that these social patterns were not without consequences. Theyweakened the family and communal ties that bound people together and resulted insocial disorganization. Burgess and the other Chicago sociologists believed that this dis-organization was the source of a range of social pathologies, including crime.

DISORGANIZATION AND DELINQUENCY

Burgess’s model was parsimonious and persuasive, but did it really offer a fruitfulapproach to the study of crime? Would it stand up to empirical testing?

Shaw and McKay took it on themselves to answer these questions. As a firststep, they sought to determine whether crime rates would conform to the predictionssuggested by Burgess’s model—highest rates in the zone in transition, with this ratedeclining progressively as one moved outward to the more affluent communities.Through painstaking research, they used juvenile court statistics to map the spatial dis-tribution of delinquency throughout Chicago.

Shaw and McKay’s data analysis confirmed the hypothesis that delinquency flour-ished in the zone in transition and was inversely related to the zone’s affluence and cor-responding distance from the central business district. By studying Chicago’s courtrecords over several decades, they also were able to show that crime was highest in slumneighborhoods regardless of which racial or ethnic group resided there. They also wereable to show that as groups moved to other zones, their rates decreased commensu-rately. This observation led to the inescapable conclusion that it was the nature of theneighborhood—not the nature of the individuals within the neighborhood—that regu-lated involvement in crime.

But what social process could account for this persistent spatial distribution of delin-quency? Borrowing heavily from Burgess and the other Chicago sociologists, Shaw andMcKay emphasized the importance of neighborhood organization in preventing or per-mitting juvenile waywardness. In more affluent communities, families fulfilled youths’needs and parents carefully supervised their offspring. But in the zone in transition,families and other conventional institutions (e.g., schools, churches, voluntary associa-tions) were strained, if not broken apart, by rapid and concentrated urban growth,people moving in and out (transiency), the mixture of different ethnic and racial groups(heterogeneity), and poverty; social disorganization prevailed. As a consequence, juve-niles received neither the support nor the supervision required for wholesome develop-ment. Left to their own devices, slum youths were freed from the type of social controlsoperative in more affluent areas; no guiding force existed to stop them from seekingexcitement and friends—perhaps the wrong kind of friends—in the streets of the city.

This view of delinquency causation, it should be noted, likely resonated with thepersonal experiences of Shaw and McKay. As Snodgrass (1976) observes, they were:

two farm boys who . . . were both born and brought up in rural mid-western areas of theUnited States, both received Christian upbringings, and both attended small, denomina-tional country colleges. Shaw was from an Indiana crossroads that barely constituted atown, and McKay was from the vast prairie regions of South Dakota. (p. 2)


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As a result, they were raised in communities where people were alike (homogeneity),shared the same Christian values, lived most of their lives (stability), knew one anotherwell if not intimately, and made sure that youngsters were good kids lest their parentsbe told of this misconduct. In short, their childhood communities wereorganized and marked by social control. It thus “made sense” that the absence of theroutines, social intimacy, and virtues of small town life in the slums of Chicago—thedisorganization that prevailed—would be implicated in the causation of delinquency(Snodgrass, 1976).

Importantly, Shaw and McKay’s focus on how the weakening controls make possiblea delinquent career allowed them to anticipate a criminological school that eventuallywould become known as control or social bond theory (see Chapters 5 and 6). AsKornhauser (1978) observed, however, they believed that another social circumstancealso helped to make slum neighborhoods especially criminogenic. We turn next to thisaspect of their thinking.

TRANSMISSION OF CRIMINAL VALUES

Shaw and McKay did not confine their research to the epidemiology of delinquency.Following Park’s admonition, they too “tramped” about Chicago. As we will see, theywere activists who were involved in efforts to prevent delinquency. They also attemptedto learn more about why youths become deviant by interviewing delinquents and com-piling their autobiographies in a format called life histories. These efforts led to thepublication of titles such as The Jack-Roller: A Delinquent Boy’s Own Story (Shaw, 1930),The Natural History of a Delinquent Career (Shaw, 1931), and Brothers in Crime (Shaw,1938; see also Shaw & McKay, 1972).

These life histories contained an important revelation: Juveniles often were drawninto crime through their association with older siblings or gang members. This obser-vation led Shaw and McKay (1972) to the more general conclusion that disorganizedneighborhoods helped to produce and sustain “criminal traditions,” which competedwith conventional values and could be “transmitted down through successive genera-tions of boys, much the same way that language and other social forms are transmitted”(p. 174). Thus, slum youths grew up in neighborhoods characterized by “the existence ofa coherent system of values supporting delinquent acts” (p. 173) and could learn thesevalues readily in their daily interactions with older juveniles. By contrast, youths in orga-nized neighborhoods, where the dominance of conventional institutions precluded thedevelopment of criminal traditions, remained insulated from deviant values and peers.Accordingly, for them, delinquent careers were an unlikely option.

THE EMPIRICAL STATUS OF SOCIALDISORGANIZATION THEORY

As noted previously, Shaw and McKay were able to collect data showing that crime wasdistributed across neighborhoods in a pattern consistent with social disorganization


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theory. Still, this theory now is decades old, and criminologists today have moresophisticated multivariate techniques to assess whether the factors identified by Shawand McKay are able to explain why some geographical areas have higher rates of offend-ing than others. In contemporary times, does Shaw and McKay’s work have anythingmeaningful to tell us about communities and crime?

Pratt and Cullen (2005; see also Pratt, 2001) recently completed a comprehensivemeta-analytic review of the existing research on social disorganization theory. As Prattand Cullen noted, a difficulty in assessing this theory is that most research has exam-ined the structural causes of social disorganization—poverty, racial and ethnic het-erogeneity, residential mobility, urbanism/structural density, family disruption, and soon—but not social disorganization itself directly. With this qualification, Pratt andCullen’s analysis reveals that the variables specified by Shaw and McKay generally arerelated to crime rates in the predicted direction.

But perhaps the strongest support for Shaw and McKay’s theory comes from thenow classic study of Sampson and Groves (1989), which measured not only struc-tural variables but also social disorganization. Sampson and Groves tested the theoryusing data drawn from the 1982 British Crime Survey that covered 238 localities inEngland and Wales and included more than 10,000 respondents. Their empiricalmodel included measures of low socioeconomic status, heterogeneity, mobility,family disruption, and urbanism. It also included three measures of whether a local-ity was socially organized or disorganized: the strength of local friendship networks,residents’ participation in community organizations, and the extent to which theneighborhood had unsupervised teenage peer groups. Consistent with Shaw andMcKay’s theory, Sampson and Groves found that structural factors increased socialdisorganization and that, in turn, disorganized areas had higher levels of crime thanorganized areas. Notably, their analysis was replicated using a later version of theBritish Crime Survey (Lowenkamp, Cullen, & Pratt, 2003; but see also Veysey &Messner, 1999).

SUMMARY

Shaw and McKay believed that juvenile delinquency could be understood only byconsidering the social context in which youths lived—a context that itself was aproduct of major societal transformations wrought by rapid urbanization, unbri-dled industrialization, and massive population shifts. Youths with the misfortune ofresiding in the socially disorganized zone in transition were especially vulnerable tothe temptations of crime. As conventional institutions disintegrated around them,they were given little supervision and were free to roam the streets, where they likelywould become the next generation of carriers for the neighborhood’s criminaltradition. In short, when growing up in a disorganized area, it is this combination of(1) a breakdown of control and (2) exposure to a criminal culture that lures indi-vidual youngsters into crime and, across all juveniles, that creates high rates ofdelinquency.


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Later in this chapter, we will see how this vision of crime led Shaw and McKay toassert that delinquency prevention programs must be directed at reforming com-munities, not simply reforming individuals. First, however, we consider how theirwork laid the groundwork for Edwin H. Sutherland’s classic theory of differentialassociation.

Sutherland’s Theory of Differential Association

In 1906, Sutherland departed his native Nebraska and traveled to the University ofChicago, where he enrolled in several courses in the divinity school. He was also per-suaded to register for Charles R. Henderson’s course, “Social Treatment of Crime.”Henderson took an interest in his new student—an interest that proved mutual. It wasnot long before Sutherland decided to enter the sociology program. He went on todevote the remainder of his career to exploring the social roots of criminal behavior(Geis & Goff, 1983, 1986; Schuessler, 1973).

After receiving his doctorate in 1913, Sutherland held a series of academic positionsat Midwestern institutions, including the University of Illinois and the University ofMinnesota. In 1930, he was offered and accepted a professorship at the University ofChicago. His stay in Chicago proved short-lived. Apparently disenchanted with hisposition—he cited “certain distractions” as the reason for his departure—Sutherlandleft 5 years later to join the sociology department at Indiana University, a post he helduntil his death in 1950. Even so, he maintained contact with his friends in Chicagoincluding McKay (Geis & Goff, 1983, p. xxviii; Schuessler, 1973, pp. xi–xii).

Although Sutherland spent most of his career away from the city and its university,the Chicago brand of sociology intimately shaped his thinking about crime. Indeed, aswe will see next, much of his theorizing represented an attempt to extend and formal-ize the insights found in the writings of Shaw and McKay as well as other Chicagoschool scholars (see, e.g., Thrasher, 1927/1963).

DIFFERENTIAL SOCIAL ORGANIZATION

Like most Chicago criminologists, Sutherland (1939) rejected individualist explana-tions of crime. “The neo-Lombrosian theory that crime is an expression of psy-chopathology,” he claimed, “is no more justified than was the Lombrosian theory thatcriminals constitute a distinct physical type” (p. 116). Instead, he was convinced thatsocial organization—the context in which individuals are embedded—regulatescriminal involvement.

Shaw and McKay had used the term social disorganization to describe neighbor-hoods in which controls had weakened and criminal traditions rivaled conventionalinstitutions. At the suggestion of Albert Cohen, however, Sutherland substituted forsocial disorganization the concept of differential social organization, a term that he


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believed was less value laden and captured the nature of criminal areas more accu-rately. Thus, Sutherland (1942/1973) contended that social groups are arranged differ-ently; some are organized in support of criminal activity, whereas others are organizedagainst such behavior. In turn, he followed Shaw and McKay’s logic in proposing thatlawlessness would be more prevalent in those areas where criminal organization hadtaken hold and where people’s values and actions were shaped on a daily basis.

DIFFERENTIAL ASSOCIATION

Although Sutherland incorporated into his thinking the thesis that community orgroup organization regulates rates of crime, he built more systematically on Shaw andMcKay’s observation that delinquent values are transmitted from one generation tothe next. For Sutherland, to say that the preference for crime is “culturally transmitted”was, in effect, to say that criminal behavior is learned through social interactions.

To describe this learning process, Sutherland coined the concept of differentialassociation. Much like other Chicago school scholars, he noted that, especially in theinner-city areas, there was culture conflict. Two different cultures—one criminal, oneconventional—vied for the allegiance of the residents; the key was which culture,which set of definitions, an individual most closely associated with. Thus, Sutherlandcontended that any person would inevitably come into contact with “definitions favor-able to violation of law” and with “definitions unfavorable to violation of law.” The ratioof these definitions or views of crime—whether criminal or conventional influencesare stronger in a person’s life—determines whether the person embraces crime as anacceptable way of life.

Sutherland held that the concepts of differential association and differential socialorganization were compatible and allowed for a complete explanation of criminalactivity. As a social-psychological theory, differential association explained why anygiven individual was drawn into crime. As a structural theory, differential social orga-nization explained why rates of crime were higher in certain sectors of Americansociety: Where groups are organized for crime (e.g., in slums), definitions favoringlegal violations flourish; therefore, more individuals are likely to learn—to differentiallyassociate with—criminal values.

Sutherland’s theory of differential association went through various stages of devel-opment, but by 1947 he was able to articulate in final form a set of nine propositions.These propositions compose one of the most influential statements in criminologicalhistory on the causes of crime:

1. Criminal behavior is learned.

2. Criminal behavior is learned in interaction with other persons in a process ofcommunication.

3. The principal part of the learning of criminal behavior occurs within intimatepersonal groups.


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4. When criminal behavior is learned, the learning includes (a) techniques ofcommitting the crime, which sometimes are very complicated, sometimes arevery simple; [and] (b) the specific direction of motives, drives, rationalizations,and attitudes.

5. The specific direction of motives and drives is learned from definitions of legalcodes as favorable and unfavorable.

6. A person becomes delinquent because of an excess of definitions favorableto violation of law over definitions unfavorable to violation of law. This is theprinciple of differential association.

7. Differential associations may vary in frequency, duration, priority, and intensity.

8. The process of learning criminal behavior by association with criminal andanti-criminal patterns involves all the mechanisms that are involved in anyother learning.

9. While criminal behavior is an expression of general needs and values, it is notexplained by those general needs and values since noncriminal behavior is anexpression of the same needs and values. (Sutherland & Cressey, 1970, pp. 75–76)

THEORETICAL APPLICATIONS

Taken together, these propositions convey an image of offenders that departs radicallyfrom the idea that criminals are pathological creatures driven to waywardness bydemons, feeble minds, deep-seated psycho-pathology, and/or faulty constitutions.Instead, Sutherland was suggesting that the distinction between lawbreakers and law-abiding people lies not in their personal fiber but rather in the content of what they havelearned. Those with the good fortune of growing up in conventional neighborhoods willlearn to play baseball and attend church services; those with the misfortune of growingup in slums will learn to rob drunks and roam the streets looking to do mischief.

But could the theory of differential association account for all forms of crime?Sutherland believed that he had formulated a general explanation that could be appliedto very divergent types of illegal activity. Unlike Shaw and McKay, he did not confinehis investigations to the delinquency of slum youths. For example, he compiled hisfamous life history of Chic Conwell, a “professional thief ” (Sutherland, 1937). Thisstudy showed convincingly that differential association with thieves was the criticalfactor in determining whether a person could become a pickpocket, a shoplifter ofhigh-priced items, or a confidence man or woman. Such contact was essential becauseit provided aspiring professional thieves with the tutelage, values, and colleaguesneeded to learn and perform sophisticated criminal roles.

But more provocative was Sutherland’s (1949) claim that differential associationcould account for the offenses “committed by a person of respectability and high socialstatus in the course of his [or her] occupation” (p. 9)—illegal acts for which Sutherland(1940) coined the term “white-collar crimes.”His investigations revealed that lawlessness


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is widespread in the worlds of business, politics, and the professions. As Sutherland(1949/1983) put it,“Persons in the upper socioeconomic class engage in much criminalbehavior”(p. 7). Indeed, his own research into the illegal acts by large American corpora-tions revealed that they violated legal standards frequently and that most could be termed“habitual criminals” (Sutherland, 1949).

This empirical reality, Sutherland (1940) observed, presented special problems formost theories of his day, which assumed that “criminal behavior in general is due eitherto poverty or to the psychopathic and sociopathic conditions associated with poverty.”After all, most “white-collar criminals . . . are not in poverty, were not reared in slumsor badly deteriorated families, and are not feebleminded or psychopathic” (pp. 9–10).By contrast, the principle of differential association can explain the criminality of theaffluent.

Thus, in many occupations, illegal practices are widely accepted as a way of doingbusiness. White-collar workers, Sutherland (1940) noted, might “start their careers ingood neighborhoods and good homes [and then] graduate from colleges with someidealism.” At that point, however, they enter “particular business situations in whichcriminality is practically a folkway and are inducted into that system of behavior justas into any other folkway” (p. 11). Similar to slum youths and offenders who becomeprofessional thieves, their association with definitions favorable to violation of laweventually shapes their orientations and transforms them from white-collar workersinto white-collar criminals. In effect, a criminal tradition has been transmitted.

The Chicago School’s Criminological Legacy

The Chicago school has not escaped the critical eye of subsequent scholars. One limita-tion that critics often note, for example, is that the Chicago criminologists emphasizedthe causal importance of the transmission of a “criminal culture” but offered much lessdetail on the precise origins of this culture. Similarly, although deploring the negativeconsequences of urban growth, such as crime and delinquency, the Chicago theoriststended to see the spatial distribution of groups in the city as a “natural” social process.This perspective diverted their attention from the role that power and class dominationcan play in creating and perpetuating slums and the enormous economic inequalitythat pervades urban areas.

Scholars also have questioned whether the Chicago school can adequately accountfor all forms of crime. The theory seems best able to explain involvement in stablecriminal roles and in group-based delinquency but is less persuasive in providinginsights on the cause of “crimes of passion” or other impulsive offenses by people whohave had little contact with deviant values. Sutherland’s theory of differential associa-tion, moreover, has received special criticism. The formulation is plausible and perhapscorrect, but can it be tested scientifically? Would it ever be possible to accurately mea-sure whether, over the course of a lifetime, a person’s association with criminal defini-tions outweighed his or her association with conventional definitions (Empey, 1982;Pfohl, 1985; Vold & Bernard, 1986)?


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Despite these limitations, few scholars would dispute that the Chicago school hashad a profound influence on criminology. At the broadest level, the Chicago criminolo-gists leveled a powerful challenge—backed by a wealth of statistics—to explanationsthat saw crime as evidence of individual pathology. They captured the truth that wherepeople grow up and with whom they associate cannot be overlooked in the search forthe origins of crime.

The Chicago school also laid the groundwork for the development of two perspec-tives that remain vital to this day. On the one hand, as indicated previously, Shaw andMcKay’s premise that weakening social controls permit delinquency to take place wasan early version of what since has become known as control or social bond theory (seeChapters 5 and 6). On the other hand, the Chicago criminologists’ thesis that crimi-nal behavior occurs as a consequence of cultural transmission or differential associ-ation gave rise to cultural deviance theory, a perspective that assumes that peoplebecome criminal by learning deviant values in the course of social interactions(Empey, 1982).

COLLECTIVE EFFICACY

Robert Sampson has perhaps done the most to revitalize Shaw and McKay’sview that the degree of informal control exercised by residents will affect the extent ofa community’s crime problem (see, e.g., Sampson, 1986a; Sampson & Groves, 1989).Sampson, Raudenbush, and Earls (1997) recently extended this paradigm still furtherby setting forth the concept of collective efficacy (see also Sampson, 2006).

Sampson et al. (1997) observed that neighborhoods vary in their ability to “acti-vate informal social control.” Informal social control involves residents’ behavingproactively—not passively—when they see wayward behavior such as by callingpolice authorities, coming to the rescue of someone in trouble, and telling unrulyteenagers to quiet down and behave. The likelihood that residents will takesuch steps, however, is contingent on whether there is “mutual trust and solidarityamong neighbors” (p. 919). As a result, in neighborhoods where such cohesivenessprevails, residents can depend on one another to enforce rules of civility and goodbehavior. Such places have “collective efficacy, defined as social cohesion amongneighbors combined with their willingness to intervene on behalf of the commongood” (p. 918).

Sampson et al. (1997) also argued that collective efficacy is not evenly distributedacross neighborhoods. Rather, in communities marked by a concentration of immi-grants, residential instability, and the grinding economic deprivation of “concentrateddisadvantage,” collective efficacy is weak (see also Sampson, Morenoff, & Earls, 1999).Sampson et al. (1997) predicted that these communities will not have the social capitalto assert informal social controls and to keep the streets safe.

Importantly, Sampson et al. (1997) provided data to back up these theoreticalclaims. In 1995, their research team interviewed 8,762 people who lived in 343 Chicagoneighborhoods. Controlling for the personal characteristics of the respondents (some-times called “composition effects”), the authors found that collective efficacy was a


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“robust” predictor of levels of violence across neighborhoods. Their analysis alsorevealed that collective efficacy “mediated”much of the relationship between crime andthe neighborhood characteristics of residential stability and concentrated disadvan-tage, a finding that “is consistent with a major theme in neighborhood theories of socialorganization” (p. 923).

The theory of collective efficacy, therefore, appears to be a promising explanation ofwhy urban neighborhoods differ in their levels of criminal behavior (see also Pratt &Cullen, 2005; Sampson, 2006). A remaining issue, however, is whether the concept ofcollective efficacy offers a truly novel concept or whether it is really just the “oppositeside” of social disorganization. A distinctive feature of the concept appears to beits focus not merely on the degree of neighborhood organization but also onthe willingness of residents to activate social control. In other words, the concept of“efficacy” implies not merely a state of being socially organized but rather a state ofbeing ready for social action. The future of this theory is likely to hinge on whetherSampson et al. continue to clarify the concept of collective efficacy and demarcate itscomponents.

CULTURAL DEVIANCE THEORY

Theoretical Variations. Cultural deviance theory has evolved along a number of paths,but we can identify three particularly influential versions. First, some criminologistshave asserted that lower-class culture as a whole—not subcultures within lower-classareas—is responsible for generating much criminality in urban areas. Walter Milleroffered perhaps the clearest and most controversial of these theories. According toMiller (1958/1979), urban gang delinquency is not a product of intergenerationalpoverty per se but rather is a product of a distinct lower-class culture whose “focal con-cerns”encourage deviance rather than conformity. If the focal concerns of middle-classculture are achievement, delayed gratification, and hard work, then the lower-classcounterparts are trouble, smartness, toughness, fate, and autonomy.As a result, middle-class youths are oriented toward good grades, college, and career; lower-class youths areoriented toward physical prowess, freedom from any authority, and excitement on thestreets. Miller contended that, not surprisingly, youths who adhere to such “culturalpractices which comprise essential elements of the total life pattern of lower class cul-ture automatically violate legal norms” (p. 166).

Second, by contrast, a number of criminologists have explored how delinquent sub-cultures arise in particular sectors of society (urban lower-class areas). These subcul-tures are, in effect, relatively coherent sets of antisocial norms, values, and expectationsthat, when transmitted or learned, motivate criminal behavior (Cloward & Ohlin, 1960;Cohen, 1955). We will return to this line of analysis later in the chapter.

Third, other researchers have developed a similar theme in arguing for the existenceof subcultures of violence. Wolfgang and Ferracuti (1982), for example, noted that inareas where such a subculture has taken hold (e.g., urban slums), people acquire “favor-able attitudes toward . . . the use of violence” through a “process of differential learning,association, or identification.” As a result, “the use of violence . . . is not necessarily


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viewed as illicit conduct, and the users do not have to deal with feelings of guilt abouttheir aggression” (p. 314). In this regard, there is considerable theoretical and empiricaldebate over whether high rates of violent crime and homicide in certain sectors ofsociety, such as the inner cities and the South, can be attributed to a geographicallybased subculture of violence (Cao, Adams & Jensen, 1997; Hawley & Messner, 1989).

Code of the Street. A recent important application of the subculture of violence conceptcan be found in Elijah Anderson’s acclaimed book, Code of the Street. This work is basedon Anderson’s (1999) 4 years of ethnographic research in Philadelphia in which he tookup the problem of “why it is that so many inner-city young people are inclined to com-mit aggression and violence toward one another” (p. 9). In essence, he argued that theanswer to this problem lies in the violent “code” that prevails in the inner city and thatgoverns the choices that adolescents make in their daily lives.

According to Anderson (1999), minority youths in the inner city are culturallyisolated—cut off from conventional society—and face daunting economic barriers.Most families struggle to be “decent” and to try to impart the values of hard work andcivility to their children.Youths in other households, which Anderson calls “street fam-ilies,” are less fortunate. They are born into families that are disrupted and dysfunc-tional. Most often, these families are headed by single mothers who at times might havedrug problems. The children are neglected and, when disciplined, typically receiveharsh, physical, and erratic punishment. With little prospect of participating meaning-fully in mainstream society, they grow up alienated and embittered. Weakly bonded toconventional institutions, angry, and ineffectively parented, the youths of these familiesturn to the streets. There they spend their days and, frequently, their nights.

With so little in life available to them, these youths’ major project is to “campaign forrespect.” They seek to display their status on the streets through flamboyant dress,through a very masculine demeanor, and (most important) by developing reputationsfor “nerve”—as youths who are “not to be messed with” and who are “bad.” But self-respect based on reputation is precarious because it is open to challenge and can betaken from a youth in a zero-sum contest. If one teen “disrespects” another, then a fail-ure to respond constitutes a failure to show “nerve” and a loss of status.

In such situations, a “code of the street” shapes how the “disrespected” party shouldreact. Anderson (1999) defined this code as

a set of informal rules governing interpersonal public behavior, particularly violence. Therules prescribe both proper comportment and the proper way to respond if challenged.They regulate the use of violence and so supply a rationale allowing those inclined toaggression to precipitate violent encounters in an approved way. (p. 33)

In other sectors of society, inadvertent or slight affronts might be overlooked ormight evoke verbal responses showing unhappiness. But the code of the street brooksno such affronts. As Anderson (1999) observed,“In street culture, respect is viewed asalmost an external entity, one that is hard-won but easily lost—and so must constantlybe guarded” (p. 33). Thus, the code demands that virtually any form of disrespectshould be met with the immediate threat or application of physical violence, lest


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respect be forfeited. It also mandates that physical violence should be met withviolence. In such contexts, violent encounters are an ongoing possibility, and when theyoccur, they are at risk of escalating into lethal exchanges.

Anderson (1999) cautioned that the code affects not only kids from street familiesbut also those from decent families. The “decent” youths cannot be sheltered by theirfamilies forever; they eventually must venture into public spaces where youths from allfamilies mix. If they disobey the code and fail to show the willingness to use violence(i.e., if they achieve no respect), then they will be easy prey for other youths to victim-ize—to insult, take their possessions, and assault. Such decent kids thus must learnand obey the code to survive, showing enough willingness to use violence to deter theconstant threat of victimization. The cost of embracing these street subcultural values,however, is that they risk being drawn into violent confrontations that are inconsistentwith their decent way of life. Therefore, youths from all families—street and decentkids alike—are encapsulated by the code of the street and suffer its consequences.

Anderson (1999) argued that the code of the street, although firmly entrenched, is notintractable. Its strength and sway over inner-city youths are rooted in the structural con-ditions that expose these youngsters to hurtful deprivations and strip them of any mean-ingful way of gaining respect through conventional avenues. This situation is exacerbatedby a lack of trust in the police and by the accompanying sense that problems, includingcriminal victimization, must be dealt with alone. In the end, the code of the street is a“cultural adaptation”to the conditions prevailing in destitute urban communities.If thereis a ray of hope in this portrait, it is that different conditions might evoke different cul-tural adaptations. For Anderson, the most salient step is giving youths hope and a mean-ingful stake in conformity. He concluded, “Only by reestablishing a viable mainstreameconomy in the inner city, particularly one that provides access to jobs for young inner-city men and women, can we encourage a positive sense of the future” (p. 325).

AKERS’S SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY

Extending Sutherland: Differential Social Reinforcement. Ronald Akers advanced themost influential contemporary extension of Sutherland’s differential association per-spective with his social learning theory (see, e.g.,Akers, 1977, 1998, 2000; Akers, Krohn,Lanza-Kaduce, & Radosevich, 1979; Burgess & Akers, 1966). As noted previously, theChicago theorists emphasized that criminal values are learned through associations.Even so, these theorists had little to say about precisely how this acquisition of antiso-cial definitions occurs. In his social learning theory, Akers addressed this issue andattempted to specify the mechanisms and processes through which criminal learningtakes place.

Akers provided little systematic analysis of the structural origins of criminal valuesand learning except to observe that social location differentially exposes individuals tolearning environments conducive to illegal conduct (Sampson, 1999). Nonetheless,Akers made a major contribution in illuminating how people learn to becomeoffenders. Similar to Sutherland, he noted the importance of differential association in


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shaping the “definitions” that can prompt wayward behavior. Akers moved beyondSutherland in specifying the dimensions of these definitions. Some definitionsare “general,” such as religious values on right and wrong, and some definitions are“specific” and, therefore, pertain to whether crime is permissible in certain situations.Some definitions are “negative” and some are “positive” toward criminal behaviors; stillothers are “neutralizing” in the sense that they encourage offending by “justifying orexcusing it” (Akers, 2000, p. 77).

Sutherland’s theory implies that definitions, once internalized, continue to regulatepeople’s decisions. Akers, however, elaborated this model. First, he noted that, in addi-tion to definitions, people can become involved in crime through imitation—that is,by modeling criminal conduct. Second, and most significant, Akers contended thatdefinitions and imitation are most instrumental in determining initial forays intocrime. At this juncture, another theoretical issue arises: Why do people continueto commit illegal acts and become stabilized in a criminal way of life? Borrowing fromoperant psychology, he proposed that social reinforcements—rewards and punish-ments—determine whether any behavior is repeated. The continued involvement incrime, therefore, depends on exposure to social reinforcements that reward this activ-ity. The stronger and more persistent these reinforcements (i.e., the more positive theconsequences), the greater the likelihood that criminal behavior will persist. Akerscalled this “differential social reinforcement.”

The Empirical Status of Social Learning Theory. Akers’s social learning theory has beensubjected to extensive empirical testing, mostly in studies where measures of sociallearning are used to account for self-reported delinquency. Overall, the research is sup-portive of the perspective, including studies in which social learning theory was testedagainst competing explanations of crime such as social bond theory (Akers, 1998, 2000;Akers & Jensen, 2003, 2006; Akers & Sellers, 2004).A recent meta-analysis of more than140 studies revealed consistent support for the theory (Pratt, Sellers, Cullen, Winfree, &Madensen, 2006). A meta-analysis of predictors of criminal recidivism also showedthat, in line with social learning theory, antisocial values and peer associations arestrong predictors of reoffending (Andrews & Bonta, 1998). Furthermore, the theory hasbeen shown to account for variation in crime among felony offenders of both genders(Alarid, Burton, & Cullen, 2000). Finally, evaluations of correctional rehabilitation pro-grams conclude—again consistent with social learning theory—that programs thattarget and change antisocial values and peers (typically “cognitive-behavioral” inter-ventions) are effective in lowering recidivism (Cullen & Gendreau, 2000; Cullen,Wright,Gendreau, & Andrews, 2003; see also Andrews, 1980).

In the existing research, the strongest predictor of criminal involvement typically isdifferential association as measured by the “number of delinquent friends” reported bya survey respondent. Critics of social learning theory assert that the firm associationbetween delinquent friends and crime is spurious. They argue that, rather than delin-quent friends causing wayward behavior, this really is a case of “birds of a feather flock-ing together”—of delinquent kids hanging around with one another because theyshare the common trait of being delinquent. Research indicates that such self-selection


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into peer groups does occur. But studies also suggest that even with self-selection, thecontinued association with other antisocial peers can amplify delinquent involvement(see, e.g., Warr, 2002; Wright & Cullen, 2000; see also Akers 1998, 2000). As Akers(1999) reminded us, whereas birds of a feather may flock together, it also is the casethat “if you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas” (p. 480).

The Consequences of Theory: Policy Implications

CHANGE THE INDIVIDUAL

As we will see shortly, the logic of Shaw and McKay’s social disorganization theoryled to the conclusion that the most effective way to reduce crime was to reorganize com-munities. However, the Chicago school’s emphasis on cultural learning suggeststhat crime can be countered by treatment programs that attempt to reverse offenders’criminal learning (Andrews & Bonta, 2003). This emphasis on altering an offender’ssocial learning is particularly consistent with Akers’s theory (Akers & Sellers, 2004,pp. 101–108). Note that although there is a focus on the individual offender, the focusis not on altering some inherent or underlying pathology but on changing the valuesand ways of thinking that the offender has acquired in prior social interactions withparents, siblings, peers, and other actors in society.

In this regard, intervention based on differential association and social learningtheory often attempts to remove offenders from settings and people that encouragecrime and to locate them in settings where they will receive prosocial reinforcement.This might involve, for example, placing youths in a program that uses positive peercounseling or in a residential facility that uses a “token economy” in which conformistbehavior earns juveniles points that allow them to purchase privileges (e.g., home vis-its, ice cream, late curfew). Furthermore, there is now growing evidence that cognitive-behavioral programs are among the most effective treatment interventions in reducinga range of waywardness, including crime (Lipsey, Chapman, & Landenberger, 2001;MacKenzie, 2006; Spiegler & Guevremont, 1998). These programs assume that “cogni-tions” (what Sutherland might call “definitions”) lead to behavior. The key is to changethose cognitions, such as antisocial values, that are criminogenic. Finally, there is evi-dence from the family literature that harsh and erratic child-rearing techniques canlead parents to reinforce aggression and other problematic responses and to ignoreprosocial conduct. Programs that teach parents better management skills that involvethe reinforcement of “good” rather than “bad” behavior have proven to reduce antiso-cial behavior (Reid, Patterson, & Snyder, 2002).

CHANGE THE COMMUNITY

As we have noted, the early Chicago criminologists rejected prevailing individualistbiological and psychiatric explanations in favor of elucidating crime’s social roots.


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Consistent with this theoretical perspective, they offered the “first systematic challengeto the dominance of psychology and psychiatry in public and private programs for theprevention and treatment of juvenile delinquency” (Schlossman, Zellman, & Shavelson,1984, p. 2). The solution to youthful waywardness, they contended, was not to eradicatethe pathologies that lie within individuals but rather to eradicate the pathologies that liewithin the very fabric of disorganized communities.

Beginning during the early 1930s, Shaw thus embarked on efforts to put his theoryinto practice, establishing one of the most famous interventions in the history ofAmerican criminology: the Chicago Area Project (CAP). Shaw’s strategy was for CAP toserve as a catalyst for the creation of neighborhood committees in Chicago’s disorga-nized slum areas. Committee leaders and the project’s staff would be recruited not fromthe ranks of professional social workers but rather from the local community. The inten-tion was to allow local residents the autonomy to organize against crime. Shaw believedthat unless the program developed from the “bottom up,” it would neither win the com-munity’s support nor have realistic prospects for successful implementation (Kobrin,1959; Schlossman et al., 1984).

CAP took several approaches to delinquency prevention. First, a strong emphasis wasplaced on the creation of recreational programs that would attract youths into a proso-cial environment. Second, efforts were made to have residents take pride in theircommunity by improving the neighborhood’s physical appearance. Third, CAP staffwould attempt to mediate on behalf of juveniles in trouble. This might involve havingdiscussions with school officials on how they might reduce a youth’s truancy or appeal-ing to court officials to divert a youth into a CAP program.Fourth, CAP used staff indige-nous to the area so as to provide “curbside counseling.” In informal conversations, asopposed to formal treatment sessions, these streetwise workers would attempt to per-suade youths that education and a conventional lifestyle were in their best interest. AsSchlossman et al. (1984) observed, “They served as both model and translator of con-ventional social values with which youths . . . had had little previous contact” (p. 15).

Was Shaw’s project effective? Unfortunately, the lack of a careful evaluation using arandomized control group precludes a definitive answer. Even so, in 1984, Schlossmanet al. provided a “fifty-year assessment of the Chicago Area Project.” They concludedthat the different kinds of evidence they amassed, “while hardly foolproof, justify astrong hypothesis that CAP has long been effective in reducing rates of reported juve-nile delinquency” (p. 46; see also Kobrin, 1959, p. 28). CAP reminds us that “despitenever-ending hard times and political powerlessness, some lower-class, minorityneighborhoods still retain a remarkable capacity for pride, civility, and the exercise ofa modicum of self-governance” (Schlossman et al., 1984, p. 47).


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