Chp 6 Social Structure Theories

People in the US live in a stratified society, social strata are created by the unequal distribution of wealth, power, and prestige. There are now 40 million Americans living in poverty. The crushing lifestyle of lower class areas produces a culture of poverty that is passed from one generation to the next and is stained by apathy, cynicism, helplessness, and mistrust of social institutions. Children in these areas are hit especially hard by poverty. The burdens of underclass life are often felt most acutely by minority group members. Almost 25% of African Americans and 22% of Latino Americans still live in poverty, compared to less than 10% of whites.

According to social structure theory, the root cause of crime can be traced directly to the socioeconomic disadvantages that have become embedded in American society. Lower class people are driven to desperate measures, such as crime and substance abuse, to cope with their economic plight. Aggravating this dynamic is the constant media bombardment linking material possessions to self worth.

Crime occurs in disorganized areas where institutions of social control, such as the family, commercial establishments, and schools, have broken down and can no longer perform their expected or stated functions. Indications of social disorganization include high unemployment and school dropout rates deteriorated housing, low income levels, and large numbers of single parent households. Residents in these areas experience conflict and despair, and as a result, antisocial behavior flourishes.

Shaw and McKay explained crime and delinquency within the context of the changing urban environment and ecological development of the city. Poverty ridden transitional neighborhoods suffered high rates of population turnover and were incapable of inducing residents to remain and defend the neighborhoods against criminal groups. The values that slum youths adopt often conflict with existing middle class norms, which demand strict obedience to the legal code. Consequently, a value conflict further separates the delinquent youth and his or her peer group from conventional society, the result is a more solid embrace of deviant goals and behavior.

Crime rates and the need for police services are associated with community deterioration: disorder, poverty, alienation, disassociation, and fear of crime. In larger cities, neighborhoods with a high percentage of deserted houses and apartments experience high crime rates. In disorganized neighborhoods that suffer social and physical incivilities that cause fear, as fear increases, quality of life deteriorates. People who live in neighborhoods that experience high levels of crime and civil disorder become suspicious and mistrusting and may develop a \"siege mentality\". As areas decline, residents flee to safer, more stable locations.

Cohesive communities develop collective efficacy: mutual trust, a willingness to intervene in the supervision of children, and the maintenance of public order. Some elements of collective efficacy operate on the primary, or private, level and involve peers, families, and relatives. Communities that have collective efficacy attempt to use their local institutions to control crime. Stable neighborhoods are also able to arrange for external sources of social control, sch as more police on patrol, that further reduce crime rates.

Strain theorists argue that although social and economic goals are common to people in all economic strata, the ability to obtain these goals is class dependent. Most people in the US desire wealth, material possessions, power, prestige, and other life comforts. Members of the lower class are unable to achieve these symbols of success through conventional means. Consequently, they feel anger, frustration and resentment. referred to collectively as strain.

Merton argues that in the US legitimate means to acquire wealth are stratified across class and status lines. Some people have inadequate means of attaining success; others who have the means reject societal goals. To resolve the goals means conflict and relieve their sense of strain, some people innovate by stealing or extorting money; others retreat into drugs and alcohol; some rebel by joining revolutionary groups; and still others get involved in ritualistic behavior by joining a religions cult.

Agnew suggests that criminality is the direct result of negative affective states - the anger, frustration and adverse emotions that emerge in the wake of destructive social relationships. He finds that negative affective states are produced by a variety of sources of strain, including the failure to achieve success, application of negative stimuli, and removal of positive stimuli.

Cultural deviance theory combines elements of both strain and social disorganization theories. A unique lower class culture has developed in disorganized neighborhoods. These independent subcultures maintain unique values and beliefs that conflict with conventional social norms. Criminal behavior is an expression of conformity to lower class subcultural values and traditions, not a rebellion from conventional society. Subcultural values are handed down from one generation to the next in a process called cultural transmission.