Theories of Crime and Place Flashcards
What is the Ch
What is entailed in Park and Burgess’ Concentric Zone Model?
Zone I- the central business district (business buildings, chamber of commerce, gov buildings)
Zone II- the zone of tradition (factories, deteriorated housing, abandoned buildings)
Zone III- the working class zone (modestly priced apartments)
Zone IV- the residential zone (nicer, more expensive homes)
Zone V- the commuter zone (suburbs)
Which zone from the concentric zone model is most likely to have crime?
Zone II- The Zone of transition
What is the social disorganization theory (Shaw and McKay)
What are the strengths of social disorganization theory?
-Very well-supported by research; findings have held up over time and in many different cities
-The idea that certain neighborhoods have more crime than others is influential in our policing practices
-The theory resulted in one of the largest programs attempting to reduce delinquency rates
What are the weaknesses of social disorganization theory
-Some argue that Shaw and McKay didn’t actually measure their primary construct, social disorganization
-The theory does a good job of predicting which neighborhoods will commit crime but doesn’t explain why most youths in these areas do not actually commit crime
-Ecological fallacy (if you try to make inferences about individuals based on large evidence)
What is the Chicago Area Project?
What is the updated Social Disorganization Theory (Sampson et al. 1997)
-In the neighborhoods where there is social disorganization there also tends to be unsupervised youth, sparse local friendships, and a lack of organizational participation
-These neighborhoods also tend to have low levels of collective efficacy
-Social cohesion among neighbors combined with their willingness to intervene on behalf of the common good
-When collective efficacy is high, crime rates are lower and vice versa
What is the Broken Windows Theory?
Links disorder to crime
