Social Disorganization Theory in Criminology

Social Disorganization
Theory in Criminology

Contents
INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..............................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION...........................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES............................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
The criminology can be referred to as the study which involves crime from the
perspective of the society that includes examination of the person who commits the crime, the
reason for commission of crime, its impact and grow it can be prevented in future. Crime may be
connoted to as the act or the omission that comprises the offence and is also made illegal by the
law. There are two elements of this which include firstly the mens rea which means guilty mind
and second is the actus reus that means guilty act. Thy both together constitute an act which is
illegible and punishable under the law as an offence (Bottoms, 2017). This essay is based on the
social disorganization theory which relates to the criminology.
MAIN BODY
In the year 1942, from Chicago school of the criminology, there were two criminological
researchers who made the theory of social disorganization which provides that the social and
physical environment of the person is mainly responsible for its behavioral choices which an
individual makes. At the central of this theory, is the place of location which matters when the
illegal activity is predicted. According to Shaw and McKay, the neighborhood with highest rate
of crime has three at- least common issues which includes physical dilapidation, poverty and
great level of culture and ethnic mixing. Both also claimed that the delinquency is not caused at
the person’s level but it is the normal reply to the abnormal situations from normal people. This
theory is mainly utilized at wide area as the predictor of the young crime and violence.
It was developed by the examination of the residential locations of the juveniles that
referred to Chicago and McKay and Shaw discovered that the rate of crime is not eventually
dispersed across the city and time; rather the crime is tended to be concentrated in the particular
city and its area. It remains stable relatively within various areas despite the continuous changes
in population who lives in the each of the area (Ballano, 2019). The theory of social
disorganization has the core principle which is the location which means that the residential
location of the person is the substantial factor which shapes the likelihood that the person will get
engaged in the illegal activity. And this factor is more significant than other characteristic of the
person such as gender, age, race, etc.