01:920:222 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Social Disorganization Theory, Redlining

• School: Rutgers University
• Department: Sociology
• Course: 01:920:222
• Professor: Covington

Document Summary

Problems with social disorganization theory: test of the theory were based on official statistics (ex. Arrests, police contacts: imprecision in defining and measuring (cid:498)social disorganization(cid:499) in tests of the theory (ex. Making social disorganization both a dependent and independent variable) Independent variables: social disorganization: dependent variable, ethnic heterogeneity, family disorganization -------------> crime, residential mobility j. d. These variables should not be on both sides. This is not a good test of social disorganization theory. Ethnic hetero, family disorg, mobility ---> fewer informal controls ---> crime. More recent tests of the theory test it in the following way: Residential mobility (high turnover) ---> social disorganization = breakdown in informal. Controls (less, neighboring, fewer voluntary organizations) ---> more crime. Problem w/ ignoring extracommunity factors: social disorg. Theorists: crime is caused by less neighboring, fewer voluntary organizations, etc: extracommunity factors can cause crime even if residents form voluntary organizations (ex. Ignore destructive practices of economic/political elites & wrongly focus on poor"s inability to organize.