ABSTRACT
The sociological studies of juvenile delinquency conducted by Clifford R. Shaw and Henry D. McKay in the 1930s and early 1940s were considered extremely important contributions to criminological thought in their day and continue to be highly regarded in the social sciences today. This chapter serves as a small contribution to the history of criminological thought and provides some information about two important figures in, and the kind of work which developed out of, the Chicago School of sociology. The work of Shaw and McKay within criminology was a part of a larger movement in the social sciences known as "the social ecology school". The efforts of Shaw and McKay in criminology were only one of a number of sociological studies which used ecological theory and case study methods to investigate "urban behaviour". In the last analysis, Shaw and McKay's interpretation of the geographical material took a curious shift and located the ultimate cause of deteriorated areas in ecological laws.
