ABSTRACT
Social disorganization has long been held up as an explanation for crime, both with respect to the causes of crime as well with respect to the formal and informal social control of crime. As a cause of crime, social disorganization may operate in any number of ways: in the Durkheimian sense by facilitating anomie or strain; following Sampson and Groves’ (1989) arguments, this may occur in relation to the promotion of ineffective social bonds and poorly integrated local social institutions at the neighborhood level; others frame this view with respect to urban patterns of ecological development linked to social mobility and immobility as well as the dispersion of economic organization and influences, in relation to the concentration of disadvantage, as a consequence of the differential distribution of norms and values, in relation to rapid social change, family disruption, and urban decay, and in terms of relative deprivation. In this sense, social disorganization can produce a variety of effects that in themselves are also considered independent causes of crime that have been examined both within the social disorganization perspective and outside of that tradition. The connection between social disorganization and other explanations of crime also indicates that social disorganization appears to be an effective mechanism for integrating research findings on crime into a broader and more general theory of crime.
