ABSTRACT
A decade ago, people published the first edition of Crime and the American Dream. At the time, "institutional-anomie theory" did not exist. The central idea underlying institutional-anomie theory is that a society's level and types of crime are tied to how it is organized. All societies, no matter how small and simple or large and complex, can be characterized by a more or less distinctive culture and social structure. Adaptation to the environment to meet the physical and material needs of a population is the chief function of the economy. Political institutions, or the "polity," enable a population to attain collective goals. Responsibility for social integration and the maintenance of cultural patterns falls to religion, education, and the family system. Although criminality increases when the economy dominates other institutions, alternative institutional configurations also can generate criminality, but of a different sort than that found in market societies.
