ABSTRACT
The concepts of “community” in general, and “social disorganization” in particular, have made remarkable comebacks in criminological discourse. In their classic work, Juvenile Delinquency and Urban Areas, Clifford R. Shaw and Henry D. McKay argued that structural factors—low economic status mediated in turn by ethnic heterogeneity and residential instability—led to the disruption of community social organization. The chapter proposes a solution for solving the “disorganization” conundrum. It presents the concept of social organization based on an appraisal of what community supplies in modern society. The chapter suggests that some of the implications of this theoretical strategy, adding some lessons from ongoing collaborative research in Chicago. Once relegated to the intellectual dustbin by the likes of Edwin Sutherland and William F. Whyte, the social disorganization theory—gussied up a bit for the nineties—is indeed alive and well. In Street Corner Society, Whyte argued that what looks like social disorganization from the outside is actually an internal organization.
