ABSTRACT
While social structure theories address variations in rates of crime across structural conditions, social process theories most commonly attempt to explain how individuals become law violators. This focus on social interactions or processes experienced by individuals, as opposed to structural matters, represents a shift from macro theory to micro theory. Social process theories redress errors that arise when social structure theories are applied at the individual level. Traditional strain theories, for instance, are rooted in the premise that the social structure generates disproportionate pressure upon members of the lower class to violate
norms. The implication is that individuals subjected to economic disadvantage will resort to criminal or delinquent solutions, while the well-to-do, because of the absence of structurally induced strain, will not. This clearly can be misleading, because most people subjected to the stress of poverty do not become criminals, while some people who do not experience poverty become offenders.
