ABSTRACT
This section focuses on the version of social disorganization theory by Sampson and Groves (1989). It is assumed that low economic status, ethnic heterogeneity, residential mobility, family disruption and urbanization have simultaneous indirect effects on crime, via three intervening variables: sparse local friendship networks, unsupervised teenage peer groups and low organizational participation. These latter variables have a direct effect on crime. The major assumption is that dense networks (that these three variables have in common) prevent crime because they are associated with a high capacity of control. Why does this lead to a low crime rate? Reconstructing the implicit micro-macro model suggests that this capacity leads to perceived negative sanctions of unsupervised youths (the potential offenders) on the micro level.
From a rational choice perspective, negative sanctions are only one of the conditions for crime. Pre-existing incentives may reinforce or reduce the effects of negative sanctions. A major assumption of the authors seems to be that the members of a network are law-abiding citizens. But this does not need to be the case (as locations dominated by the mafia illustrate). In such a case, the possibility of control will lead to more (and not less) crime. The upshot of our analysis is that disorganization theory holds only if various assumptions on the micro-level, that are discussed in this section, hold true. It is further shown that under certain conditions crime may increase disorganization. These analyses show the fruitfulness of a micro-macro analysis.
