Beyond Borders

The theory of social disorganization, developed by Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay, provides an enduring explanation for why certain neighborhoods have higher rates of social problems, such as delinquency, than others. The theory identifies three common problems that are typically present in neighborhoods with high crime rates: physical dilapidation, poverty, and heterogeneity. These factors, along with a highly transient population and unemployment, contribute to a breakdown in social organization and lead to crime and delinquency. Shaw and McKay's research demonstrated that the prevalence and frequency of various social ills tend to overlap with higher delinquency rates. The breakdown of informal social controls in these areas leads children to learn offending norms from their interactions with peers on the street, ultimately leading to a state of social disorganization. One of the most significant contributions of Shaw and McKay's theory is that it shows that high delinquency ...

The Ecological School theory, also known as the Chicago School, originated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to address the issue of delinquency and crime that plagued Chicago, one of the fastest-growing cities in the US. At that time, there were virtually no formal social agencies to handle the problems of urbanization, and the citizens were culturally diverse and could not understand each other. This led to chaos and normlessness, and children were running wild on the streets in gangs. The Department of Sociology at the University of Chicago became important and dominant in the early 1900s because the city needed theoretical guidance to develop solutions to its social problems. The Chicago School proposed several new perspectives of human behavior and city growth in the 1920s and 1930s. Robert E. Park, one of the prominent sociologists, introduced the theory of ecology, which claimed that much of human behavior, especially the way cities grow, follows the basic principles of ...