Shaw and McKay

• • explored ecological patterning of juvenile offending
  • need to focus on social landscape that individuals grow up in and experience daily, can cause certain behaviours in some cases
  • parts of city with high rates of delinquency tended to be in poorer parts of city
  • parts of city with high delinquency rates also had high rates of foreign and AA households, families on welfare, higher levels of mental health issues and criminality
  • these areas had the same value as other areas but were weakened and replaced with value system that supports crime
• argued crime was due to social disorganisation, which was due to:

  • residential mobility
  • racial heretogeneity
  • poverty
  • parents still trying to instill values but competing with gangs and illegal enterprises while being surrounded by inequality (other areas do not have to deal with this)
  • passed down from older delinquents to young people
  • young people in impoverished areas less supervised by family, school etc