Negotiated Coexistence

Social Disorganization and the Systemic Model

In a classic statement of the “social disorganization” perspective, Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay argued that structural disadvantage at the neighborhood level—most notably poverty, residential instability, and racial/ethnic heterogeneity—attenuated the community-level capacity to achieve shared goals, including the local control of crime. In Juvenile Delinquency in Urban Areas, Shaw and McKay offered initial empirical support for a link between aspects of neighborhood structural disadvantage and the prevalence of crime. Their insights remain relevant today, as researchers continue to acknowledge the role of neighborhood structural disadvantage in explaining crime rate variations across urban space. Nevertheless, the approach has been criticized for failing to effectively articulate and measure the intervening mechanisms linking disadvantaged macro-level structure with crime.

Kasarda and Janowitz's systemic model of community social dynamics played a key role in the theoretical development of the social disorganization model by highlighting the link between residential stability, local social bonds, and the emergence of locality based solidarities. In their view, the local community could be seen as “a complex system of friendship and kinship networks and formal and informal associational ties rooted in family life and ongoing socialization processes” (1974, p. 329). Accordingly, the prevalence and strength of local networks was posited to be a key intervening social process through which neighborhoods acquired cohesion and identified shared values. Similarly, Ruth Rosner Kornhauser's reformulation of the social disorganization approach emphasized the role of attenuated social ties in linking macro-level structural disadvantage with diminished informal social control capacity. Thus, both approaches placed considerable stock in the capacity of social network ties to foster effective action on behalf of collective goals such as the local control of crime.

Empirical assessment of the regulatory role of social networks, however, has not yielded strong support for the systemic model's assumptions. Research investigating the influence of dense or prevalent neighborhood social networks on local crime rates has not offered consistent evidence that [Page 658]networks contribute to crime control. Empirical support for the contention that networks are a key mediating link in the association between neighborhood structural disadvantage and crime has also been limited. Consequently, the systemic and related approaches have been criticized for lacking an effective explanation of communities with extensive social ties and local attachments that nevertheless maintain relatively high crime rates.

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