Social Disorganization Theory - Edwin Sutherland

Edwin Sutherland

Sutherland adopted the concept of social disorganization to explain the increases in crime that accompanied the transformation of preliterate and peasant societies where "influences surrounding a person were steady, uniform, harmonious and consistent" to modern Western civilization which he believed was characterized by inconsistency, conflict and un-organization (1934: 64). He also believed that the mobility, economic competition and an individualistic ideology that accompanied capitalist and industrial development had been responsible for the disintegration of the large family and homogeneous neighborhoods as agents of social control. The failure of extended kin groups expanded the realm of relationships no longer controlled by the community and undermined governmental controls leading to persistent "systematic" crime and delinquency. He also believed that such disorganization causes and reinforces the cultural traditions and cultural conflicts that support antisocial activity. The systematic quality of the behavior was a reference to repetitive, patterned or organized offending as opposed to random events. He depicted the law-abiding culture as dominant and more extensive than alternative criminogenic cultural views and capable of overcoming systematic crime if organized for that purpose (1939: 8). But because society is organized around individual and small group interests, society permits crime to persist. Sutherland concluded that if the society is organized with reference to the values expressed in the law, the crime is eliminated; if it is not organized, crime persists and develops (1939:8). In later works, he switched from the concept of social disorganization to differential social organization to convey the complexity of overlapping and conflicting levels of organization in a society.