Chicago School Of Criminology

The Chicago School of theory, in the 1920’s engaged in an effort to identify environmental factors associated with crime. (Bohm & Vogel, 2011) “The Chicago School of Criminology is identified with neighborhood studies of crime and delinquency that focus particularly on the spatial patterns of such behavior, especially as reflected in maps of their spatial distributions” (Bursik, 2012, para. 2). Therefore, the Chicago School of criminological theory aimed to move past the simple hard line classical explanations of crime; therefore, introducing the idea of socialization as an explanation for criminal activity. (Act of Libraries, 2017) However, the theorists of the Chicago School attempted to find out the relationship between neighborhood’s crime

Instead of focusing on the individual, social structure theories consider that people are influenced by social interactions and other environmental forces around them” (Act of Libraries, 2017, p. 2). "The theorists explain that the characteristics of neighborhoods with high crime rates are presented by the social control theory, which these characteristics contribute to crime" (Bursik, 2012, para. 1) The model was taken from “Ecology” a branch of biology in which plants and animals are studied in its natural environment. However, the Chicago theorists wanted to propose that organic and biological analogy, that there are similarities between the organization of plants and animals life in nature and the structure of human beings in societies. (Bohm & Vogel,

However, the theory of Chicago School presumed relationship among social disorganization, detachment from conventional groups, and delinquency. Most cities do not proliferate. Many factors contribute to declining cities which are the old practice of “redlining” where banks refuse to give loans for improvements in specific areas because of race or ethnicity of the inhabitants. (Bohm & Vogel, 2011) Inner city neighborhoods tend to have higher rates of unemployment, dropout, poverty, single-parent households, crime, and among other factors. Any of those things could be contributing to the higher rates of delinquency. Therefore, neighborhoods depreciated and land developers were in conjunction with political leaders to buy land and make a fortune in the process which caused social disorganization, detachment from conventional groups, and delinquency or perhaps not intentionally, by their decision